Today....

Today is a day that just usually sucks. Excuse my lack of better wording but October 14th of 2004 was one of the darkest days in my husbands life and it's a day I wish he never had to go through. I will spare the details other then to say on that day Dan and his family lost his father to cancer. Can we emphasize as well that cancer sucks too! I never had the opportunity to meet the man who would have been my father-n-law but I have heard countless stories about him. I am also married to his son and knowing what an extraordinary  and selfless man he is, his father must have been amazing to say the least. So like I said, today normally just isn't a day we like to focus on too much and tends to be gloomy. Of course we started out today saying "well another year has gone by...." and tried not to get too over emotional over it. This year for whatever reason was a little bit easier. Today was not going to be a gloomy day.

This morning I woke up (and in the middle of the night) checking Facebook on a private page to see how an old friend/co-workers baby did having a liver transplant last night at Duke Hospital. He did AMAZING!!!!!! The road ahead looks very bright for that little man. I had tingles all over I was so happy for him and his parents!!!! God is so good! Prayers were answered for that wonderful little man!!! This got the day going with a better perspective for sure!

Anyone who knows my husband knows that he is a duck-a-holic (is that even a word?). The pre-duck season has come and gone here in Oklahoma and we are just waiting on the regular season to open up. Only a few more weeks. So during that down time my husband likes to scout for new places to hunt. Today was such a beautiful fall day and Liam and I had nothing particular to get done so I asked if we could tag along. I drove the truck while Dan read maps and kept his eyes peeled for birds. Dan loves that new set up;) We had a lot of rain last night so some of the roads were pretty mucky. Luckily I've driven a truck through mud a time or two so no worries there. Liam enjoyed movies via the IPad from the back seat. It was really too muddy to have let him out unless we wanted a giant mess on our hands!!!! Liam did enjoy watching the two bucks we saw, countless cattle and lots of horses. We successfully found two new spots for Dan that look pretty promising. I hope that  he has a good hunting record this year. He definitely has put in the preseason work to have a good turn out this year. We had a great time despite the mud. I even got to have the last word over Dan mocking me over snakes. As he was getting out of the truck to check a prospective spot out I asked him to be careful for snakes. As he was about to tell me to "relax" over the snake topic he almost stepped on one. He jumped back in the truck faster then he could tell me to relax. I won that one for sure ;) It was nice to get out into the middle of no where for a little while with our small little family and just enjoy nature and talking to one another.

So even though today will always be one of those days that sucks, it was nice that it didn't have to suck as much as it can if we let it. This year I think we did a better job on focusing on who we are and where we are due to the wonderful people who raised us. We were very fortunate that we had/have such wonderful parents that instilled values into us that are priceless.  It's so easy to focus on the bad or the not fair aspects in life, but it's so much more rewarding to focus on the good and what we have to be grateful for.  I know that Dan's father would want us to focus on living in the moment and for the future, not in the past. As the years go by I know that I will continue to know the man who raised my husband because I am watching my husband raise our son the same way. I take a lot of comfort in knowing that.