April 27th-Five Year Reflection

April 27th-Five Year Reflection

APRIL 27, 2016 · PUBLIC

I am always reminded of this day....April 27th is stuck in my brain. (This is a reflection of my personal experience and does not depict the opinion of anyone else besides myself. There may be more details that I don’t recall and did not elaborate on.) Read more about the damage survey from this historic day at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/?n=event_04272011 Note: Marshall County and the number of tornados in, ended, started in the county. There were at least 1998 injuries reported and 140 people lost their lives in one day.

Early on the morning of April 27th, 2011 I woke up and I was aware from our local weather station that the risk of bad weather this day was high, we were already under a tornado watch and it was one of those warm, sultry spring mornings in North Alabama. Not feeling confident with my skills in National Incident Management System training, my first thought was to text Greg who was assigned as Incident Commander for our hospital to make sure he was bringing his laptop and an aircard for internet service, just.in.case. “Bring your laptop today! Just in case!!” He immediately responded, “Already in the truck.” We had gone way back, Greg and I. Night shift, fun times, I knew I could always count on him. He and I felt the same about Incident Command and unsure of how to implement it. This day was our real life test.

My bigger concern now was TJC. I would be in meetings most of the day with the dreaded ‘Joint Commission’. A necessary, but grueling, anxiety producing entity that wreaked havoc on hospital personnel to know every single policy or know where to find them, do everything exactly right, say everything exactly right. We were on day 2 of a 3 or 4 day survey. I informed Greg that he would have to help out the charge nurse in the ED to watch the weather because I was sure we would be tied up the TJC most of the day.

I clicked on the tv in the living room to find some weather...nothing on yet. I would leave it on and start getting ready for work. A bit later I overheard the low mumbling from the tv in the other room that the news station was delaying schools for a few hours until the worst of the weather passed through. I plopped down on the couch with my cup of coffee and animals not too far away-fearful already, sure enough, my kids would get to sleep in today! As I watched the weatherman immediately following, I saw there was a lot of 'weather' coming our way. Blobs of green and lots of red and yellow tracking east. I hated driving in the rain...I would go ahead and head on to work before it got bad. I hesitated before I left...should I wake JD, Madison, Bronson or Joe? No...let them sleep in, they will be so excited when they find out they didn’t have to get up for school!

At that moment, I heard the urgency in the forecasters voice, ‘forming’ ‘stay alert’ ‘storm moving towards Cullman/Marshall county line. Time to go, it was 6:35 am.

I never understood my obsession with the weather. Maybe it was because I didn’t understand tornados or because there is such loss of control for people in the path of such a storm. I liked being in control. I had always loved thunderstorms as a kid, standing in my parents garage, my brothers daring me to step out onto the driveway while the thunder and lighting were crashing. I am slightly obsessive about it, I had at least 3 apps on my phone for the weather at that time, now I have 5.

As I got in my car the rain had already started, I searched the radio for the station that carried the local news station during bad weather so I could listen to it on my way in. As I drove, the changed the ‘stay alert’ to a Tornado Warning. I panicked. Did I have time to keep driving to work? I was approaching the causeway at Warrenton across the lake, it was raining hard. Yes. I had time...it was crossing the Marshall County line headed toward Grassy. I picked up my phone and called work. The nurse who answered the phone was aware of the weather, but unaware of the warning. I asked if they had paged a weather alert in the hospital yet, not yet....yes, do it, do it now. It was raining sheets sideways by now. I was close to the bottom of the mountain, one or two cars pulled off to the side of the road, I sped up. The radio announcer/weather man was talking about how much time until the storm got to certain locations. I was calculating in my head if I should stop or continue on. Trees started blowing in different directions, my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest. Go for it. The voice in my head was on survival mode. I cranked up the radio, stepped on the gas and sped up the mountain, at 80 mph.

As I reached the crest of the first part of the mountain, the rain slacked off a bit, the announcer had moved on to talk about another storm and I had no idea about the one I just drove under to get to work. I parked illegally in the MD parking spaces, got out, and walked in to find Greg already set up in the ER break room with his laptop and the TV on. The charge nurse finds me, “Should we call an all-clear?” I’m thinking to myself I wasn’t sure...let me go out the back door and look at the clouds, the weatherman was still diverted to another warning and not talking about us, frustrating. I headed out to the ambulance bay to find one of our physicians getting out of his car, “What the F*ck!! A tornado just ripped apart Guntersvile!! There are power poles lying in the lake, trees down everywhere!!”

