Mark lost his father to lung Cancer when Mark was 12.  I was not there of course, but he shared with me many stories of his youth.  Mark didn't always make the best choices in his youth, as many of us also did the same.  He started drinking to cover his pain, he knew it was affecting his health, and that one day he would have to stop.   Mark, being the type of guy he was, had never been entirely happy with his belly button birthday on Jan. 1st.  It was just to close to Christmas.  So months before he even quit drinking, he decided to pick July 22nd, as his date to quit drinking,  that way he could have another birthday to celebrate, one in the middle of summer. When July 22nd came, he put the bottle down and never drank again.  Which is something not many people can do.  When he had a year sobriety, he went to visit his fathers gravesite, as he was looking at the date on his fathers headstone, he noticed it was July 22nd thst his father died, the same date he had picked to quit drinking.   I met Mark shortly after his first year of sobriety.  He died with 18 years of sobriety.  Congratulations honey, for fighting the good fight right up to the end.

Nevaeh loved to pretend to be a big girl, and one thing big people do is put keys in the door.  So this is Nevaeh and daddy having a convesation about which key will open the door.  Its very cute