Texas 2008

Dale and I decided at the last minute to go to Texas to see my best friend Lisa and her parents, who we call Grandpa & Grandma Gomez. It was Addie's first trip out of state and on a plane at 7 months of age. She was comical to say the least. She was very calm until she saw all the buttons, gadgets, window, people and then away she went. Thank God the ride was only 1 hours and 45 minutes long. She definitely is a bundle of energy. I truly think she belongs to my brother more than me as she displays strong characteristics of him-friendly, outgoing, wanting attention, getting attention, being silly, and always trying to break out of something.

When we landed she right away was at home with Auntie Lisa. We went somewhere just about everyday. We went to New Mexico for lunch, went up on a tram to see the entire city, drove to the star that sits on the hillside since the war began, visited her church, and waiting with anticipation for her grandparents to arrive.

She started displaying her crawling skills or lack of, but she can move somehow, it just doesn't look like crawling. She loved playing with Max & Jakey the Gomez dogs. This was one of the times we saw her just laugh hysterically as they played with Dale all sorts of games dogs enjoy.

When her grandparents arrived, she just loved being in their arms and getting all that love, it was a hard departure. It was worth every penny we put into that trip to be with them.

Thanks Gomez Family for opening your doors to us and sending us away with blessings!

Gabriel's B-day & Time with Nana

Addison had the time of her life at Gabriel's 1st birthday. She enjoyed going arm to arm and being doted on by people who truly love her. Aunt Martie, Jill, Nana, Chela are just the few I remember seeing hold her and carry her around to be introduced to everyone.

The most precious part of the entire day was when Addie was telling nana to hold her. Dale has been trying for a while to get her to show who she wants to go to and in one brief moment, Addie reached out her arms, and vocalized her desire to be in Nana's arms. The downside, yes the downside, is that Nana can't depend on her own strength any more, so she couldn't reach out to her to hold her. But where there's a will there is a way, so Addie leaned on Nana's back and then I had Addie sit on the table and Nana move closer so they could lean on each other. And for what seemed like a moment stolen in time, I watched the most precious site. A great grandmother and her 19th great grandchild interact.

Nana lined up all the candies that the kids had won from the pinata or as Lorraine says, "pinada", and had Addie pick them up, shake them, throw them on the table and floor and play until everyone packed up to leave. Addie touched her face so gently, which she doesn't do for us, but somewhere in her little heart she knew to touch Nana with extra gentleness. And oh the tears that filled my eyes when Nana said she was so thankful to the Lord that she got to live long enough to see this little miracle come to pass. How small I feel. How humbled I am that God would choose me to wait so long to see how it touches each person so differently that my joy did come in the morning of January 25th when I first laid my eyes on her.

To rejoice at the gift of Gabriel achieving so much in his first year and the gift that came five months later. What a beautiful day!