I went into mom mode. Where?? How far did it go?? Panic and fear overcame me. I got my phone out and tried to call everyone in my house. The phones were not working, it wouldn’t even ring. I called over and over, I have no idea how many times. I was screaming at myself in my head, “you left them in the bed and didn’t tell anyone about the bad weather, you idiot!” I went storming into the ER and tried to call several other people, my boss for one. She urgently asked her daughter to text my daughter to see if she would answer. Thank God. They were fine.

Trying to keep my cool and make sure we were ready for the day ahead, Greg and I decided that we probably needed to set up Incident Command. We also had TJC to deal with....what the heck. The next two hours were a whirlwind. Where do we set up IC, where do we put TJC, should we get out all the supplies for disasters, should we have a briefing now and continue to watch the weather as an Incident Command team? In this time span there were 3 tornados that touched down in Marshall County. 6:20, 6:24 and 6:30am.

We rearranged rooms for TJC and IC and other administrators were assuring their arrival and set up in the alternate space. I was standing at the charge nurse desk and someone says, Kathleen, Mr. Gore is on the phone. Hmmm...Ok? Mr. Gore is the CEO of the hospital system. Calm, cool, very diplomatic, business minded, easy to talk to and I had a lot of respect for him. “Hello?”

“Just checking in. We have some trees down in my front yard and I can’t get my car out and I won’t be there for a while, is everything ok there?” I assured him it was fine, filled him in on what we were doing. He continued, “I am sure that Joint Commission people may cancel today.” He said without a wary note in his voice that his home may have almost gotten hit by a huge falling tree or 10!

“No, sir. They are here already”

“Really??!!” I could hear his complete disbelief that they drove through a battered town to continue the survey. I assured him that there were enough managers here to assist them in day 2 of our survey. As I hung up I realized that there were probably many more who not could get to work because of trees fallen or tornado damage.

The surveyors had no power at the hotel but arrived non-the-less ready to continue to work. I think we were given the option to re-schedule our survey for another time but the decision was made that if they were comfortable staying, we already had one day down, we would get it finished. Didn’t really make sense to me at the time, I was now more worried about the staff. School was cancelled in several counties, parents worried about their kids being at home in such bad weather, arrangements to be made to assure people could get kids somewhere and come to work. Should we cancel the OR schedule and piss some surgeons off? All these things at the forefront of our minds.

At a hospital there is a lot of time and effort that goes into Emergency Management. Lots of time, training, preparing. You really have no idea how to prepare for the ‘unexpected’. Look at Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, and the Joplin, MO tornado. Preparedness has improved over the years but there are so many things to think and worry about when you are ‘preparing’ that you never think of it all. Even with all the preparation in the world and no way to be ready for them all. I did not feel prepared. How could I be the ‘head’ of Emergency Management and be prepared to talk about the ‘drills’ that we called drills but were really not drills at all. They were every day ‘mini-disasters’ that we had in the ER and the hospital. Be prepared for anything. That’s what I knew. Make decisions quickly, delegate, assure people knew you were calm but inside your head doubting everything that came out of your mouth. I took all the NIMS tests....ridiculousness. No human would ever use all that knowledge in a hospital scenario. I went to a class at the University of South Alabama. I had training from the State. I still know that I was not prepared, how could my staff be?

The day went about as usual, I hung out in the ER, frantic most of the day because the warnings seemed endless and no one else seemed to think that we needed to watch the weather continuously and keep Incident Command up and running. Maybe I was a little overcautious. I think the nurses upstairs would cringe every time we came over the overhead paging system to call a weather alert....I wanted to be sure that our patients were safe and if that meant moving them into the hallways 10 times that day....we did. I know they didn’t get any actual work done or actual charting. Most of us were on edge listening to the weather. 62 tornados that day, 15 in Marshall County alone.

Dr. Zahn was finishing up his shift...he was trying to decide if he needed to go home or sleep for a while. I urged him to call his wife. I heard that there was tornado damage near the state park. KT lost her home to trees falling into it. Buck Island had huge amount of damage, no one could get in or out, was Dr. Greg Driskill and Mrs. Cheryl Marcum Hays OK?

