"Top Gun" kind of day

One of the perks of Navy Life is access to Breakers Beach on Coronado Island. It's usually a quiet, family-friendly place so I like spending afternoons there with the kids. When we went down there last week with John, it was a whole new experience! There was a ton of activity in the air and I felt like we were in a scene straight out of Top Gun.

Here comes a Hawkeye on final approach.

The handoff - right in front of the Hotel Del.

Annalise plays in the sand with PT going on at the water's edge.
She will continue ignoring the handsome men in uniform...

I don't know that anything else needs to be said.

We spent the day in the sand having a good old time. I'm sure you wouldn't believe me if I told you that there was even a volleyball game as we were leaving. Yes, there was. Sadly, it was no Maverick or Goose, Ice or Wolfman, but it was still one for the books.

Remembering 9/11

Daddy and his little athletes at the starting line.

Annalise on the trail - just starting out.

Crossing the finish line.

Nana and Mom enjoying a hard earned iced coffee after the race.

It was 10 years ago that life changed so drastically for all of us. I still remember very vividly the events of that morning as I'm sure so many others do. What I remember just as clearly are the days after; looking for my friends, trying to get from Dallas to San Diego, and driving across the San Francisco Bay Bridge 9 days later listening to George W. Bush declare War on Terror. I was with my boss at the time, a prior sailor himself, and I remember him saying, "Well, that certainly shakes things up a bit!"

I was in Michigan the next March when we invaded Iraq, Justin was 9 months old, and John was deployed to the Persian Gulf. I usually had email communication with him but with all of that going on, email was obviously cut off. I held our son in my arms that day in Grandma T's living room and I said a quick prayer that my family's part in this story would someday make sense to me. Grandma was with me and, in her aging mind, she connected with me again even closer than she ever had before. She worried with me as she remembered her own experience waiting for my Grandpa, a deployed Navy Sailor, to come home safely from WWII.

Life has changed for everyone since that day. For my family, it has meant that the word "war" is a part of our daily life. I no longer consider the connection of 9/11 to what we do today, but when I look back, I can see how much a part of who we are is driven by that event. I also realize how lucky we are that the impacts to our family are merely inconvenience rather than true sacrifice or loss.

We have moved on since September 11th but my husband teaches me often that it's important to stop and remember in order to learn and move forward. I'm not sure what I had planned to do in order to honor the 10th Anniversary, but it likely would have passed without much acknowledgement had John not chosen to remind us all how important it is to honor and remember. In that spirit, we participated in the Travis Manion 9/11 Heroes Run which was created to "honor the fallen by challenging the living."

Justin got to run the 5K Trail Run with his Dad and they crossed the finish line far ahead of me. Justin amazes me with his will to face any challenge on the football field so I'm not sure why I was so surprised at his amazing run, but I was. I learned a lot about my daughter that day - specifically that she is very competitive yet retains her flair for the dramatic at all times. There were several points where she would sprint ahead, leaving me in the dust, only to stop and have to rest because she was "soooo tired!" I coached her along until one point close to the end when she stopped to tell me, with huge tears in her eyes, that she didn't want to finish. I was afraid for a minute that I had pushed too hard, but imagine my shock when she hit the gas pedal a second later to chase down a Grandpa who ran by saying, "Come on little girl - you're not going to let ME beat you, are you?" She finished strong with a smile on her face one pace in front of John and Justin who came back to cross the finish line with her. She also finished several paces in front of the friendly Grandpa who gave her the kick in the pants she needed.

There's no doubt that life has changed for me and this country since the towers went down. I'm thankful for those who have sacrificed so much greater than we have in order to keep us safe. I'm thankful that my gifts in life walk safely and freely by my side every day. I'm so happy that my family stopped to honor and remember and that we will continue to do so in the future.