What a Lovely Weekend!

It has been a lovely weekend in our house!  On Saturday, we spent a part of the day at Jerry's mother's house.  We brought up boxes and looked through pictures.  I have been wanting to scrap some of Jerry's little boy years, so I was on a mission!  I found treasure after treasure in those bins of pictures.  I made copies of some of the things and hope to spend another day looking through some more.  Bins of pictures can be daunting, so I am trying to do it piece by piece.

Today was another wonderful day!  My niece and nephews had a surprise 25th anniversary party for my sister and her husband.  Oh was it nice!!  It was so nice to spend time with ALL of my sisters and my mother.  I thought I'd share a couple of pictures from the day.  Look at my sister's beautiful family and see just what 25 years brought them!

These sisters of mine will never know just how much they hold a piece of my heart.  It must have been wonderful for my mother to have all of us together...

I took pictures of each of my sisters and my mom individually with me, so you will see those in layouts in the near future.  Here's a really sweet picture of Jerry and me:

And I have to share this last one.  These are my god-parents.  I just never think to take out my camera when I see them, and I am so glad I did today!  (In the days to come, you'll also see a layout with a picture of me and my god-son.)

Now that I've shared some of my weekend, I wanted to ask you if you are a subsciber to the "Here's the truth..." daily thoughts from the Brave Girls Club.  These are daily inspirations written by Melody Ross (GCD Studios).  I love getting this in my e-mailbox every day!  Go HERE if you want to check it out and sign up.  For me, they seem to say the right thing at just the right time.  I wanted to share one of them with you.  First my thoughts to go along with this one.  I am a goal setter, and I have always liked having "the next step" in mind - whether it was to move on toward a long-term goal, finish something, or just plain start a new goal.  I think we can all agree that this is a good thing in life!  I don't know about you, but sometimes I get so caught up in THE goal  - and sometimes getting discouraged along the way - that I forget to look back and remember what I have done or been through in life.  Well, read for yourself - this is a good reminder.  And I hope you find as much inspiration in this as I did.

Dear Incredible, Beautiful, Courageous Girl,

You have been through a lot...and you always pulled through. You are a champ at pulling through! Sure, there were some things that you may have done differently given the chance, but all in all, you made it through every storm, every fire...and up every mountain.

When is the last time you sat down to REALLLLY think about how far you have come? When is the last time you listed all of the things you have learned, all of the weaknesses you have overcome and all of the times you chose to see the good stuff even though the bad stuff seemed to outweigh it?

Sometimes you just need to tally it all up. We all forget how far we have come and we only focus on how far we still have to go. Imagine having to run a marathon and never knowing how many miles you have run....you would probably feel like it would never end!

You are so much further along that you think you are. You are so much stronger than you think you are. You have done so much more in the world than you think you have. Sit down today and really think about the long path that has brought you to now...and pat yourself on the back a little...you did a great job!!!

And you will continue to do a great job.

Thanks for being so brave. You inspire more people than you will ever know!