There was a lul of activity and weather alerts for us for a bit. I was trying to decide what I should do? Should I prepare for my Emergency Management session with TJC for the next day or try to wing it? I think my brain was on overload. I felt the tug of responsibility to my kids who ended up staying home alone while my husband went on to work at Walmart..funny, they let him go just a few weeks after this... and he felt so obligated to go. The commitment to my staff and the hospital staff and our patients to assure everyone was safe. There was terrible internet connections, hardly anyone had access to Facebook and it certainly didn’t have that fancy new feature to let others know you were ok.

Around 2:30pm another warning for a big storm with a tornado in it. Attentive to what had happened earlier, we were all on edge but excited at the same time. Dr. (Victor) Tammy L. Sparks and I kept running back and forth outside, and the team, to look at the sky. I had been to storm spotter class, but again, felt inadequate to say anything about the clouds or storms that I saw. Again, needed to page a weather alert. Move the patients again. As I was standing outside watching the large black cloud move from Arab to Guntersville, there was a little red car came speeding up the back entrance to the hospital. A young man and a girl yelled out, “can we come inside???!!! That is a tornado coming this way!!” I have no idea who these two were but told them to park and come in, I badged them in and directed the to the interior hall in the hospital. We were already on the generator from the morning and I knew that it would be dark in the hallway, but as I directed the around to the interior hall, so many people were sitting on the floor in the halls. Patients, staff, a dog, the Joint Commission surveyors. I asked briefly if everyone was ok, they all said yes and there was quiet chatter, low and serious.

As I came back around to the ER, I found the team outside again....I walked out unsure if we should really be out there. And there it was. A huge black cloud with crap swirling around the base of it. Dr. Sparks was filming...yelling...”that is debris!! That thing is on the ground!!”

It felt like it was close...really close but not heading toward us. We all stood out there with giddy excitement and anticipation and fear. At some point, I realized we needed all hands on deck and with a tornado that big, that close, we were sure to have casualties.

The next several hours are a blur to me. I know we had 10 or so MD’s lined up in the hallway. Emergency, Internal Medicine, Surgeons, Pediatricians. Nurses from other floors were sent to the ER to wait. Nurses who used to work at the hospital showed up, ready to work. A manager walking around with a cooler with bottled water for people to drink. The reports coming in were few and far between. The first few patients came in by private vehicle. The ambulances couldn’t drive around...there were too many trees down. Communications were spotty anyway that day. Cell towers were knocked down. No internet or cable TV most of the day. The whine of the weather radio over and over and over and over...but you have to listen to the entire computer generated message to figure out what was going on and where the warning was “ATTENTION. TORNADO WARNING FOR MARSHALL COUNTY”. I couldn’t pull up the radar on my phone. Less than 20 patients came in that day after that tornado. We heard of an entire family that was found, they had all huddled together for their lives, as we watched the debris swirl around we had no idea it was taking those lives of people so close in the community and known to many at our hospital.

I was on high alert, high anxiety the entire day....I checked in on my kids when I could. They were playing board games, together. My step-son made it there from his house to keep them company. I felt like there was more to come. I heard of a bad tornado in Tuscaloosa at the University of Alabama but had no idea the devastation there.

At some point in time during the day the CEO arrived wearing jeans and just walking around checking on folks. I realized my gas tank was on E before I left that morning. There was no power to get gas at the gas station near the hospital now. I was torn on whether I should stay to help the staff, I think at the time I felt like they couldn’t manage without me, but I know they could. Reflecting back, I don’t think I did hardly anything that day. Just worried, with high anxiety of what ‘might’ happen.

Our TJC surveyors left, people were sent home who needed to go home to check on homes and families. Some staff weren’t able to get there at all, we made do because that is what is expected. Night fell and I think someone urged me to go home. Hm...what if I ran out of gas? No cell service, no power....Mr. Gore offered to try to syphon gas from his car into mine. Literally...tried to suck gas out of a tube from his gas tank to put into mine so I could go home. After a mouthful of gas, I told him not to worry, I should have enough to get there and we had lawnmower gas at home to put in it. The charge nurse assured me they would be fine that night.

As I left the ER at whatever time it was...it was dark. Darkest I’d ever seen. No lights, anywhere. Coming down the mountain, it was erie. As I arrived home, everyone had candles out and were planning on going to bed early. I had no phone battery left. No way to charge it. I can’t even remember if anyone had eaten that day at work, including me. I went to bed and couldn’t sleep.

