DAY THREE: London to Edinburgh

Does 4 a.m. really exist? I don't even remember the last time I was up then (actually that's a lie...I do, but nothing pleasant has ever happened that early in the morning). When my alarm went off at four I felt like I was in some crazy dream. My body started moving and getting dressed, but my mind wasn't taking advantage.

You see, we had to have all of our luggage out for the AHSTF staff to load into trucks for the big move to Edinburgh. Then it was breakfast at 5 a.m. (very hard to eat a British breakfast that early) and then waiting for the bus by 5:30. At six we managed to get on our bus that took us to King's Cross Station. Now everyone knows what has made King's Cross famous . . . Platform 9 3/4's, Harry Potter's entrance into the wizarding world. I really felt bad because so many of the kids, and I have to include myself in that number, were severely disappointed because only the first eight platforms were open. Nine & 10 are closed for renovation so they were unable to take pictures at the famous sight.

But then we got on our train and began the voyage to Scotland. I will absolutely take as one of my favorite memories of this trip the first hour of the train ride and the hilarity that occurred from doing Mad Libs with Alex Parker, Andrea Shearon, and Kaz Zumbro. Hours 2-4 I slept. I tried to stay awake, but it just wasn't happening. But the good stuff all seemed to come in the last hour anyway. I got to take pictures of the largest castle in the world, the beautiful seascape of the North Sea (most calming view I've ever seen), and then entering Edinburgh.

When we exited the train in Edinburgh there was a Scottish bagpipe player performing American songs like Yanke Doodle, Dixieland, and Deep in the Heart of Texas. Very cool way to start our Scotland days. The next adventure, not so much! They crammed 80 people on one charter bus. Claustrophobic, anyone? It was unbearable, but it only lasted about an hour and a half. Finally, we made it to the University of Edinburgh, our final destination for the trip.

The greatest thing about the University is that2 all of their rooms are single rooms. So, we all will have some private time which will be greatly needed. The cafeteria food is amazing . . . so much better than the Bankside cafeteria. Supper tonight was fantastic. For the rest of the evening, we rested, and the boys made a nice little surprise for her birthday tomorrow. Let's hope she likes it.

Scotland Trip Day Two: London Bridge I fell down

Maybe I wasn't as rested as I thought or maybe we just did more than expected, but I'm already exhausted and its only the middle of day two.

This morning began with an interesting breakfast. Definitely different from what Mom and Dad used to make. They fry their toast. Just because they say something is sausage does not make it sausage. Their apple juice tastes like it has a little extra flavoring, so to speak.

Then, it was off to the Tower of London. I must admit how excited I was to see this place. Being a fan of Ghost Hunters International I wanted to see what a real hanted house would feel like. The only thing is .......... NO SCARY!!! I'm pretty sure the only thing that was terrifying was all the darn steps we had to take going up and down the tower. I'm not sure the kids were as excited to do something historical.

When we left we had to walk to the Underground, but we stood forever waiting for the bus to show up so Suz made the last minute decision to walk to The Globe. This was was about five miles. Clumsy me fell off a sidewalk and twisted my ankle (but please note that I was still walking faster than a few of the kids). The Globe was magnificent! Absolutely breathtaking! The kids got to have an acting workshop with one of the Globe Shakespearean Actors. They did scene work and I think they really enjoyed it.

We did an insane amount of walking today. My ankle was giving me fits but in situations like this I guess you just have to roll with the punches. We went to this pizza place for lunch and had the worst waitress in history. She got my order and my drink order wrong. Then we walked another two miles back to the hotel. I'm guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 miles for the day.

But we weren't done yet. We came back to the Bankside House and we began getting ready for our night out on the town. We were taking the kids to see Chicago performed at The West End. About the time I finished getting ready the two days of sun in London came to a screeching halt. The bottom fell out of the clouds and it rained harder than I've seen in a very long time. It stopped right before we left. All 33 of us are dressed to kill. Everyone looks really good.

It was about a mile to the Tunnel, and halfway there it started to rain again. It wasn't terrible before we got to the Tunnel and took our two different subway trains we needed to arrive at out destination. When we came up from the Tunnel and entered The West End it was pouring sheets of rain. We still had to walk three blocks to get to our theatre for the evening. By the time we arrived there was really no way to tell how good we all looked anymore. There was no point in having an umbrella or rain jacket. I was drenched to the skin through three layers of clothing!

However, the show was absolutely worth it! Yes, Chicago is a bit risque, and watching it will make you blush a little, but it has fantastic music and London's version had an incredible cast. Roxie Hart was played by Michelle Williams from Destiny's Child. She was very good. I really liked that this version didn't stick to the normal casting choices.

