It was a lazy first day at Hilton head. It was cold and cloudy this morning, and then the sun came out later in the afternoon and it warmed up a bit. I didn’t get to bed until 1:30 last night, and so I slept in until a little after 8 this morning. Jennifer and Sean got on the road from Ft Lauderdale around 7:30. After spending most of the morning looking at pictures on my computer with Anna, we got a grocery list together and then spent the early afternoon at Publix.
Buying food for 9 people takes a long time. I think that we were at Publix for at least an hour, maybe more. But the sun was out, so we decided to go to the beach after we got all the food put away. By that time it was almost 3PM and as we were getting ready to go, Jennifer called and said that they were about 30 -40 minutes out. So Hernan stayed at the house while we went on to the beach. I love having a 4 year old around. Looking at the beach through Anna’s eyes gives me a whole new perspective. Everything is an adventure. I think that’s why Jesus said that we needed to come as little children. Life really is an adventure. There is goodness everywhere; you just have to look to find it. Anna found shells; starfish and I think Lisa found a whole sand dollar. Anna couldn’t wait to take her shoes off and run down toward, and into, the water. Now I don’t know the water temperature, but it was 48 degrees with wind blowing on the beach. I wasn’t about to take my shoes off. We finally got her interested in digging in the sand some. She used the new sand toys that she had gotten at Publix and had a good time doing that. By then it was time to get back to see Jennifer and the family.
Life is happening here, that’s for sure. With four little granddaughters running around, anything can happen. At first I don’t think Julia know what to think of all the extra people, but it didn’t take her long to join in. Anna, Adair and Meleah took up where they left of last January. I hope that Anna doesn’t run Adair and Meleah ragged. The probably need a little space every now and then. Anyway they were having a great time. We were looking at places to put the tree up. The first priority, of course, was that it be in a place where we saw it. The second priority was to get a location that would protect it from Julia as much as possible. I think that we accomplished both. It is in a corner of the living room, next to the Kitchen bar. It is surrounded on the remaining sides by a sectional sofa. It is almost impossible for Julia to pull down any ornaments. I got the tree up with minimum stress and then all four granddaughters took part in the “hanging of the ornaments”. It was controlled chaos. Everyone except Julia wanted to hang ornaments, and everyone did. I didn’t think one branch could hold four different ornaments but it can. Seriously, I thought I would have to go back and rearrange all the ornaments. But it looks good. They did it and I am not touching it. Of course, I hung any ornaments that were over four and a half feet high.
So all the lights are on the tree, and all the decorations are hung. We had supper, all sitting around the table. Lisa cooked, and we all helped clean. It was a good time together. After dinner, the girls were all playing together again. We played Charades. The theme was “stories from the Bible”. It was fun, but we commented on how Nana wouldn’t have liked the game. Nana wa missed today, she will always be missed. Life goes on, and you make do. You can still live and have fun. That’s the best way to honor her memory.
Tonight Jennifer, Lisa, Hernan and I watched Inception. That’s the third time I have seen it. Tonight I realized even more that in the midst of the weirdness of the movie, there is a lot of truth. You can’t let your memories become prisons. Your memories are good, but they are not nearly as good as the real thing was. No mater how good the past memories, you can’t stay there. That is not reality. Reality is the Kingdom. Reality is that Julia is in Heaven, cheering us on this week, saying, “Go, have fun, be a family, live life to the fullest and surpass even your best dreams.”
So that is what we are going to do this week. To the best of my ability, that is my goal. Tomorrow we get bikes and all the things we need to ride. Hopefully we can go to the heated pool for a swim and also get a run in. I don’t want this week to go by so fast and not do all the things we came here to do. Well I guess tomorrow has just become today. It’s late and time for bed. There is too much to do to sleep in.
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