Birthdays

I was looking at some pictures in our files the other day and ran into some of my B-day pics. My dad and Kathryn took us out to eat at Macaroni grill. Dave's mom was watching Kimball for us, because we went to a movie after. Anyway, while I was looking at the pictures I started thinking back to earlier birthdays. I remember that we could have a choice of having a party or going our to dinner with our parents. When we did choose the party we would play all sorts of games from pin the tail on the donkey, dress-up races, duck duck goose, to water balloon volleyball. As I got a little older I would choose to go out to eat with my parents. Once in high school we would just do a family dinner and gifts. Now days it is usually just another day. Dinner was nice a occasionally I get to do something nice with David like going out to dinner with family or having family dinner at his mom's house. I guess it is just weird to think about. Life just seems to be racing by faster and faster. It is getting harder to keep up. It is funny how as a child we can't wait to celebrate our birthday and as an adult we tend to want to forget our birthday. Maybe one day I will hold a big party and play some of those old games just for fun. I think that we can sometimes let the fast pace of life just suck the child out of us.

My Grandma Andrus has Alzheimer's. She forgets the present very easily. I hear her tell stories of how hard she worked in her church calling and grandpa worked in his business. She speaks of regret; regret for not spending more time with her kids, for taking care of other things before her family, and for having her oldest daughter (my mom) practically raise the kids. All of this reminds me of how often we just get going and forget to breathe, forget to spend more time with our families, and forget to take care of ourselves.

The world tends to put a negative twist on growing older. Maybe that is why we start to hate our Birthdays. I just want to say that looking back on my life My most precious moments are when I took the time to breath, took the time to spend with my family and took the time to take care of myself. We need to all do that a little more often. I guess rather than dread my birthdays and getting older I should celebrate another year I have with family friends; with loved ones. Maybe we should take the time to act like a child and have a little more fun.

Annie