Precious Memories

I was recently digging in a box that moved here from Utah nearly three years ago—a box that is still waiting to have a "permanent" home so that it might be unpacked and put away. In the process of finding what I was looking for, I found a packet of photos of my sweet little guy, Ryan, when he was 2, 7, 10 and 11.

In this first photo, Ryan is 10 years old and holding the first four of the six kittens we had that spring—Astro, Mittens, Tigger, and Rocky. A friend of ours had a bunch of wild cats outside her house, and that spring, she also had a bunch of kittens. We already had two dogs—what did we need with kittens? But we fell in love with a beautiful orange kitty, and Rocky (the black and white one), and agreed to open our home to them. The only problem was that there were a LOT of orange kittens, and when it came time to take "our" orange kitten, we couldn't find him. So we took another (Tigger, I believe), thinking it was him. I later told our friend we had the wrong one, and she had a "no return" policy—so we went in search for the "one". And came home, again, with the wrong one (this time Mittens, I think). The third time was the charm, as we finally found that sweet faced Astro and brought him home to our family.

In the meantime, Ryan's best friend's grandmother also had some kittens....and, again, we could not resist. We brought home Sugar (an adorable white spotted female) and Precious (a beautiful silky slate colored female). Unfortunately, when you have kittens born to "wild" cats, they often have birth defects or diseases. That spring, we quickly lost Tigger and Precious to disease, and then Rocky started deteriorating. We ended up having to put Rocky down—a horrible loss for Ryan and I both, as it was Ry's first "loss", and Rocky had been my crochet buddy, snuggling up in whatever afghan I was working on and then readjusting his position as I completed a row.

In this picture of Ryan and the kittens, you can also see a bit of my first quilt (on the right side of the sofa).

My friend, Michele (Auntie 'Chele to Ryan) always came down from Dallas for Ryan's birthdays while we lived in Houston. When Ryan turned two, we had just moved into a small apartment. He is seen here on his birthday party weekend mounting the wild horse in the sandbox.

In this photos, Ryan is demonstrating his new love for "creating" things. I'm not sure what he's creating here, but he's proven over the years to have a knack for craftsmanship.

I'm not really sure what Ryan was supposed to be doing here...perhaps it was time to be brushing his teeth?...but Auntie 'Chele caught this precious moment in the mirror...along with the next two...Ryan showing his stretching ability, and perhaps saying "Who, me?" to being caught trying to escape through the sliding glass door...



While working in Utah, I had the pleasure of coordinating the logistics for the conferences our office held each year. For our summer conferences, we would take the participants up to a 10,000'+ elevation to the High Uintah Mountains, with stops at Provo Falls and the final destination of Mirror Lake. The first summer I worked in this office my dad came up to help with Ryan during that week. The following two photos are of Ryan and his Poppy at the falls, and Ryan enjoying God's handiwork at Mirror Lake.



We moved from Texas to Utah when Ryan was 7, in the middle of his first grade year. That fall, my parents came out for a visit, and we had the opportunity to drive out to Lake Tahoe and spend a few days with them. This photo is Ryan with his Poppy while we were out on a boat tour of the lake.



When Ryan was 11, we spent the day at the San Jacinto Monument and the Battleship Texas. This is Ryan at the base of the Monument. Somewhere I have a photo of him "doing battle with the enemy" in one of the gun stations aboard the Battleship Texas....