I know I haven’t been on here….I started constructing a post in my head a million times to just not have the courage or the energy to actually go through with it. But it has been a rough couple of days writing helps me get some of this overwhelming volume of emotion out. This may be a bit scattered as I have a lot I want to cover…and I may just have to stop and walk away for a bit to get my head in the right space. Do you know that when a woman is pregnant, her blood volume increases by 30-50%? If that were to happen to a man, it would kill him. It is simply too much. My heart is pregnant with emotions…I feel like I can’t always appropriately cope with so much grief and sadness. I am typically a light hearted kind of person and the weight I feel in my heart is crushing. I have a friend from my Air Force days who lost her 10 year old daughter to cancer several years ago. I was so hurt for her. I couldn’t imagine the pain she was feeling in losing her child. I now know and it beyond any words I can offer. I tell people that I am utterly devastated. That doesn’t seem to even touch the tip of the iceberg. Do I know it will ease with time? I am sure it will. I am an educated woman and used to be a perinatal grief counselor. Time goes pretty slow when you are wading through molasses though. One hour at a time….because one day is still just too big for me. This will be long…but know it is for me to get my thoughts and memories out before brain fog starts snatching them away from me. No one has to keep reading, but there is a lot about behind-the-scenes stuff that you may not know…so keep reading if you want.

My brother and sister-in-law, Joe and Heather Messina, arranged to have Tim fly out from California to Omaha the day Joe died. I cannot thank them enough. What a relief to have my children under by wing and held close! My sister-in-law, Tammie Revallo, fly out here from Florida a few days later. It was great to have her here. She got pretty good at finding the nearest tissue box when one of us had a wave of grief crash over us. Tam did so much more than that, including spending time with Lily while the rest of us went down to Kansas City to be with Michelle as she organized Joe’s services at the mortuary. She went shopping with Tim and me to get him a suit for the Celebration of Life and some more business casual clothes for the visitation. Evidently when you are 25 years old, you high school suits tend to run a bit on the small side. He knocked it out of the park. I have never seen him looking so professional and handsome. He was the first one up to speak at the Celebration of Life, reading his older brother’s life history in his obituary written so eloquently by his wife, Michelle. Tammie then went back with me later that day with Lily for us each to get dresses for the Celebration of Life. We quickly found what we wanted and I took up our dresses to the register to be rung up. The lovely woman behind the counter said, “Oh aren’t these beautiful! You must be going to a festive occasion! What fun!” My face crumpled as I told her they were our funeral clothes for Lily’s brother – my son. I totally lost it right in the middle of Von Maur. She felt horrible, God bless her….she stepped out from behind the counter and enveloped me in a hug and then quickly found me a box of tissues. Welcome to my new reality. I thought after I accepted my cancer diagnosis and moved on to accepting my impending death that the tears would stop flowing so easily. Wrong. I have cried a river…and I am not sure I knew that a human body could produce so many tears. We came home and Rich was there. He had had an appointment of some kind that day and was unable to help me pick up Lily from school, which doesn’t usually happen. However, he looked at all of us (Tammie, Tim, Lily and me) and said, “You are either going to gasp or cry.” I ended up doing both. It is not a secret that Joe had a lot of tattoos. He loves the art on his body and was always planning the next one. He had just finished his second sleeve with a large Valkyrie. More on that in a sec. Rich hates tattoos. Joe had his first tattoo for 18 months before Rich found out about it. He was mad! He is so anti-tattoo – it was a big point of contention between the two of them. Anyhow, Rich had been going through a lot of Joe’s files on his laptop, trying to help Michelle get into accounts in his name, etc. He found a drawing that Joe had done with he was about 14 or 15 years old of a cross that he had drawn himself. He wanted it to be his first tattoo. By the time he was in college and started getting tattoos, he never got that cross. He had elaborate tattoos of St. Michael the Archangel, La Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, Japanese masks, olive branches, two roses for each of his siblings, quotes in Fijian on his ribs, a stone angel, a remembrance tattoo for his great grandparents, and a Valkyrie – but he had never gotten this cross. Rich found a tattoo artist who tattooed Joe’s cross exactly as drawn on his arm. Rich also put Joe’s name, the date of his birth and death, and then “remembered forever” in Italian…which was also part of a tattoo Joe had. The magnitude of this act Rich did floored me. There was also a call for all of his soldiers going to drill the weekend after his death to wear the “Messinastache”. Joe loved that corny moustache he wore. Every 4 weeks he had to shave off the downward growing hair on the sides of his mouth in order to be within regs of the Army for drill weekend. As soon as drill was over, he would start growing it down again. He called them his “little firefighters”. I have to be quite honest with you. I couldn’t stand that cheesy moustache and gave him a lot of gruff about it. However, Rich grew his out for the visitation on Friday night in KC. So many people were giving him double takes and saying how much he looked like Joe. Rich said the tattoo never gave him any discomfort. He hated the moustache though. He shaved it off within 5 minutes of getting back to the hotel from the armory on Friday night.

