Daley Travels

As we head into our last 60 days here in Colorado Springs, I'm hoping we get a lot more snow - I'm not done playing in it!  Since most of the things we need to accomplish before we can leave don't really require great weather - although Mike might disagree since he's the one cutting & measuring sheets of plywood outside - I keep a close eye on the radar maps hoping to see the blue stuff that means snow.

When I drove through Flagstaff, Arizona earlier this week they were recovering from almost 4 feet of snow in 4 days - now THAT'S some serious snow.  The clerk at the hotel told me they were shut down for 2 days - didn't really matter since no one could actually get there anyway - but still.  Yikes!  This was the view right outside my hotel room door - and that's pretty much what it looked like in all the parking lots and along the sides of the streets.

We did get a little of the white stuff over the past 24 hours - maybe 2 inches total here at our house.  I was first up this morning and enjoyed a few cups of coffee in the silence watching the snowfall outside.  Our front yard and driveway were all covered with white, virgin snow - my bootprints were the first as I took the outgoing mail down to the mailbox. 

Late this afternoon I sent Sarah outside to shovel the drive (not that it really needed it, but *I* needed her to do it - if you know what I mean!) 

"An Angel in the book of life wrote down my grandchild's birth.

And whispered as she closed the book "too beautiful for earth."

We only knew about our 4th grandchild for about a little over a week before he (I choose to believe he was a boy - if not, I'm sure she'll forgive me!) went back to heaven.  You might think that wasn't enough time to fall in love with another little one - but it was plenty of time. 

We talked about names, smiled at the thought of our oldest daughter with *3* children under the age of 5, and thought about who this one would look like.   We thought about how we would rearrange our travels next year to be able to be there when the baby was born.  In just those few days, this grandchild became a part of lives.

But we're going to have to wait to meet him face to face.  Jennifer suffered a miscarriage today.  The loss of a baby is heart-breaking no matter when it happens.   I speak from personal experience and it is difficult for me to watch my oldest daughter go through this.  So I will be hitting the road early tomorrow morning - hopefully by 6 AM - to head west and to spend some time with her.

I love road trips but sincerely wish this one wasn't happening. 

The message above popped into my Facebook inbox a few days ago.   I have a lot of 'game' friends there and this kind of "post this on your status" round-robin is pretty popular, so I get these from time to time.  I really don't have a problem with it, just not not something I usually jump on.  99% of the time I hit the delete button and move on.  Which is what I did with the above message.  No big deal. 

The posts followed a predictable course - colors started popping up on walls all over Facebook, the women who didn't know about it and the men started posting "What's with the colors?", etc.  It peaked after a day or two, then dwindled out. 

And then I started seeing this post:

Ladies, your red, black, pink, blue, white, butterflied, cheetah printed, and clear bra colors made the channel 4 SLC news tonight. Facebook doesn't know who started it going but the Susan B Koman foundation says it was a great way to raise awareness for breast cancer. Way to go! Post this on your walls and spread the word again!!

Can someone please explain to me how posting the color of your bra in your status bar is raising awareness of breast cancer?  (As if there are people still out there unaware of breast cancer.)  I'm serious here - what am I missing?  Nowhere in any of the color posts was anything said about breast cancer.   I mean, if you want to 'raise awareness', then post something like -

75% of my immediate family has had cancer.

or

My medical bills for my chemotherapy came to over $100,000.

I can see something like that giving people pause and raising awareness of how widespread cancer still is or how horribly expensive and financially devastating treatment can be.

But just posting a color??  Even after everyone else found out it was the color of your bra, it was supposed to make them think about breast cancer? Or remind someone they should get a mammogram?  Yeah, that was the first thought I had too. 

Yup, that's our grandson Jack multi-tasking.  I promised him several months ago that if/when I got a new Blackberry, he could have my old one.  So here he is exploring his new toy. 

If you are not on Facebook but would like to see more pictures of both Jack and Aiden from their Christmas visit, you can click HERE and HERE to take a peek.