12 Years and Counting...

At some point yesterday I realized that today was July 23rd which makes it exactly 12 years since our plane touched down in Huntsville when we moved here from Boston.  Anna was 6 years old and Mackenzie was 10.  Wow.  These have been years of so much change. 

It's been quite a while since my last post.  Life continues to march on.  I guess the biggest news that has happened is that Anna graduated from Huntsville High!  :) 

 

And her cousin, Nathan, graduated too!   :)

 

 

And it feels like the summer has been super busy, but that is how every summer feels.  ha...  I have been MUCH busier with the new Angel's Island Food Truck.  Anna has been making the most of the summer spending time with friends and getting ready to head off to UAB.  We had a quick family vacation a couple of weeks ago where Anna saw her dream of getting to hang-glide finally come true! 

 

 

And of course we were crazy enough to join in the fun too... 

 

And in the next few weeks, Mackenzie and Andrew will celebrate their first wedding anniversary, move into a new apartment, and start graduate school.  Anna will start college.  We're going to get to see all of the extended family...  and then, it's going to get very quiet around here.  haha

 

Hmmm....  Beginnings and Endings.  I saw this on a friend's facebook page a couple of days ago:

 

 

And her comment went like this...  "Sometimes we have to change whether we want to or not."

 

That struck me as so real for me right now.  It's been a year of a lot of change.  I distinctly remember being a couple of weeks out from Mackenzie's wedding just a year ago and thinking, "OK, here we go...  it's gonna be quite a year ahead."  And I am just about at the end of that roller coaster ride that I was anticipating then.  And while I fully embrace and love the sentiment of this painting, and can see how it has been true over and over so many times in my life, it is still a struggle for me to believe it each time I am still in the 'ending' stages.  ~Sigh~  But change is surely coming whether I want it to or not, so I am getting ready for it as best as I can.  In the meantime, I am enjoying all the excitement of getting ready to help with Mackenzie and Andrew's move, shopping with Anna for all her dorm stuff and getting ready for UAB, and looking forward to a fun visit with all the family.  It's all good.  :)