You’ve never heard no noise like this before, no cars driving in the distance, no lights, no anything...except for the quiet humm of someones generator in the distance. I walked outside and went and laid down on the driveway to look at the stars. The driveway was warm and hard on my aching back. There were millions of stars. My son came out and sat down next to me and I started crying. I told him about my day and how stressed I was about leaving them in bed. He comforted me...held his arm around my shoulders and we just sat in the dark quiet of the night.

I slept only 3 hours or so and drove back to work for day 3 of our TJC survey. I was exhausted mentally. We had our Emergency Management session early in the day. I was not mentally able to spew out policies...but I showed up. We had our morning briefing. As I sat at the table with my peers and the surveyors. I heard the story of TJC getting to watch Emergency Management in action. We had all the notebooks lined up and ready to go. Every policy. Every drill. They did not think it was appropriate. They spent most of the day in the hall with our visitors, patients and a dog, they didn’t need to look at the policies now or discuss what if situations and how we would respond. I was so relieved, I have no idea what I said but I know I cried biting my tongue, trying not to. I was too tired to care what my peers thought about me crying.

I found that this day helped me steer my life in a different direction. Several other traumatic things happened shortly there after at work and at home, death of a co-worker, several pediatric codes, Joe’s ending work at the retail giant and his heart attack. I knew that I needed to get out of Emergency Medicine that year. I made a plan with my husband and continued to work but focus more on what I had forgotten that was so important. I spent a lot of time dedicated to that ER, worrying, trying to cover shifts, working from home, on call 24 hours a day for years. It was a hard job, one that taught me many valuable lessons. I had high blood pressure (self diagnosed and then verified by my one primary care doc visit in my adult life). I didn’t take care of me. I knew I could always count on my team to treat me when I was sick. I would drag myself there..and say, ‘Hey doc, I’m not feeling great...can you...?”

This was my own fault. There is no one else to blame but me for not caring for myself. Now, retrospectively, I have found me again. I lost many years to the ER that I missed with my kids and husband but was able to be a big part of their lives. I prioritized things more now, with balance. Real balance.

My blood pressure is perfect now, without medication.

I appreciate and love every single person I had worked with at my hospital and only credit them with our teamwork that day, April 27th. You have helped me form who I am now and I thank you for that.

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The Next Step, Tolliver the Ice Cream Truck

Sunday mornings are always easy to blog, it's quiet and peaceful and with Spring weather right around the corner keeps my mind busy of all the great stuff we are going to do this summer!

Joe and I are extremely excited to start working towards the next step for you and our business. Yes, the last year and a half has been hard work and you learn to live on a little less so that you don't end up like other businesses who spend a lot of money up front and don't ever grow and then disappear.  We decided that we needed to take a step towards brining our product to you. If you haven't been to the shop, we will be as many places as we can and bring ice cream to you with our new Ice Cream Truck, Tolliver.

Now, to say Tolliver is 'new' is not the exact truth. Tolliver was born the same year I was and is in need of a little face lift.  He is a 1970 model mail truck that we found on Craigslist in January. We have pulled almost everything out of the back, have painted the inside, are currently waiting for our 'wrap' to be completed by Apple Signs in Albertville for the outside of the truck and have hopes of getting him completed by April 6th.

We are thinking of a little 'unveiling' at the shop on Saturday April 6th and then heading to some ball games around town to take him for his first test run. Our menu will include our awesome baked chocolate chip cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches (cookies courtesy of J. Michael's bakery), Dreamsicle push-pops and good old fashioned ice cream cones with 3-4 flavors to choose from and bottled water.

You can keep up with our truck locations this summer by following us on Twitter or Facebook and just listen for the nostalgic ice cream truck music in your neighborhood!

Look for our photos soon!

Parties, Ice Cream Truck & Dreams of Summer

So much excitement going on at our Ice Cream Shop!

Recently, we have started our Children's Party Packages and are super excited about the 'Make Your Own Sundae' Party!! We love fun stuff here at the Ice Cream Shop :)


Also, we will be adding our Ice Cream Truck 'Tolliver' to our list of 'fun stuff'! We will be drive him around during summer selling Ice Cream and rent him for Ice Cream Parties, Events and Weddings!

Stay tuned for more!!

Children’s Birthday Packages

Scoop & Serve (10) Make Your Own Sundae (10)

1 hour party 1 1/2 hour party

10 Invitations with envelopes 10 Invitations with envelopes

10 balloons 10 balloons

10 goodie bags 10 goodie bags

Table Decorations Table Decorations & Sundae Bar

10 one scoop cups of ice cream 10 one scoop cups of ice cream

10 small drinks 2 toppings of your choice, whipped 

$100 (includes tax & gratuity) creme & cherry on top

10 small drinks

$125 (includes tax & gratuity

All Parties must be booked in advance and with a non-refundable $25 deposit at time of booking.

