Celebrating Meredith - a Stuarts Draft Homecoming

After being diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 2015, Meredith Furr - a brave ten year old girl from Stuarts Draft - spent months at UVA in the hospital. By the time Christmas rolled around, her one wish was to finally be able to come home. News traveled quickly around our small community when people found out that Meredith's wish would be granted; she was going to be released from the hospital in time to come home on Christmas Eve!

As travel plans were being made for the Furr family's trek over the mountain from Charlottesville to Stuarts Draft, friends and family were organizing a welcoming committee to make the trip home even more special. From the Waynesboro exit off of I-64, all the way along the path to the Furrs' home, groups of people brimming with excitement were set up along the side of the road, ready to cheer, wave, and hold up their welcome-home signs as Meredith drove by. Not only was there an enormous amount of support from the entire community, but there was also an entourage of police, fire, and rescue vehicles to surround the family's cars as they drove down the parade-like route.

I tried to get some pictures and video of all of the people out to support the Furr family that day, and I was overwhelmed with just how big that group was! I didn't make it to all the stops, but I tried to convey the depth of support that was shown from our community that day.

Since then, Meredith has been able to stay at home for the most, and she has been getting stronger! Please pray for the Furr family as they continue down this long road to recovery. If you are interested in helping them in any way, let me know, and I'll be happy to get you in contact with the family. Thank you to the people of this community for being so kind to others!

February 2016 - Letters to Our Children

--After you read my letter, click the link to see Michelle's letter to her children. If you keep clicking from there, eventually you'll be right back here!--

letters to our Children, Stuarts Draft, VA family photographer

Little Mason,

( I say "little" loosely, since I'm pretty sure you're growing taller every second. )

January was mostly a stay-at-home month for us. Nonni and Poppy were gone in Africa for the whole month, we had a big snowstorm during the last week of January, and church was cancelled a few times because of the weather. This month you and Rylan started playing together a lot more. He finally started saying your name this month too! He calls you "Mae-mees;" it's really adorable. If he wakes up from his nap before you do, he can't keep himself from trying to go upstairs and yell through the crack in your door to wake you up.

Your relationship with snow is completely confusing to me. You absolutely hate getting dressed for it, even when I only put one layer of clothes on you; there is always something that you throw a fit about (recently it's the boots.) More than once during this snow, I have literally carried you out the door while you were screaming and ordered you to have fun. It takes about 2 minutes before you start playing, but then you actually start having a lot of fun! You often have one or two more breakdowns in the next ten minutes about gloves or cold hands or needing a coat, but after that, I can't even get you to come back inside for anything. Like I said, it's thoroughly confusing. :)

You continue to amaze us with your logic skills. You try to make sense out of everything you hear, and you figure things out that we haven't even thought about. I think I've mentioned it before, but your memory is still superb. :) You love to jump and climb and run, but you're occasionally still scared to go down slides. You know how to write the letters M and A, and you point them out wherever you see them. You also love to dig and "fix" things. You're really creative with building things out of random objects. You like to give Mommy and Daddy biiig kisses and bear hugs. You still want us to cuddle every night before bed, and you hold conversations with us on the monitor if something is bothering you.

Here are some recent quotes you've entertained us with: "Daddy, you need to turn from your wicked ways, or I'll have to pick you up!!" "MOMMY!!! ...And he was a powerful leader in that country!!!" (...that one was during nap time, and it came from nowhere. You yelled it out the door to me. I think you were talking about Daniel in the Bible.) "I was babysittering Rylan, and I gave him his own snack!" (So. Helpful.) "Mommy, is he talking about the bean stalk?" (When Dave Ramsey was talking about stocks on the radio...) You say the word "mines" instead of "mine," like "Is that spoon Rylan's or mines?"

We love you, buddy.

Love, Mommy

letters to our Children, Stuarts Draft, VA familiy photographer

Our Christmas Season Whirlwind

Augusta County Virginia Family Photographer

We always have very busy Decembers between UPS being extra busy, church events, family get-togethers, and fun traditions. I already shared our Christmas tree buying tradition with you (and that usually happens at the end of November), but I wanted to share pictures from some of our other traditions. There are, of course, other traditions that we have that I'm not showing here.....because then this post would be ridiculously long if I did!! But I wanted to share a few of the highlights of our December:

I always bake cookies with my mom, a tradition she has been doing with neighbors for as long as I can remember. It's usually 2 days of baking, with so many different kinds of cookies, lots of dishes, and many many balls of dough to roll. Mason also helps on the first day, too! (And Rylan helped this year by sticking his fingers into one of the pans of cookies before they were cut...) There are usually at least 3 people working on the cookies on our Friday baking day - usually neighbors or friends - but each year the number varies.

The Stuarts Draft Christmas Parade is a pretty new tradition, but it's been fun to add to our December schedule. We rarely make it to the Staunton or Waynesboro parades, so it's fun that our little town has added its own Christmas parade to the mix.

Christmas Eve used to always be the night to go to my Grandpa's house with all the cousins. After he died, we moved it to my parents' house. The amount of people who can come each year varies, like all family gatherings. We have subs, snacks, presents, and we read the Christmas story together. It's always a sweet reminder of family memories for me.

Christmas day is always quite busy for our little family, and this year was no exception. We woke up to have our own family's Christmas at home; then we went to my parent's house to open presents there; then we Skyped with Heidi's family in Zimbabwe; then we went to Aunt Michele's house for Christmas dinner with all of the family who could make it; then Josh, the kids, and I drove to Pennsylvania to spend the rest of Christmas Day and weekend with his family.

Stuarts Draft Virginia Family Photographer

That's all!! I hope you enjoyed peeking into our December. :)