The Valkyrie comes from old Norse legends of the Norse Gods. A Valkyrie was a female warrior…kind of like a ghost, who would come righting in on horseback to take up the spirits of the fallen warriors on a battlefield. Those who had died a good and noble death and led a good and noble life, would have their souls be swept up onto the back of the horse with them and taken across a bridge to Vahalla…a large banquet hall where the warriors of days gone by would sit at a large banquet table with horns of ale and eat, drink, tell stories, and enjoy their lives after death. On the memorial bracelets that Joe’s unit made in his honor, the last line reads, ” ‘Til Valhalla Brother.”

I can’t begin to tell you how last Friday and Saturday went down in Kansas City. The Olathe Fire Department and the Missouri National Guard pulled out all the stops to send Joe off in true style. There were so many soldiers there….so, so many firefighters….so many Delta Chi alums…and so many friends and family from all over the country who came to help us mourn and celebrate a life well lived. We were there a couple of hours early each of the days because we wanted to be present when Joe’s ashes were brought to the armory. They left the mortuary in a hearse, but they were accompanied by Joe’s crew on the firetruck with his bunker gear neatly folded in his spot on the truck. They led the way with lights going, leading Joe to us. There were also firemen in their dress uniforms as honor guard at the armory, creating a corridor to the entrance to the armory. They saluted Joe’s ashes as he was brought in by his crew and received by his family. It was incredibly emotional both days. Friday there were almost 100 people there….Joe’s family and closest friends and colleagues there to welcome him. We each took our turns paying our respects to Joe…which was hard….how can a man so full of life be reduced to ashes in an urn? To be quite honest with you, Rich and I just sobbed uncontrollably in front of that urn…as did his silblings. My heart shattered anew watching Michelle stand there with her hand on the top of the urn…speaking words to her soulmate in her heart. Watching my mom kiss her fingers then place them on the urn of her oldest grandson…gutted me. There were 250 well thought out photos Michelle and Joe’s friends help pick out for a slideshow that played in a loop during Friday night. Although the actual visitation didn’t start until 5, we decided to start receiving people at 4:15 as there were already so many people there. The line lasted for two and a half hours. First off, this was a long time…a lot of people. They figured we had 550-600 people there on both Friday and Saturday. The army got one keg donated and others were brought by Apex Realty…the company Joe worked with prior to becoming a firefighter. We ordered food. Never really saw any of it. The firefighters picked up the tab…which was sizeable. They really were so kind and made sure we were taken care of in every sense of the word. The funeral home picked up 95% of the tab because Joe was a veteran and a first responder. They did a wonderful job helping Michelle do all the things that a 28 year old should never have to do. When we went to pay for the rest of the bill, the firefighters with us told us it was already taken care of. We literally just had to show up and grieve. Michelle and I had brought scrapbooks and photos and things that were just “Joe” to put on display for people to look at. I think that helped some people see other sides of Joe, which was nice. There were lots of wreaths and flowers. There was even a spray of flowers from a bunch of people in Europe who had gone to school with Joe at the International School of Stavanger. It took my breath away when I read the card in the flowers….the last time he saw these people was at the end of his 9th grade year. I don’t know how to thank them…so I am doing it here. You touched me so much by that…after all this time. So many teachers of Joe’s reached out to me…especially from ISS. Most of his former rugby coaches have reached out to me as well. I have had nothing but love and support from literally all over the world…and that goes to show how one goofy guy with a huge smile and even bigger heart could touch so many people. Michelle, Rich, Tim, Lily, and I hugged and cried our way through the long line that seemed to never end. Lily is not a hugger…she is not one that likes to show emotion. We have been joking with her that she hugged more people that weekend than she had in her 17 years combined. She was a good sport about it though, and it was a good thing for all of us. I got to meet some people I only knew by name and reputation…Michelle got to meet some of our parish family from Omaha, who graciously travelled to Kansas City to support our family and celebrate Joe’s life with us. I saw some of Joe’s high school friends I hadn’t seen since he graduated in 2013. Military friends from all over the country travelled to support us, even though they hadn’t seen Joe in years. It was overwhelming and touched us so very deeply. We are just sorry we didn’t get to spend as much time with everyone as we wanted to. We did get to share stories though. I think there is a Joe story for every day that he lived. Goodness, he did not live life carefully…but full throttle with an emphasis on fun. People from all walks of life came up and shared Joe stories…some funny, so more serious on how Joe had affected their lives. At one point, the Goosenecks (Joe’s company in the army) came up and presented Michelle with Joe’s combat helmet. He had taken that to Qatar on deployment and then to St. Louis, when they were activated to keep peace on the streets during riots.

