Honoring

Honoring 9/11 becomes more important the older I get. I'm not sure why. I was no where near there when it happened. I don't know anyone directly impacted by the attack. But each year it seems to hit me harder.

 

(Please forgive me if this post causes anyone pain. That's not my intention at all. It just breaks my heart when I think of what the men and women who were impacted by this attack had to go through that day, and the months, and years following. I'm sharing this out of deepest respect.)

 

I spent most of Wednesday morning going over in my head what I wanted to write on here. I thought about the pictures I wanted to include, the stories I would tell. Then after work I picked Ally up from school and took her home, I stopped at Target to buy Beth an ottoman, came home, fixed dinner, showered, Chuck came home, and by the time I sat down here to write, all I could think of was "What have we been up to?" Completely forgot what day it was. When I went to bed that night I couldn't believe I didn't write about it.

The first time we went to New York was in 2004 and we stopped at Ground Zero. They had cleared most of the site and were now starting to rebuild.

 

 

These beams were found like this in the rubble. It became a source of hope for all the men and women working at Ground Zero. It's now in the 9/11 Museum in New York.

This firehouse was across the street from the Twin Towers and was demolished when they fell. They lost five men that day. Last week we watched a documentary that included some of those men.

 

This was shown on a documentary I saw a few years ago. You can see the firehouse on the left. (Sorry it's such poor quality. It's a screen shot from the TV.)

Twenty years after 9/11 we were in New York again and stopped at the beautiful memorial fountains that are now in the exact places where the towers once stood.

Plus thanks to our girls, Chuck and I got to see a play about 9/11, on Broadway in New York, the week of the twentieth anniversary. It's one of our favorite productions of of all time. We watch it again every year. (You can find it on Apple TV.)

 

We've had the honor of visiting the museum, a place we'd love to see again. There just wasn't enough time to see everything that day.

I took Ally home from school on Wednesday and I asked her if they did anything for 9/11. She asked, "What's 9/11?" When I told her then she remembered, but no, nothing was mentioned at school. What are we doing to make sure it doesn't happen again? I hope we truly never forget.

Saturday Snippets - Non-Stop, Finished and "What IS that?"

 Chuck and I went for a walk earlier this week and we was telling me how he rode Sharaya's bike for a couple miles. He hasn't been on a bike in years! We came home after our walk and he went out to blow the pine cones off the driveway. His energy level is astounding!

I finally finished my puzzle! I tried to work on it a little every day and it took me almost a month! It was hard but I feel good now that it's done.

 Work has really picked up a lot this week. We have two schools operating now, plus our maintenance guy is on vacation (Did I already tell you this?) Anyway, I've noticed our sprinklers aren't working quite like they should... I've done a lot of work for the schools... lowered the flags for 9/11 - Patriots Day... I've worked a lot of hours this week so it's been great to just be home today.

 And speaking of 9/11, I recently found out that Edmonds has a small memorial so Beth and I went down there after work on Friday. There is a beam that was at Ground Zero, the two panels represent the Twin Towers, there are tiny glass panels that represent each person who died... blue and red for the police officers and fire fighters... it was actually very emotional being there.

And... fire fighters! The west coast is on fire! Literally. Up and down California, Oregon, and Eastern Washington there are so many wildfires burning. Beth woke me up this morning, I could hear her talking kinda loud down stairs so I went down and she pointed to her window, "What IS that?"

"What is what?"

"The color." 

The winds have carried smoke up the coast to Seattle and we've been socked in lately. 

It's creating an orange hue on everything. I told her I was just thankful we only had smoke, no fire. We're wearing our masks now even to just check the mail.

We've been praying for everyone involved in battling the hundreds of fires that are burning right now. 2020 just keeps going...

I hope you are all healthy and safe.