Alaska Memories

We are on vacation (Nic, Kate and Anthony and I) in Alaska. It was a trip we planned shortly after Andrea's funeral. Alaska holds many great memories for us as a family, and many difficult memories of Andrea's battle with cancer. We went by the houses we lived in and the hospital where Andrea was told she had cancer, my old squadron, and ate at our favorite places. We have also visited some of our good friends here and it is always a little hard to visit friends and be alone. It just seems out of balance as there is always a feeling that Andrea is missing. In fact we stayed with our good friends the Bowers. I still remember the day I walked into LB's office and sat down in the chair to the right of his desk and said, "Andrea has cancer." LB was the first person I ever told; the first time I said those words. Life changed that day, in that office in this town. This is the last place I have PC (Pre cancer) memories of Andrea. Places I can go and see her walking fast, with long hair, her youthfulness, going hiking and fishing. It just seemed for so long our life was put on hold and cancer is all I remember. How it took it toll on Andrea and how it dictated so much of our life. Here I can remember when life was ours. Yesterday we went fishing in our favorite spot, and I can still see Andrea sitting on the bank while the boys and I fished. She loved to read while we fished, and then when we had a fish she was the best netter and fish cleaner there was.

It is hard going back to places where Andrea and I lived. I called Ginger who happens to be in Colorado Springs taking the boys to summer camp. C Springs was were Ginger and Troy once lived and where Boston was born. So we were both facing our past alone this week. I told Ginger it is hard when I go to places we lived because I can still see Andrea there, or I remember a picture we took at that very spot. I feel so close to her I can almost see her, yet at the same time it reminds me how far apart we really are. It is frustrating, and very sad.

I just remembered I dreamed about Andrea last night, we were at church and I was on the stage and I looked back and saw Andrea sitting in a pew. She had all her hair and was smiling so big. I noticed she had on this set of jewelry I had bought her in Turkey and she was drenched in lights that were hitting it and making brilliant sparkles. Andrea held up the ring and was smiling at me. That was it. It was nice to see her again, especially with all her hair and a big smile on her face. I'm sure it is nothing like her crown she wears now and the light that she walks in. Anyway I digress. We are having a great time fishing and the Lord has blessed us with a lot of fish so far. We went Halibut fishing on Sat and caught our limit of 10 fish. One 60lb, 1 50lb, 1 40lb and the rest around 15-20lbs. I think we have about 130lbs of halibut to bring home. So far we have fished Reds for a day and caught 11. Which gives us about 35lbs of reds to bring back. We are going back today and tomorrow morning in hopes to catch 10 or so more. Right now we are trying to figure out how we will keep it all frozen and get it back to Texas. The weather has been great so far and we are on a crazy sleep schedule with all this sunshine. We are going to bed at 1:30 am (430am Texas time) and getting up at 10:30 am (1:30pm Texas time) I think it will take a day to adjust when I get home!

I have some pictures to post but the internet is very slow out here at the cabin. I will try later this week maybe when we get to Anchorage. Anyway just want to post an update since I realize it has been a while.