A Week of Holiday Fun

And now I'm back to reality - just as Jess gets to leave on a nice little holiday retreat!

My parents and I spent this last week with our family in Minnesota. It was filled with snow, new experiences, and old memories. I can't believe it's already over - it feels like we were just counting down the days for our fun Christmas vacation to begin.

On Monday, the 21st, we celebrated Brenan's birthday with loved ones and Brenan's favorite - spice cake. We had people over at my cousin Cindy's from both the Eiler side and the LeRoy side of the family. We talked about our favorite memories of Brenan and toasted to the great life he led.

During our holiday week, we got to see several inches of snow fall (Not sure if they were categorized as "blizzard-sized" flakes but there sure were a lot of them! I learned from my cousin Jacob that only certain sized snow flakes actually "count."), plow and shovel snow, go sledding and snowmobiling, and have a snowball fight. This was our first white Christmas in a really long time and it was a great way to celebrate the holiday in a new way.

On Christmas day, most of the family (those who were able to get through the piles of snow!) headed to Lavonne and Fred's house for dinner and family fun. The family presented us with a gift they had been working on for a few weeks, which was amazing and truly represented the spirit of Brenan and Christmas. Many of the LeRoys contributed money and toys to donate to the Children's Hospital in Brenan's name. To document the occasion, they put all the correspondence with the hospital and with each other, pictures, and thoughts about Brenan in a scrapbook titled "The Life of Brenan." Each family member created a page for Brenan or wrote a letter to him to be compiled in his life book. Not only did they make a HUGE contribution, one of the biggest to the hospital in recent times, but they created a way for us all to remember Brenan and what he represented - selflessness and giving to those who are in need. My parents and I are overwhelmed with emotion when we think about what our family has done to support us and remember Brenan. We know how awful it is to have a loved one in the hospital, especially over the holidays, and we hope that the contribution brightened the children's day!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE GIFT, LeROYS!

My pictures from the trip will be posted soon! I hope everyone had as merry of a Christmas as we did and I can't wait to see my family in Minnesota again soon. Being surrounded by you all during this time has made it a bit easier to cope with the void of not having Brenan here with us.

Merry Christmas, Brenan. Your baseball cards are on the mantel just as they always have been and will continue to be year after year.