Happy...

...30th Birthday to my wonderful husband!

...6th Anniversary to my still wonderful husband! (yes we got married on his birthday. He can NEVER forget our anniversary...jackpot for me!)

...Father's Day to my yes, wonderful husband. Even though we have no children here on Earth with us, you were the best Daddy to Jackson! And I know when we do have more kids you'll still be the best Daddy (and still wonderful husband)!

...75th Birthday to my Grandpa.

...Father's Day to my Dad...the best Daddy in the world, but stay out of the ER!

...Father's Day to Nelson and Tim, my father-in-laws!

...Birthday to one of my work BFF's Tammy! Have fun on vacation!

...First Day of Summer!

...Longest Day of the Year!

...Packing to us...we are off to the beach tomorrow afternoon for the rest of the week...YESSSSSSS!

...and not such a "happy" note, but good-bye to my Great Grandma who passed away this morning. She was 100 years old and lived a great life. She's at a pretty happy place though...say hi to your great, great grandson Jackson Cole!

I hope everyone has a great week, I know I will! I hope to post while on vacation pictures of Joseph's party last night and of us being beach bums. If not, when I get home. Thanks for checking in on us, and as always, please REMEMBER JACKSON!

Kids? Yes, I have Three!

NO, I'm not pregnant with triplets, but I do have three cats that double as children...or so it seems after today. Here are my sweet little ones...



Say it with me now...awwwww, they are SO cute! Not so much! Today on my list of things to do was clean out my closet. Well, with three children, I mean cats, they made it very hard. They were chasing each other, strings, straps, each other, and finally started climbing so I thought I was at peace. No such luck...a cat fell on my head, yes directly on my head, and scratched my forehead, left a bruise, and I still feel like I may have a slight concussion. And it was the skinny one, this one-



Thank goodness it wasn't chunky Rocky or I would have ended up in the hospital. Anyway, so after the cat attack of '09 I decided to try to distract the cats, with a sheet and empty shoe box found in the closet (told you it needed to be cleaned out). My thought was with kids, give 'em a toy, they'll be fine, so I tried it with the cats. I throw them out into the bedroom and the cats thankfully entertained themselves for about 30 minutes. The orange one, aka Tripp, was in attack mode today, first me then the shoe box...



I don't know if you can tell that he is biting the box, which is pretty much under the sheet. Anyway, it was wicked funny to me! Many have funny stories about their children, I have my three cats. I hope that I'm not turning into a crazy cat lady...we're trying, I promise, to have baby news, keep praying!

That's it for tonight, and probably for awhile. We have a busy weekend...Joseph's 30th Birthday-WOW! And Sunday is Father's Day of course and then on Monday afternoon we are off to the beach for the rest of the week...YES! There will be no promised post, but hopefully I'll get some pics up of Joseph's birthday and maybe of some beach bumming. Until next time, thanks for sharing in our journey and as always, please REMEMBER JACKSON!

Two Cute Little

Bottoms...



This is my view every morning when I'm getting ready and Joseph washes his hair. How cute is that?!

In other news...two of my favorite words ever-SUMMER VACATION! Tomorrow is my last day of work, but there are no kids which equals heaven. It has been a rough year, and I'm glad to see it end. I'm looking forward to next year and hopefully having a much better year!

And that's all I have time for this time around. I've got family in town from NY so we are busy hanging out with them and get ready for Sarah's graduation on Friday. Still can't really talk about that. Anyway...thanks for checking in, and we'll chat soon I'm sure! As always, please REMEMBER JACKSON!

I'm Fired!

Apparently I'm not a very good blogger! I've been home from our little get away for over a week and have yet to post about it, horrible I know! See...I don't know that I've even fully recovered from the trip. I have never walked so much in my life. I'm sticking to my story that we must have walked 20 miles, up hill all the time, and sometimes I think it snowed too! We had a great time, just being together and taking it all in, but my feet and legs are still complaining (well, maybe not really, but they should be)! So...two full days in Washington DC is not nearly enough time to take in everything. We saw lots of great stuff, but we missed a lot of great stuff too. We had some great meals though...always important! As for pictures, we really didn't take a whole bunch. I actually felt kind of silly walking up to this gigantic monument and taking a picture. The picture doesn't do it justice at all. I also giggled at all the foreign people who were so interested in our history. I guess it goes to show how much we are respected by others. Anyway...the trip seems like it was so long ago that I've forgotten most details and all I have for you are some pictures...enjoy!

The White House...


Joseph really had to go...


The Capitol, this is as close as we got because it was "National Fallen Police Officers Weekend"...


The Metro was our BFF after we finally figured it out. This is DuPont Circle which I swear is the longest escalator ever. Oh, and when we left, it was broken so Joseph had to carry our luggage down this...fun times!


Our only picture together from the trip. We were standing on the Lincoln Memorial steps and that's of course the Washington Monument in the back with the reflection pool. Probably my favorite picture though!


This has to be the cutest picture. While walking to the WWII Memorial we passed this adorable little family, and fed them...


This next picture is the changing of the guards at Arlington National Cemetery. I remember watching this when I was little, and it's still an amazing thing to watch. It's not the greatest picture, since you can't seen the tomb or anything, but it's a picture.


I started with the White House, and I'll end with the White House at night. It was really beautiful to see at night.


