Veteran's Day

This morning was our Veteran's Day program. I'm a *very* patriotic person and the program makes me very emotional every year. Part of it has to do with the fact that all 3 of my boys are serving our country even though there's really no family history of military service. One of my brothers was in the Army reserves, an uncle served in the Army in Vietnam and Steven's biological father was in the Air Force (the kids have never met him and neither have I).

This year we had an honor guard from A&M to post the colors and then do a flag folding ceremony. During the ceremony, students read what each fold of the flag represented, very informational. A 5th grade girl sang the national anthem acapella and did an awesome job. Another 5th grade girl sang "God Bless the USA", my very favorite patriotic song next to the national anthem. Our speaker this year was another 5th grade girl who spoke about both of her grandfathers, both veterans. That was my downfall this year.

One of the grandfathers is the father of my best friend from childhood who was killed when we were in 8th grade. There are no major milestones in my life that I don't think of Kim not to mention all the other times I think about her. I haven't seen him in years and he's getting older so I went to tell him about how much I think about her and how much I loved her. He hugged me and was crying too and his wife (not Kim's mother, she died quite a few years ago) hugged me and told me how much that meant to him. He told me that he misses her every single day. I don't know if he remembered me, he didn't seem to know me when I told him my name but that's OK, he knows I still think about her and miss her too.

Geez, I'm crying again.

Thank you Chris, David and Daniel. I so appreciate you serving our country and keeping us free to live the lives we choose to live. God Bless You.