Hey everyone. Been a tough few weeks. First Jay's birthday, then Mother's Day, then my birthday, now graduation on Sunday. Nothing like getting hit with a million things at once. Cindy and I got a really good start on Tyler's memorial garden on Saturday. After about 14 hours of some seriously hard labor, the stream is in, flowers and tree planted, and things are shaping up. I have been doing some rock work on the stream the last few nights. I have some sort of water leak somewhere and I keep arranging and rearranging and rearranging. Mom summed it up and said you raised Tyler for 18 years and it wasn't always easy, so this shouldn't be either. I said if Tyler was here it would look at it and say "Mom looks like a lot of work." It feels good to work on something though. That is the thing about gardening. It is puttering and tinkering and you are never quite done. I love it.

We got our dog the end of April. Dixie or flushie as Jay calls her. She is cute as a button and likes to sit on my lap while I am working. The kids are having a ton of fun with her. It is a lot of work. I get up in the night to let her out, her hair has to be brushed everyday, and lots of trips outside to "go potty." I have to say.. I have never trained a dog and this is our first doggie in the house, but I think it is going pretty good. She is about 1.7 pounds as of a week ago. her new trick is making it out of the house and down the deck steps and back up and in the house all by herself. no small thing considering how little she is. It only took me 3 hours and a 1/2 bag of training treats to get that done. She loves to get DIRTY! Not so good with her long white hair. Carter was out hunting birds today and Dixie was fetching them. Somehow I didn't think of a Maltichon as a hunting dog, but what do I know. I guess they were enjoying themselves even though I thought it was a little gross.

Tyler's headstone came on my birthday, yesterday. How do you look at that? Good? Sad? I don't know. Like so many things nothing is just straightforward. I will say that the headstone is beautiful. Stop by and see it.. it turned out just how Tyler wanted it in my estimation.

Graduation is on Sunday. I think this is going to be the hardest thing yet. I wish I could just stick my head in the sand and pretend it wasn't happening. I don't want to take away any happiness that the seniors are feeling, but I know seeing us can sometimes make people sad. I always told Tyler that not graduating was never an option. I used to tease him all the time. He turned 18 last summer so he was 18 during his senior year, but he knew he had to finish. For him not to make it is so heartbreaking, but yet he has gone on to the ultimate graduation.

Kind of tired. Will catch up more later