As Saturday rolled around, the Olathe fire department once again knocked it out of the park by putting a ladder truck in front of the armory with a huge American flag draped from it. Once again, Joe was accompanied from the mortuary to the armory with his crew in a firetruck. The surrounding fire departments each volunteered a crew or two to cover Olathe’s district during the service on Saturday, so the majority of the Olathe Fire Department could be there. When I got up to read the scripture verse, I looked up and saw a packed armory with firefighters and army servicemen standing in the back and on the sides several people deep. My heart swelled with pride that my child was a part of two such wonderful groups of people…a brotherhood with the OFD and a brotherhood with the MO ANG. There were three key speakers besides the OFD fire chaplain: Zac Oslica (Joe’s soul brother…his best friend), Rich (my husband – Joe’s Dad), and Michelle, Joe’s love of his life…his wife. All of them did so well considering how hard it was to be up there talking through such immense grief. I have to say that Michelle wow’d me. I couldn’t believe she was able to get up there and speak so eloquently about what if felt to be loved by Joe Messina. Here is a young woman who has just lost her husband tragically, has two black eyes, and a brace on her knee. She has to be one of the bravest women I have ever known. Joe was posthumously promoted in the Army National Guard. They were kind enough to give us two copies of the promotion paperwork…one for Michelle and one for us. SSgt Bingham…our casuality assistance officer, thought of everything. Michelle was presented with a flag from the OFD…one that had been flying over Station One, where Joe usually worked. They also made a wonderful shadow box of Joe’s rank and badges . There was also a beautiful wooden box filled with letters from fire fighters for her to keep. They are surrounding her with love and food, God bless them – they are already arguing over who will mow her lawn this summer. The Army did a flag folding ceremony and presented a flag to Michelle along with a coin. I lost it a few times, but when all the firefighters’ radios went off with the last call from the dispatcher, I really lost it. The pallbearers, Joe’s brother and then his closest friends, carried Joe outside. The corridor was lined with friends and family in uniforms, saluting Joe and sending him off. Only the immediate family went outside. Taps was played….also a gutcheck. The bag pipes and drums from the Fire Department got me to weeping. The three by three gun volleys by the Army got me sobbing. I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful tribute to my son. I am sure he was in Heaven looking down pink-faced, embarrassed that this was all for him.

