Have you ever met someone that you were completely comfortable with from the start?

Does that person know you well enough to read you like a book?

Vice versa?

Have you and that person spent countless hours talking? Laughing? Crying?

Do you have a best friend?

A lover?

A confidant?

I have found all this and more recently...

Three hundred sixty seven days ago I met Lorie.

Three hundred sixty six of them have been amazing.

Here's to US, for the last year, and the next billion.

I love you Lorie!

Way too much going on..

Not all of it good..

Hope ya'll are good..

Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have..

My mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes too, but I can't remember getting E-coli.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.

We played with toy guns, cowboys and Indians, army, cops and robbers, and used our fingers to simulate guns when the toy ones or my BB gun was not available.

 
Some students weren't as smart as others or didn't work hard so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. That generation produced some of the greatest risk-takers and problem solvers. We had the freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

That's right.. My step-son turned eight years odl today.. I'm so very glad to have been here to celebrate it!

A child at play.. Is there nothing more innocent? More pure? More care-free and wonderous? Not that I know of..

I'm so in love..

No.. Not just Lorie.. My family.

My new family.. My existing family.. The soft, comfortable bed life has laid me down in.. Sure, the flight was bumpy as hell, but I'm here..... Where I'm supposed to be.

You know.. Amidst all the hustle and bustle, I found myself singing a song in my head, and wondering and hping that it would mean something to Mason.. It goes a little something like this (Warning! I sit hear tearing up listening to this..):

When a single mom goes out on a date with somebody new,
It always winds up feeling more like a job interview.
Momma used to wonder if she'd ever meet someone,
Who wouldn't find out about me and then turn around and run.

I met the man I call my dad when I was five (eight?) years old.
He took my mom out to a movie (or the beach?)and for once I got to go.
A few months later I remember lying there in bed,
I overheard him pop the question and prayed that she'd say yes.

And then all of a sudden,
Oh, it seemed so strange to me.
How we went from something's missing,
To a family.

Lookin' back all I can say,
About all the things he did for me.
Is I hope I'm at least half the dad,
That he didn't have to be.

I met the girl that's now my wife about three years ago.
We had the perfect marriage but we wanted somethin' more.
Now here I stand surrounded by our family and friends.
Crowded 'round the nursery window as they bring the baby in.

And now all of a sudden,
It seemed so strange to me.
How we've gone from something's missing,
To a family.

Lookin' through the glass I think about the man,
That's standin' next to me.
And I hope I'm at least half the dad,
That he didn't have to be.

Lookin' back all I can say,
About all the things he did for me.
Is I hope I'm at least half the dad,
That he didn't have to be.

Yeah, I hope I'm at least half the dad,
That he didn't have to be.
Because he didn't have to be.
You know he didn't have to be.