One server dedicated to your party. Adults pay separately for own ice cream & drinks outside of party costs. 

Call us during normal business hours or email us @ lakeguntersvilleicecreamshop@charter.net.

Lake Guntersville Ice Cream Shop 14258 US Highway 431 Guntersville, AL 35976 256*571*7336

Photo courtesy of Joelle Brooks Photography (c) 2012

A Single Year

It is November 27th, 2012 and as I sit here in the Ice Cream shop I think about where we have been in the last year.  It's a quiet day today, gloomy and cloudy and in the 40'ish temperature-wise....in other words, lots of time for reflection while I tend to very few customers.  It's amazing to me how much we have learned as a family through this business in the last year. From scheduling to taxes to ordering and keeping everyone accountable. Some Joe and I already had some experience in but it's a little different when managing a 'family' business.  Mostly, I have learned that I am not always right and that the opinions and suggestions of my family members and husband are invaluable and I need to listen.

I am also a little sad today. Joe had a heart attack almost 2 weeks ago and a lot has changed in how we view things in our lives and what is important. Yes, it's important to go to work, pay your bills, advertise to create more customers and keep our business growing but first we must take care of ourselves..a good friend said this to us the day Joe had his heart attack.  I didn't realize the burden Joe was feeling to make this little cute Ice Cream Shop become a success or at least pay for itself.  I see that I was quite selfish because I felt like I was doing my part in my job, providing the insurance and my part of the housework, bill paying, child-rearing. Wrong. Little did I realize that the more I stressed out I became at my job, the more it put pressure on Joe to do a better job of doing everything here and home.

The day Joe had his heart attack we both thought there was a chance that he may not make it through the heart cath when he got to Huntsville Hospital....that changes a person, inside and outside..and everyone around them.

It may take us a while to get to where we need to be as a family, which is part of growing and changing that we forever are doing.  I have faith that we will get there and accept the fact that it will be a hard road full of crying and self doubt and looking in different directions to find the answers.  I do know that Ice Cream will be a big part of it for now because we have a dream to finish.

~Kat

Summer Love (of Ice Cream)

Summer is Ice Cream.

Summer begins the season of the Great Nostalgia for me.  Nostalgia is made up of the memories in the back corner of your brain that trigger something emotionally special and make you want to close your eyes and be transported back to that time.  The smell of charcoal heating up on a grill, the sound of crickets chirping in the evening, the lightning bugs slow on and off flash during the hour that dusk falls, the smell of salty sea air in the car when you get close to the beach and for me, the taste of Ice Cream.

Last night while I was enjoying my Brownie Deluxe in the peace and quiet of my house I fell victim to the Great Nostalgia. I was victimized so much so that when I finished my treat, I went outside and laid down on the concrete on my back by the pool while it was starting to get dark to watch the clouds move ever so slowly, listening to the locusts and crickets and searching for the fleeting flash of a lighting bug. No thoughts of anyone or anything that I should be doing, just laying there enjoying the sounds and sights of summer... just like a kid.

Why is it that when we grow up that we turn off the parts of our brains that let us do nothing or use our imaginations and create memories for the Great Nostalgia?  I decided at that point that I needed to exercise my ability to do nothing, let my brain soak up my surroundings, imagine my life with prince's on horses and fights with trolls and evil monsters with my elementary school friends out behind the McCarthy-Towne yard where the pine trees hung low, and remember how we used a magnifying glass while hiding inside the large tires in the school yard to burn holes in a leaf without getting caught by the teacher.

In that Great Nostalgia is where my father now lives as well as the trolls and prince's. I remember him taking me and my brothers to Friendly's to get Ice Cream during the summer (when we needed a fast treat and didn't have time to wait in line at Kimball's).  I distinctly remember my Dad, me and my two brothers walking out across the parking lot with sugar cones in hand and me licking my treat right onto the ground in front of me.  As the last of five children it was my role to immediately start crying for pity and I knew that the crying would get my Dad to go back in and get me another cone. To my brothers dismay (because it would have been SO much more fun for them if I didn't get another one) my Dad would hand me the second cone with instructions of not to lick at the bottom of the ice-cream ball where it was dripping down my sugar cone to avoid the catastrophe all over again.