After Michelle and I went through all the things to take to our respective homes after the service, the firemen drove us to our hotel and Michell and her close friends, to her home. They handled all the transportation, which was huge. I can’t thank the OFD enough for taking such good care of us. All of our family in town along with some of the firefighters, met us for dinner and drinks to toast Joe at O’Dowd’s Irish bar in Kansas City. We were all emotionally and physically exhausted but it was good to be together and share more Joe stories. I did, however, almost get in a fight with a very drunk young lady. She came right up to my brother, sister-in-law and me and got right in our personal space…swaying to and fro like a drunk cartoon character. I asked her, “Can I help you?” She said, “Why do you have to be a hater? Can’t I join the party?”. Um…yeah. So I am typically a nice person…99% of the time. She caught me at my 1% moment and my mama bear instincts just roared to the surface. So I repeated my question…then told her this was a private party and she needed to go find her friends. Again with her calling me a hater. I snapped. I grabbed her by her upper arms and moved her about 15 feet away and let her have it. I told her that I had said my final good byes to my son today and since she didn’t know Joe or anyone in our party, it was rude and thoughtless of her to bring her drunk self into our last celebration of Joe for the night. My brother, Craig, must have somewhat panicked, because he had a waitress over to get this poor girl away from me before she opened her mouth again to say something I might not be able to handle. Sigh. Yep, mom of Joe Messina…nearly in a bar fight. Nice. Classy. Years of taking and teaching martial arts where you avoid confrontation…and certainly never cause it. Sigh. Not one of my better moments. However, the memory of it still gets my blood pressure up. One of the firefighters there was in Colorado just before the services for Joe and went to the site on the highway where Joe died and placed a wreath there. Another gut-check moment. What an absolutely thoughtful thing to do. So there are now numbers which never leave my head….446…Joe’s OFD number that was on all his gear. The OFD had made stickers with his badge number on it. Others have taken tape and put it on their own gear. 377 – the mile marker in Colorado along I-70 where Joe died on March 6, 2022. I see things that trigger my grief to the surface…maybe a song…a woman with a t-shirt with the number 94 on it…the year Joe was born. Crazy stuff. Sometimes I can just smile and laugh and talk about Joe with a warmth in my hearth, other times, it is crippling grief. We were so fortunate to have our families spend the weekend in KC with us. It was a pleasant distraction and good to catch up with everyone. My dad and Rich’s mom are both suffering from dementia. While the rest of us were grieving, they were out of the safe spots of their homes and thrown into a situation where they were lost as to who people where and why we were gathered together. This added another layer of pain on the weekend, so see them both so lost and confused. God bless my mom and my father-in-law for making the trip to be with us as we honored their grandson. It was so hard a trip for them as caregivers.

So that brings me to toilet paper. Gotta end on a lighter note. We have had so many people come by and bring food, flowers, memorial gifts, and paper products. We even had a beautiful tree delivered to our house from friends of mine from my high school days in Alexandria, VA. What a wonderful surprise! But I guess when people lose someone in the Midwest, they bring you packages of toilet paper. We literally got 6 large packages of toilet paper. I was agog at the whole thing. They simply mentioned that we would be having a lot of visitors and our guest bathroom would run out of toilet paper. Hm… never thought of that. Good thing they did! It was just a small thing that made us smile that first week. I will end this small novella with a thank you to everyone who has reached out to both us and Michelle. I think I am safe to say that we are both still coming to grips with everything that has happened and what our new “normal” lives without Joe in it will be like. My heart aches for her and I ask that you keep her in your prayers. She needs all the strength and love you can send her. Here are some favorite Joe photos….

This is the 7th day my Joe has been gone. Does each day get easier? Not really. I had four crying jags in the first 2 hours I was awake today…one before I even got out of bed. It is kind of like this each day….wake up and realize it wasn’t a dream and Joe is still dead. Cry. Ugly cry because it is just so awful. Then I get up and put on my brave face to try and get things done. it is usually works until I have something that will tip me over the edge, and that is most often just a kindness from someone. I have been approached by many people I don’t even know, to share a memory they have of Joe. It hurts, but it is nice. I have an overwhelming feeling to check on Michelle several times a day and I am convinced that is my Joe….nudging me to take care of his beautiful bride. Then usually early evening is good…but night time…when I lay down in the quiet of my bed, my heart and mind travel to Joe again….and to Michelle, who is doing the same thing…but it is 10 times worse for her. Then I sleep and start this all over again. It isn’t what I would want for anyone.

I was finally able to get to see Michelle yesterday. Rich, Tim, and I left at 6 a.m. to drive the 3 hour 15 minute drive to get to Michelle. Wow, I really needed to be able to wrap my arms around her and just sob together. I also needed to be able to hug Joe’s best friend, Zac, a few other of the people in his close, inner circle of friends. All those were accomplished. The Army National Guard Casualty Assistant Officer came to Michelle’s house to talk with her. Poor guy. It was his first time doing this and you could tell he was so nervous. However, blessedly, he had known Joe and had spent time with him in Fort Polk, LA last summer for 4 weeks. When he realized we were friendly people, just shattered with grief, we were able to get a lot done. He spent the whole day with us. The two Olathe firefighters who had gone out to be with Rich and Michelle in Denver, came over with all of their things from Joe and Michelle’s totaled car. They did the tough job of going to the impound lot in Colorado and picking through the wreckage to get all their belongings. They brought them back to Olathe and washed it all and then folded and bagged them up and put them into rubbermaid bins and brought them to Michelle yesterday. I watched with tears streaming down my face as she sat on their living room floor, quietly unloading each bin….touching all of Joe’s clothes and hats…his belt…carefully running her fingers over Joe’s things…then carefully placing them back in the bins. One of the bins was all Rich’s skiing gear that they were carrying in their car with them. Their suitcase was crushed…cracked and broken, but she still wanted to see it and run her hands over it before they took it away outside to be thrown out. Michelle said she had done laundry the day before and had been folding his pajama pants and socks….as they had been in the laundry hamper. I can’t imagine. Her hurt runs so deep and wide…I want to just clutch my heart every time I see her hurting…which is almost all the time right now.