On the way home it was still raining, so by the time we made it into the Bankside where we were staying we made drenched dogs look good (although I did quite enjoy Logan Little and Christian Green's imitation of native Londonians talking about the crazy Americans). When we got back to Bankside we packed our bags and got ready for the big move to Edinburgh - that only happens four hours from now.

Scotland Trip DAY ONE

(this is the account of the greatest trip of my life that I took last year to London and Edinburgh. I hope you enjoy.)

Let me start by saying this really is a dream come true for me. I don't even remember how old I was when I first wanted to come to Europe, and especially to London. There is so much history here. It's overwhelming and definitely something I wish I could share with Dad.

So let's start at the beginning. The travel went well. Not many problems. We have five kids that have never flown before, so I empathize with them. My first flight was overseas, and I still remember how scared I was. When I arrived in Houston we met the AHSTF school from Hawaii, and they are really nice. Kinda made us shut up about the travel when we found out they had already been flying for a solid day.

The flight from Houston to London is sooooo long. Airplane food is much better than the last time I ate it. It was also very cold. Those blankets just aren't big enough. I tried to sleep some, but it just wasn't happening. Enjoyed the personal television and the movies I got to watch.

When we arrived at Heathrow it looked so ghetto. They are remodeling the international entranceway, so it was a bit of a let down. I was totally expecting the whole Love, Actually (great movie if you haven't seen it) entrance into London. Our tour guide was amazing. I'm still not sure how she was able to keep us going. It was her job to keep us awake all morning and afternoon so that we wouldn't go to sleep until nighttime and the jet lag wouldn't be as bad.

I was like a kid in a candy store. I loved the tour! We began with a tour through the city streets and then went by Kensington Palace where Princess Diana lived. We went to Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, you name a specific tourist attraction in London, we went to it today. I think the highlight was watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It is as grand as you expect it to be.

The movie buff in me was served as well. seeing the bridge from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the "Feed the Birds" cathedral from Mary Poppins, the flower scene from My Fair Lady's Church. We saw MI-6 for the James Bond fans, London Bridge, the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament. It was such a packed day. But I think we were all so thankful to finally reach the London School of Economics where we will stay the first two days. Interesting facility. It was nice to finally get a shower. However, I made a huge goof! I was so worried about the kids getting their stuff off the bus that I left my laptop (with my passport) in the luggage rack on the bus. Thankfully, the staff of AHSTF are incredible and tracked it down and I had it back in just a few hours.

Sleep is a wonderful thing. I fell asleep about 10:30 and slept straight through until 7:00 the next morning. Getting ready for breakfast and then its off to more sights and sounds of London. My Dad told me he always wanted to experience other parts of the world, and he didn't get that chance, so I'm going to experience as much as I can for both of us.

So I think It's about time

So for the last year I had a writer's block. I would get these great ideas and then I would sit to write and I couldn't flesh them out. Many of you follow my sister's blog as well, and she has done so much better expressing herself than I have over the past year. For me, I'm still in a fog half the time. Just now, writing the words "past year" is a revelation that it has been over a year. In fact, it's been almost a year since I took the most incredible vacation of my life to Scotland.

Tonight I sat and read the journal that I kept throughout the whole trip, and I was surprised by some of the things I wrote. sometimes I think it's a wonderful thing just to have that self-reflection. Obviously many of the things I was feeling made it's way onto the paper along with the play-by-play of what we did on the trip. So I've decided to share them with you. I'll give you that two-week sneak peak into my journal. The Reason I decided to do this is because we all deal with loss in a different way, and now that I'm a year removed (and going through it again real soon) I can see that how I dealt with everything started during these two weeks overseas. In order for me to tell you how I made it through the last year and I'm able to get on with life now, I couldn't do that without sharing my thoughts then.

So, for all of those that went to Scotland with me last year, it will be a great reflection on the trip, and hopefully bring back some great memories. For others, hopefully it will give you a look into what we did, but also allow you insight into how my mind works. Or it may not do any of that, and I'm just being self-reflective, but that works too.

I hope you enjoy!

Shane

Shock and Awe

Since Dad's funeral, I've begun to understand what is referred to as the grief cycle. There has been sadness, depression, anger, fear, doubt, you name an emotion and I've been through it. I remember the feeling of being in shock. If you came to Dad's wake or funeral or saw me at any point that week I was in a complete state of shock. The funny thing was I knew I was in shock. I didn't know that was possible.

I found myself thinking, "I'm going to be in a lot of trouble when the shock wears off and reality sets in." Guess what?

I was right!

