a loving hug....

well im sitting here....with the music playing and the pictures uploaded with tired eyes.....but i just sit and i sit trying to come up with just the right words to describe how i am feeling this very night. the night i said 'see you later' not goodbye (as many friends have pointed out) to my little brother. i listened as i first heard of his plans, i helped bubble wrap and organize, i watched as he and my parents and tyler and his friends all packed up his moving truck, i laughed during our last dinner together and made small talk about happy things....but inside my stomach hurt and it was hard to think of anything else but just how sad i was feeling....how different things will be and how much we would miss him. i already wrote a long, thought-out blog last week and i just don't have it left to write any more tonight. but i do know that its going to get easier and that this is an exciting new chapter for my brother, whom i love with my whole heart. i've watched and helped and listened to him his whole life and that will never change...i am his sister. so we hugged tighter and longer than ever before and he promised it would all be okay. be safe tomorrow, i love you blake thomas.

here are the pictures from his going away family dinner on saturday.....

hanging out with the family on mom and dad's new porch
three sets of aunts and uncles, cousins, tyler's whole family, nanny...our family all together!
nanny and sammy playing and talking
being silly....

playing in the yard with her favorite uncle b

some of the manring boys hanging out after dinner
my favorite picture of the night...
blake showing off his police shadow box that he and mom made
what an awesome, professional keepsake...
watching blake open his mystery, clue, don't forget naples, funny gift that tyler and i ran around town collecting....
happy to be together
sammy eating an icecream cone and walking around AND helping uncle blake open gifts