Michelle and I had another good cry, a talk about how things were so unfair. Then we took a deep breath, put on our big girl panties and went to the mortuary. We filled a boardroom….Michelle, her parents, us, Tim, 2 firemen, and an Army guardsman. Michelle did so well keeping it together and answering the funeral director’s questions and making decisions about the services we will have for Joe. It is going to be a great event. Here is the info I wrote up for facebook:

Joe Messina was a wonderful man and he is getting a wonderful send off. Please join our family at the Missouri National Guard Armory (7600 Ozark Rd – Kansas City) Friday, March 18th from 5-8 p.m. for an informal gathering to honor Joe. Saturday at 2 p.m. in the same location, we’ll have a Celebration of Life, which will be more formal. We would love to see you at either, or preferably, both! In lieu of flowers, information on memorial donation sites will be forthcoming. We would love for first responders or people in service to honor Joe by wearing their uniforms on Saturday.

I leave you for now with a picture I love of Joe and Michelle…their love for each other just shines on their faces. I need to write about this but I am still at a point where my mind is muddled and not as sharp. Work things that would take me 10 minutes are taking me 2 hours because my brain won’t stay focused. So more later. I just want to thank the Olathe Fire Department and the Missouri National Guard for being so incredibly wonderful. When I say above and beyond….put that on steroids and multiply it by 100. I am so very humbled by the outpouring of love for Michelle and our family. So I am taking life not even day by day yet, but hour by hour.

I know you all can’t tell, but I have started, back spaced, and restarted this post several times. I don’t know where to begin. My wonderful, fun-loving, gregarious son, Joseph Matthew Messina, was taken from this world today in a car accident in Colorado this morning. His wife, Michelle, whom he loved so much it made my heartache, was in the car with him but is doing fine and should be released if not tonight, then tomorrow morning. She is in shock and devastated along with the rest of our family. Joe, Michelle, and Rich spent the weekend in Colorado snowboarding and relaxing. Joe and Michelle dropped off Rich at the airport this morning…I spoke to them all in the car around 0830 my time. A couple of hours after they dropped him off, they were in the accident. The weather was really bad. I was able to call Rich and let him know at the airport and not to get on a plane but to find a way to Michelle, who was all alone in a small rural hospital. Praise God for good friends, as Kevin Graefe, a college friend, came and got Rich and took him to Michelle. He helped remember who they were talking to and helped secure her release so they could take her to a major hospital in Denver to get further treatment. They are still by her side, and hope to be able to take her to Kevin’s house once her small surgical procedure is done. Rich’s brother, Joe, is flying to Denver tonight to be with Rich. Joe and Heather arranged for Tim to fly home to me tonight. He should be here in an hour or so. A very special thanks to Wanda and Ed Oslica, who stayed all day with Lily and me….made phone calls to Missouri on Michelle’s behalf and helped me remanence about stories about Joe, and their son Zac, his best friend. Church friends came with paper goods and food, hugs and prayers. Thanks to the Emily Ryan, RoseAnn and Tom Harvat, and Tanner, Mick, & Kaysie Wiebelhaus for coming to just sit with Lily and me today. I have never cried so much or so ugly in my life. The pain of knowing that my son is gone is overwhelming. But I want to make this positive….and about Joe.

I have received so many texts and messages on social media that I am overwhelmed. People have reached out to me from all walks of Joe’s life….whether it be Army buddies, firefighting brothers, Delta Chi brothers, or simply childhood friends of his from all over the world…the messages are streaming in. It is a testament of the kind of person Joe was. He was the life of the party. He had a huge heart and he made me very proud. I loved being around him because he always made me smile. He didn’t even have to try. I feel like the light of my life has dimmed dramatically today. Joe was a huge supporter of my photography. He loved the photos I took and pushed me to get them on platforms where they could be noticed. That meant the world to me…that he was proud of what I did and found it interesting. He called often and almost always called using videophone so we could see each other. Joe loved his little sister, Lily. When she was really little, for years she sat on his lap during Mass, usually finger wrestling. Joe had two dogs, Moose and Jenna, who thought the sun rose and set on his attention. Half of the time he called me, he would be on his day off from the fire department, he would be in bed and snuggling with a dog or two. They will miss him terribly. Then there is Michelle. He fell so hard in love with this girl 8 years ago. They were finally married on October 17, 2020. Not nearly long enough for him to love her the way he felt she deserved. I told people so often how much I enjoyed spending time with the two of them because they were such a neat couple. The playfulness they had between them was adorable and it made my heart swell to know they had each other.