As you raise your children, have time off with your family and enjoy the wonderful days of Summer, create the Great Nostalgia, relive it and never forget what it's like to be a kid eating Ice Cream with your Dad.

Spring is in the air!

What a wonderful idea.

Move the clock ahead an hour and have more daylight in the evening.  Whoever decided we needed to keep Daylight Savings Time must have known that I suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and need some serious sunshine to keep me and my family happy! Today, we gain an hour of daylight and my hopes are that it hurls people everywhere into that happy, springtime, be outside & enjoy ice cream time of the year!

For those of you who actually take the time to read this and know I haven't posted for 2 months, we have been very busy and I have not had a chance to blog about anything..(and of course I was a victim of the wintertime dreads, a.k.a. SAD and was only making it to go to work, sleep, eat ice cream and do some laundry).  Funny, though...I know that winter is just long enough for me to detest the thought of it getting dark at 5pm and cringe when the weatherman says 'cold' when that is conjoined with 'darkness' and clouds. I don't really care that I suffer from seasonal allergies from the Bradford Pears in the early spring that make my eyes itch like mad and sneeze occasionally. I am happy that Spring is around the corner!!!

During these cold, dark, cloudy winter days JD and Joe have worked hard to get a system down to assure we have more than enough ice-cream for the warm day rushes and after school trips.  We have plans for umbrellas with more tables outside for the summer and some greenery for the mostly concrete sidewalk area.  I am working on practicing cake techniques and am taking a Wilton Method cake decorating classes and making cakes as the orders come in.  The whole family is involved and thrilled about the coming warm days!

We are excited that the shop is doing well and our plans for the spring & summer are being carefully planned in hopes that we have lines out our doors in the heat of the summer when ice cream is the only way one feels they are able to cool off!

Thank you so much for your support over the last 3 months and we hope to see you soon!!

Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah & Happy Holidays

It is Christmas Eve Eve and Joe, myself and the kids have been blessed with a successful first 3 weeks at the Ice Cream Shop! As I reflect on the last year of our lives, I now know that we should never take advantage of anything or anyone and we should be grateful for each day that is given to us that we are able to get up out of bed and start our day.

We started out our 2011 with a huge trip to Pasadena, California for the Tournament of Roses Parade with the Albertville High School Aggie Band on January 1st and had no idea what the days ahead had in store for us.

In the days leading up to our shop opening, Joe had his 15 seconds of fame from the front page of the Advertiser Gleam story about the shop to a one minute and ten seconds on a local news channel about our shop as a "Bright Spot in our Economy". Even since that day, we have grown and changed as a family and Joe as a person.

Joe received a unexpected text message from someone who saw him on the news, congratulated him for opening the shop and knew that it would be successful. He assumed it was someone from his previous employer but since he deleted all his contacts from there in his phone, he wasn't sure who it was. I, on the other hand, knew that I could scroll back and decipher who the message came from. Once I realized that the message came from his former boss, I approached Joe with proud compassion. "Joe, that text that you got...it was from Shean."

Joe looked almost shocked and some disbelief. Since that day in May on the walking trail that he told me that he no longer worked for the giant retail monster, Wal-Mart, Joe had feelings of failure and resentment...I could sense it in our marriage and our everyday lives. He focused on the things he had control over like the kids over the summer, our trip to Massachusetts, the groceries and laundry. He was such an amazing Mr. Mom over the summer that I hated to lose that! This new business adventure gave him something that he had never had before and something that we could do together!

On opening day, we all were up early and were excited and nervous. We needed some balloons filled to go on our guest tables outside and I told Joe that I would run up to Wal-Mart and get them filled. He declined and said, "No, it's time for me to go up there and do this."

He left with 2 bags of blue and green balloons. He came back with his pride.

He felt like he could walk into that store and feel proud of who he was and what journey we were about to embark on and came back to his business a changed person. We have worked hard to get where we are and we will never take advantage that he or I had jobs that you could lose in a day. We are not guaranteed anything in life; our jobs, our homes, our friends, our lives....there are people in our lives that affect us every day and challenge us to remember why it is we do what we do. Don't forget to be thankful for your job and the material things but, until you are faced with what you don't have often enough, you forget what it's like to be desperate and a failure and it forces you to remember to be thankful for the people around you and the love you have for your spouse, your parents, your children, your family.

Happy Holidays and we hope for you to see that being grateful for each day is a blessing.