I can't really pinpoint an exact moment when it happened but I do remember thinking that I just wanted to stay in bed all day. I didn't want to face it or the day, but fortunately that wasn't an option for me. I had to get up and take care of business. However, I did start to think and this question popped into my head...

...How many times in one life do we wish we could simply pull the blanket over our head and forget our problems exist?

Did a number pop into your head? I saw the sign for infinity because its happened a lot.

During one of my long voyages between Mom's in Midway and my grandmother's in Purvis, my mind was overloaded with one thought on my mind. And like so many others, something my Dad told me ended up being a major part of the thought process.

He told me this story one time a long time ago. It was before my teenage years. I may have been in single digits because I remember having nightmares about it. Dad told me about this dream he was having. He was walking through the woods. They were beautiful. He felt like he was exactly where he needed to be and then he came upon this river and saw the land on the other side. It was even more beautiful and more breathtaking than his current surroundings. He knew he had to ge there. That was where he was meant to be. He searched for a bridge that would take him to the other side, and when he finally found one he began to run across.

But he was soon frozen in his tracks. Because as he crossed the bridge he noticed that he wasn't the only one there. There was another figure standing about teen feet before the landing on the other side. Dad stopped because he was afraid. The figure was solid black and smoky and Dad knew it was pure evil. In his words, "I knew Satan himself was standing there between me and where I needed to be."

He stood there for what seemed like hours just staring at this evil before him. He didn't know what to do, but he knew there were only two options. He could turn around and go back to where he had already been, but that meant turning his back to the devil who he feared would attack him or he could step forward and face the devil and got to the land he knew he had to go too.

Dad made his choice. He told me that every step he took felt like a million pounds of pressure and that the fear continually increased. But finally, he was face to face with the devil and with all his strength he said, "God says I'm supposed to be over there and you can't stop me."

The devilish figure disappeared and that is when Dad said he woke up. Now you can interpret that dream several different ways, but let me share with you how its affected me in the last week. I think God was trying to tell Dad that not all obstacles in the road are from Him. Some obstacles are thrown in our path by Satan himself, but what is important to remember is there is no obstacle that God can't handle no matter who put it there.

When there is something in life worth fighting for obstacles are going to appear. It is in these times that we find out the true character of a person. Will you face your fear/the devil and march to your destiny or will you simply turn your back and leave it wide open for an attack?

Life Lesson Four

So it's Father's Day, but I don't have a Dad anymore. I don't understand how this happened, and to say that I am in disbelief is an understatement. In fact, I'm angry. I just don't know who I'm angry with. Dad would be so mad at me for using this example, but I wish I could to that Harry Potter trick where you pull a memory out of your head so you don't have to remember it anymore. That's what I would do to get rid of yesterday.

I know it's all part of the grief cycle: disbelief, confusion, anger, etc...but it doesn't make it any easier. The number of things I wish I had said or wish I had asked him are astronomical. The number of times I have thought about the fact he will never meet my children haunts me. The number of times I wish I had been "less of a man" and told my dad I loved him is something I can never take back.

But you can. Please, if for no other reason than you are seeing what we are going through, take this Father's Day to not just hand your Dad a tie or a gift certificate, but actually tell them how much you love them.

Trust me, you never know when you won't get that chance again.

Life Lesson Three

Who says you can't put a major event like a blood drive together in three days? Obviously they have not met my sister, Kacey. I have to give credit where its due. Within hours of discovering Dad would need several units of blood over the next month, she had the needed commitments to start the blood drive, and by the end of the day over 400 invitations had been emailed to friends and family.

Two weeks ago, 67 of those people attended the blood drive and 47 were able to donate. No one was more surprised than the people from united Blood Services who didn't think we would get 20 units during the whole day. They obviously don't know about the power of prayer and my sister's determination.

I can't sound like I'm any better though because if I'm being honest I never would have thought so many people would be responsive to my dad's illness. For the first week dad was in the hospital we were giving him hourly reports on how many people were members of the "Prayers for Dannon" facebook group. I distinctly remember telling him that over 100 people had signed up stating they would pray for him. He seemed very overwhelmed with all the support, so you can imagine his reaction when the number of group members rose to more than 200, and then more than 300 people. To say our family is grateful just isn't enough.

Dad had us go through and tell him who everyone on the list was. Some were mom's friends she shows horses with, some Kacey's friends from school or work in Birmingham or my friends from work, school, or Disney, and then some who none of us know, which is the most humbling of all. It was like a walk down memory lane for all of us, and even if it was only for a moment, we forgot about the leukemia.

So, let me take this opportunity to thank all of you on behalf of my family. Your prayers are what is getting us through this. Please keep them coming. Your prayers have been felt by every member of my family. We love you all and we Thank God for you, your love, and your support!