Please pray for my Joe, for Michelle, our family, his fire department (who has been amazing), his Army National Guard unit, and his friends. He had so many wonderful friends who loved him and although I already knew this, it has been really powerfully underlined today. Although I am absolutely devastated by all that has transpired, I do feel the love of everyone trying to support us. Please know I am just not up to responding back to most of you right now. It isn’t because I haven’t seen your messages or appreciate your kind words. I just can’t….I just can’t….right now. I am leaving you with the last picture I had taken with my Joe (I always called him that as there are several Joes in our family). This was a few weeks ago on my 51st birthday when he drove up from KC to surprise me. People, hug your children…tell them you love them. Let them know how much you care about them…how proud you are of them. I was blessed to know I was dying and told him as much whenever I could. This may be the only gift of a stage IV cancer diagnosis. My beautiful boy, my handsome son….until we meet again. I love you.

My dad turned 75 on February 28th. I was blessed to be able to travel to Houston to help him celebrate! I spent a week in the Houston/Cypress area and got to have a lot of fun spending time with my parents and my brother and his family. I got to go to two of my nephew’s basketball games (which my brother is the coach), and got to watch my sister-in-law, Mayra, and Craig down several pounds of crawfish, as they are in season right now. My parents successfully ordered a new mattress for their bed…I am sure there is film footage somewhere of my mom lying on a mattress in the furniture store and me bouncing up and down on the other side to see if she can feel the movement. (insert heavy sigh and eye roll here) I was super blessed to be able to see, hug in person, and go galivanting into the Texas countryside with my Scottish friend, Finona. I knew her in Norway, and she was my cancer buddy throughout the last 2+ years. Fiona is such a support to me…I don’t think she will ever understand how much our friendship has meant to me over the last couple of years. It is so much easier to open up to someone who is in the same place as you are. We were both bald together….sick and in pain together…and now both healthier but still living with that cancer cloud over our heads. We haven’t been able to connect the last few times I have been down here so this was a very special treat for me.

The highlight of my dad’s birthday was several calls from family as well as a mysterious knock on the door around 8:30 p.m. My brother, Craig, is a lieutenant in the volunteer fire department here in Cypress, Texas. He was on duty Monday night and decided to bring his firetruck and three crew members over to my parents’ house for ice cream and cake. When they left, they put on the lights and gave the siren a low whine before pulling out to go back to the station. I am sure the neighbors’ tongues were waggling the next day!

Here are a few pictures from my phone from this last week. As always, I had a great time!

I flew down Thursday to Houston to spend a week with my parents. It has been cold and rainy. The sun finally peeped out on Sunday and the temps are starting to regulate, although still below normal for here. I am having a blast spending time with my brother and his family. I already got to see my nephew play basketball, and will see one more game of his before I fly back on Wednesday. I was hoping to have wonderful basketball photos of Alex for my Week #8 photo, but I was called to be the scorekeeper in a pinch. Maybe for Week #9! I realized I needed to get some photos done and with limited lenses available to me and the weather being icky, I decided to give you a taste of my parents’ home. My mom is an avid quilter and you can tell that immediately. She has quilts on every bed, small lap quilts on the backs of couches and chairs, quilted wall hangings…quilted table runners, and extra quilts in every bedroom closet. Then my dad. His mind is failing so quickly now…but when I think of my dad, I think of his nearly 30 years of military service. His dress greens are hanging in the closet of the bedroom I am staying in. I took off the plastic and took a photo of his uniform…and also a small section of the quilt hanging on the wall in the room I am staying in. This is the taste of home for me….things that makes me think of my home where my parents live…quilts and uniforms. The photo I am choosing for Week #8 is the ranger tab photo.

