Anniversary.Memories.Birthdays.

This morning I began to pack up a few things for my vacation next week and came across Keller's paperwork in my filing cabinet. I have now had my lil blind dog for a year!! AWW, YAY! Which then also reminded me that tomorrow is Quinn's birthday and I have given him choices, do you want clothes?, do you want to wait and get something in Maine? do you want another Ipod(cause his got stolen when our cars got broken into)? And I still haven't gotten an answer so I don't know what to do. I am thinking I will take him out to dinner somewhere nice and then probably get some of his friends together and go to Chilli's or something since we have to pack and be out there door and ready to go on Sunday! I can not wait to go to Maine and this year we will be up there for July 4th which is one of my favorite holidays and it will also be me and Quinker's 2 year anniversary. Oh wow! Look at us go, a whole 2 years. Haha. I don't know how he has put up with me for this long ;).

But, also as I began to pack I looked up at the end table in the living room and saw the picture of Alex that we have in a pretty silver frame and my mood quickly changed. Last year packing for Maine was a blast and I couldn't wait to get there, more importantly I couldn't wait to get there and go to Freeport with Caitlin and Alex and get my shop on. For the first two days we were in Maine last year, we (the three of us) shopped till we dropped till Alex had to leave. It was so much and was such a good bonding moment spent with endless girl talk and Starbucks coffee. Of course there were other fun times like actually playing in the lake and going to the local fire department for their "chicken bbq" that was NOT bbq (damn yanks mess up everything!!! hahahah).

With all these memories flooding back to me I couldn't help but be saddened by remembering that this year Maine will still be fun and Alex will definitely be there in spirit, but it is not going to be the same. Everywhere we look we will be reminded of her and the memories that were made at the Lake with her every summer. I am especially saddened for Caitlin and her family (Jane, George and Zeke) because I know that this trip will be especially hard on them because we are going to be doing a sort of "memorial service" for Alex where we will be spreading her ashes at her favorite place, the Lake. So please keep the Andrus/Hartner family in your thoughts and prayers this week as we all say our final goodbyes to Alex :(.

But don't get too sad, ya'll. Alex is going to be there with us and she would want us to have fun and fun we will have. Every laugh, every smile and every "remember when..." story will be with her in our memory. Keep looking for updated posts with pictures and stories of our adventures in Maine (yay, the house we are staying at this year has cable and internet, SCORE!).