October

I feel like a lot has happened recently and I just haven’t had a quiet moment to sit down and reflect and type it out.  What I realized is that October is just a big month for us in our family.  We’ve had so many events, both happy and sad, happen in October.

Our wedding anniversary is in October and it is still hard to believe that it has been five years!  We got married in Lake Geneva, WI.  Little did we know at the time that we were destined to live on the shores of the original Lake Geneva (aka. Lac Leman) in Switzerland.

Both our daughters were born in October and our first, Thalia, sadly died in October.  While I am thrilled to celebrate Cora’s first birthday with her, I’m also sad to think of our little angel who would have turned two this year.  We went to Paris to celebrate Thalia’s birthday and had a lovely weekend in the City of Light walking around, shopping quite a bit, and eating a LOT of french fries (Cora’s new favorite food).

There are other birthdays (my nephew, Mark’s dad, my grandma) and other losses as well.  My grandma died at the end of October just two weeks after our wedding.  I still think about how lucky we were that she was with us on our big day.

And earlier this week we had another loss, a dear cousin, and I think again about how unfair life is as Cora and I get ready to head back to the U.S. to honor him.

October has just been emotional.  Both positively and negatively.  To end things on a positive note, here is Cora in her halloween costume eating Kix.  She wasn’t a huge fan of it, mostly because of the hood, but hey, at least there was Kix (her other favorite food).  No matter how down I am, this little love bug can always bring a smile to my face.