I have been doing spring deep cleaning in my office….it has felt like spring here though I know it won’t in another 24-48 hours as the normal winter cold plus a bit more sweep in. However, it is currently 64 degrees and I spent several hours on the back deck enjoying the sunshine and taking some photos of this dashing guy. The first photo is the one I have selected for my week #7 photo. He kept cocking his head to the side as I was tempting him to sit pretty by talking to him about bubbles….his favorite pastime. The last one is the one I am going to use for the photo of Week #7. He has loved being outside in the warm sunshine today. I took out his bowtie this afternoon as he loves looking so dashing.

I was all set to do this challenge of a photo per week and my world was dumped upside down with a LOT of travel. Luckily I was driving and all the camera gear could come with me! I am playing catch up now. I had too many photos to choose from! Anyhow, I realize I only had put week one in….and we are in week seven now. So here are weeks 2-6! Eeks! It is already Friday and I need to get a photo done for this week! Okey Dokey! Gotta brainstorm a bit on this one!

Week#6 A bald eagle watching the world go by from his perch on a tree…taken in Omaha, NE

So my husband, as a former Air Force pilot, really loves bald eagles. He can spot them so easily and I have more than once nearly gotten whiplash when he has slammed on the brakes to see if that clump in the trees is actually a bald eagle. Nine out of ten, it is. He has eagle eyes. (see what I did there…) Nebraska actually has a large population of migratory eagles. There are a lot of eagles that nest here in our cold winters (which I guess they prefer). Who knew? There are places in the Omaha metro that you can spot bald eagles. You can also choose to travel to locations with dams especially, that eagles like to hang out at in large groups this time of year. So below I have some photos of bald eagles. Some don’t look like bald eagles because they are fledglings…teenagers. They don’t get their classical look of a white head and tail feathers until they are about 4 years old. Some of these photos were taken locally and many were taken at the Gavin’s Point Dam in Yankton, SD, on the border of Nebraska. All of them were taken in the bitter cold, because that’s when they like to be out and active. I have a very strong telephoto lens that I use for these shots. Obviously it is easier when they are sitting still versus flying!

We have been to Moab before….traveling from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas and back for Black Belt Seminars with karate. However, that was a long time ago and in the heat of the summer…with two active elementary school boys that I had to keep my eyes on or they would fall off a cliff or climb up something they couldn’t get down. Honestly, this was the first 15 years of motherhood with those two. A lot of fun and adventure…heavy on the adventure…and a lot of it a blur. This time it was just Rich and me. It was January. Not the time of year that most people venture out to National Parks. However, I am beginning to be a big fan of winter visits to parks. Although we have a National Parks pass, most of these parks are not manned during the winter. There is just not enough traffic to warrant the man hours. It wasn’t that cold. If you are from Florida, it may have been chilly, but Nebraska weather makes you hearty. We rarely even wore jackets. I didn’t have to wait for people to get out of my shots. That is huge. I do have some people in some of my photos of arches, but I did this by design to show the size of the arch. We stayed for a day and a half and hit Arches a few times (that is where I took the astrophotography photos) and also Canyonlands National Park, which I had never heard of. Both of them have gorgeous vistas and the red rocks with snow on them were particularly stunning, I thought. Of course, I am a winter person! The sunsets were amazing. The first day was crystal clear skies and the second had clouds…so I had a lot of God’s wonderful creation to work with. If you don’t know my husband, Rich, he is a big kid in a 53 year old’s body. He is always up for an adventure and something that makes my heart leap into my throat. On this trip, I met him challenge for challenge of sitting out on a ledge over a several hundred foot drop. I am not fond of heights, but was not going to let him out-do me this time. We were lucky enough to bump into another couple at a gorgeous arch and have them take our picture together. Funny enough, we had met two couples while in Moab and it was so deserted that we bumped into both couples in town and in both parks. If you want a little less stress with a National Park visit, go in the winter! Just make sure the roads are open! Moab is such a great place to go…I felt like we were on another planet a lot of the time.

We quickly stopped in Las Vegas. It was on the way and we could put Lily on a plane to fly back to Nebraska directly so she wouldn’t miss any more school. Rich played in a couple of poker tournaments and Lily and I went for a 6 mile jaunt down the strip and back people watching. We happened on an open mall and they were all decorated for Chinese New Year, so that was a wonderful find. I didn’t carry my camera with me, so most of these were from my phone. We had a good time and were able to put some miles on our legs after being in the car for so many hours. So Lily hopped on a plane headed for home and Rich and I kept driving…on to Moab, Utah for our next stop.