And that's all for my pictures. I have brought work home with me...did you ever think you would hear a Kindergarten Teacher say that?! It's the last 7 days and there's lots to be done, so I'm off to do it. We have another jammed pack weekend camping with our friends, the next weekend my Sarah graduates high school (I rocked her to sleep when she was a baby!!!!) and then I'm flying off to Texas to enjoy a road trip with my BFF Lisa...busy busy busy. No promised posts for awhile, that's for sure! And I've got to plan my husband's 30th birthday, and my parent's 30th anniversary...I gotta go! Thanks for being patient. And a BIG thank you for the calls, emails, cards, donations, flowers, everything, that was sent or said to us about our Jackson. Hard to believe it's been 2 years. We wouldn't have made it without you, so thank you! As always, please REMEMBER JACKSON!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Details of our weekend getaway coming soon...I promise!

Not One of My Smarter Ideas...

My heart is completely breaking for Kayleigh's Mom and Dad today as they struggle with letting their little girl go. I know how they feel, kind of, I mean no two cases, situations, etc. are the same. But reading the post today for some reason made me go back and read Jackson's story from the month of May. Now, his eblogs site is gone, but thankfully I copied every bit of it into Word so that I'd have every post, picture and comment. So...I read, I giggle, then I ball my eyes out. I couldn't even make it through some of the comments. I'm just so thankful for the family and friends we had in our lives during that time because we would not have made it without you. It blows my mind that it's been two years since Joseph and I said goodbye...I just don't know where the time has went. But...we are stronger, better people because of our journey with Jackson. Please say an extra prayer for the Freeman's as they adjust to life without Kayleigh.

So...this year instead of balloon releases, dinners out, and pretending to be fine with the hand we've been dealt, Joseph and I decided...heck, let's get away. So away we go (hopefully) on Friday morning. We'll be flying out bright and early and heading to our Nation's Capitol to fix all the problems of the world, maybe! Joseph has never been to Washington, and I went when I didn't appreciate it, so we are going to go take it all in. We've got lots of things planned in our head, but nothing set it stone. There are places we want to go, people we want to see, but hey, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. We are just going to go do whatever we want and spend time with each other. Please pray for non eventful flying, as Joseph hasn't flown since he was in 9th grade, some 13 years ago. Fun times right there. Plus, I just hope he makes the trip. Right now he's asleep in bed with a wicked stomach bug/food poisoning/not really sure what is going on kind of thing. We went to a cook out Saturday night and 8 people are sick, but not everyone ate the same things it seems and no link can be found. However...Campbell's mommy is claiming she's the cause of the stomach bug of 2009. That Campbell sure is cute...hard to believe she might be the cause-hehe! Joseph begged me to take him last night to urgent care, but I didn't...I know I'm a horrible wife, but I had to go to work because it's state testing and I had no assistant, no plans, and I would have been in trouble. The worst part of the story continues below though...

So...many have heard, but many have not, that Joseph resigned from Rock Hill Schools for a better job, at Terminix. Now, NO, he's not a bug man, but they actually have a landscaping division, and that's where he's working at now. He started yesterday. This morning I had to call his new boss and explain the whole not going to be there because of the food poisoning/stomach bug thing. I felt so horrible calling, but they were very understanding. Joseph's Mom actually came and saved the day (that's what Mom's are for right) and she took him to the doc this morning...he got a shot and some meds and has been sleeping since I got home. Thankfully no more throwing up, and hopefully he'll drink/eat some chicken broth for me here in a little bit, fingers crossed.

That's a lot of info in one post...trip details, stomach issues, new jobs, tears for our angel boy, goodness. I'm not going to bug you to make a donation to Families of SMA, but if you can afford it, and you want to in honor of Jackson, just go to www.curesma.org and follow the directions. In the past I have done $141, a dollar for every day of his life, but this year with job changes, and our trip, I'm only donating $50, but it's $50 they didn't have...and it could be the $50 that finds a cure so that no one has to go through what Joseph and I did, and most importantly so no child has to go through what Jackson and so many precious children have gone through. I hope that you can join us in our fight to find a cure.

And that's all...I'm off to check on my patient, finish my book, watch some tv and hopefully pull myself together. Thanks for sharing in our journey and for always being there for us. As always, please REMEMBER JACKSON!

This is for you LG...

My girls have been on me about my lack of posting, but we've been really busy here at the Hedgepeth's. Sorry blogging has taken a back seat, and though I promise to try to do better, we all know how that usually goes...good for awhile and then slack. There's nothing major really going on...excited to be in the month of May (minus the 15th of course). Joseph and I have a slammed pack month, so hopefully that will help the whole 15th situation. We are actually flying out of town that morning to a secret destination...and you know me, I thought I'd make a little game out of it...Where in the World are the Hedge's Going?! Now...some people can not participate...Pam, Tammy, LG, Shell and my Mom. They all already know where we are going. And what I love about typing that sentence most is this...Chris does not know and now she's mad that Shell and LG do know and she doesn't....it's great! I've put up a little poll...take a stab at it...where do you think we are going? And the above mentioned people may not vote, or if you want to throw others off I'm ok with that-hehehe!

After our getaway we are home for a weekend and then it's camping with lots of friends, which should be super fun. We've got several campers going along with golf carts and boats, so we should have a great weekend...looking forward to it! Oh...we also got back our Memorial Day holiday so I'm excited to start out my summer the right way...on the boat!

Alright...I'm off to wait for dinner. I have fallen off the cooking wagon along with my blogging wagon apparently. Joseph's bringing home pizza....yum! Thanks for checking in on us. As always, please REMEMBER JACKSON! Also...if you want to make a donation in Jackson's memory the money will go towards find a cure for this horrible disease. You can do so at www.curesma.org Thank you so much for all of your support of me, Joseph and SMA and for always keeping us in your prayers. We love all of you...