Celebrating Life

The first weekend in June was bittersweet, but filled with so much joy.  I said good-bye to my Grandma Henry.  We also celebrated sweet Liam's first birthday.  The weekend was truly a celebration of life... one life well lived and another full of promise...

 My Grandpa and Grandma Henry left an amazing family legacy.  It doesn't happen nearly enough but I love spending time with my dad's family.  LOTS of cousins and now LOTS of great-grandkids running around.

 Marc was able to take Friday off and we headed to Mt. Sterling for Grandma's visitation.  I was more overwhelmed then I thought I would be at the visitation.  Telling her good-bye brought back lots of good memories.  It was also a fun time of visiting with friends and family.  I enjoyed seeing lots of pictures of Grandma growing up.  One of my cousins said later, "She lived so much life before we ever knew her!"

The funeral was Saturday morning.  My uncle John co-officiated with one of Grandma's pastors.  Most of the boy cousins said something also... a story about Grandma, good memories (and funny ones), and my brother Jordan read a poem that my dad wrote (a surprising talent of his!)  It was fun to celebrate Grandma in this way...

 This is the whole crew... most of us anyway:  5 boys (with 5 wives), 16 grandkids (11 with spouses), and a whopping 22 great-grandkids!  Our crew totals 58.  It was amazing to hear about how my grandparents made God a priority in their in home and equally amazing to see how that has been passed from generation to generation.

 After the funeral and burial we headed to the Cassidy farm to celebrate Liam's first birthday.  He had a farm themed party.  There kids had so much fun playing outside all day long.

 They loved petting some of the animals in the barn... goats, chickens, and bunnies.  They also enjoyed rides around the farm in the jeep, playing on the swingset, and being outside all afternoon!

 And of course there was so much yummy food!  Liam loved his chocolate cow cake!

 Love this sweet boy and his sweet smile...

 A fun-filled, emotion-filled day!  We were exhausted for sure when we made it home at 11:15 Saturday night!