Happy Father's Day

I know if Will was here right now he would be wishing his dad a very happy Father's Day. So I am doing it for him. Happy Father's Day, Tom. Will knew he had the best dad on earth. Just imagine who Will is celebrating father's day with today. WOW!
And to all you great fathers out there-take the day off and enjoy yourself. It's tough being a daddy.
I will get pictures up here from our Oregon trip asap.
My sister, two nieces, and Jeffery, my great-nephew are up from California visiting us for the week. Fun times ahead.

Vacation time

School is out and summer is "supposed" to be here. Kids are very happy and some of the teacher too. lol

For those of you that know us, Tom and I haven't taken very many vacations. This is all new to us. But we are leaving tomorrow morning for the Oregon Coast, Lincoln, Oregon. We also get to take Aaron, Angel, our big sweetheart, Candace, and our little sweetheart, Kayli. What fun we will have!!!!!!
We rented a house for five nights. We will have a great time and I will put wonderful pictures on here to bore you with. We tried to do this vacation four different times the last four years before Will went to Salt Lake for his transplant. Something always came up-Will was either too sick or in the hospital. Wasn't meant to be. So now we are going and it will be good.

Pray for our travels and God bless you all.

Awards

Yesterday was finally the day that we awarded Will's first memorial scholarships. It went to two very special young people that I know Will would have approved. The young woman, Aubree Callen, was one of Will's girls. He coached her for three years before he had to leave to go to Salt Lake. The young man, Cameron Stofford (I hope I got the spelling right), is equally deserving. They had to have the grade point avg. of 3.5 plus community service, plus a good work ethic.

It was really nice to be able to give the scholarships out at the gym. The only bad thing was that it was at 7:00 in the MORNING. I know Will is probably just shaking his head because he didn't really know there was a seven in the morning. But it was nice, lots of people (all the seniors and their parents) so the gym was full. They were giving out lots of big scholarships too. Of course, Will's was the most special scholarship. What a great way to keep his memory alive. I'm glad that the Clark's thought of it. Every year we will be doing it.

BELOW: this is a picture of Angel with the two scholarship picks

So now that is over and we will go on to cuter pictures:

Here is Kayli being cute with her blanket. She plays peek-a-boo all the time now.

Here is Kayli and her mom helping raise money for a good cause. She held the sign up really well, didn't she. Brought lots of cars in.

This is one of the sweetest, don't you think??? She sure loves her Grandpa sooooooo much.

We just passed the six month mark since Will's been gone from us. Doesn't seem possible. It sometimes seems like yesterday because we have so many memories surrounding us and then sometimes it seems like years. I guess that's normal for anyone who has lost someone.

I know many, if not all, who are reading this misses him also. It really does help us when we have those memory papers to read through. You won't really know how much those have helped us through some tough times. If any of you still want to write some for us, please do so. We would love to have more.

School's out tomorrow for us and the 6th of June we, Angel's little family and Tom and I, are going to the Oregon Coast for a week. We haven't done this before so it will be a new experience. We are looking forward to it so much. I will post pictures of us when we get back.

Take care and thanks for still checking in on us.

God Bless

Summer is almost here, but I think we forgot to tell Mother Nature. Man she's been really crazy lately. I am still wearing my coat during the day.

National Nurses Week

Nurses are amazing people!!!!

Right now there is a nurse helping a woman become a mom, a nurse holding the hand of a dying man, a nurse inserting an IV in a child, a nurse listening to an altzheimers patient tell a story of long ago, a nurse missing their family while caring for yours. In the minute it took you to read this nurses all over the world are saving lives. May 6-12 is National Nurses week - thank a nurse!

The Harbison Family loves all you nurses out there.

We thank God that you were there to take care of us.

Treat yourself to a pampered day somewhere. You all deserve it.

God bless you.

This is the best way to start this blog, isn't it?

Kayli pulled herself up in her crib and she's even crawling on all fours now. It won't be long before she's walking. She is 8 months old and the smartest baby that has ever lived (I think that's the Grandma in me escaping).
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What a great day we had remembering Will's birthday last Sunday.

We celebrated Will's birthday with a great big party. We had lots of family and friends come from all over. Then we probably told every stupid story we could on Will. No, I take that back. There wouldn't be enough time in a year to do that. Will was always pulling tricks on people and making everyone laugh. No, I take that back (again). He didn't laugh a lot during his games, did he? That was his serious side. But mainly he made us laugh.

So back to what I was saying... We were having fun and that was what we all wanted to be doing to honor Will's birthday. We know that there were many, many people that wanted to be here and couldn't, so I just wanted you all to know that we felt like you were here in spirit. We hope you celebrated in your own way. Many balloons were let off on Friday and are floating somewhere up there with happy thoughts with them.

We got Will's bench placed just in time for his birthday celebration. Everybody got to go to the cemetery who wanted to and see it. Some of you won't be able to get here, so I thought I would put a picture of the front of it on here to share with you. It ended up looking better than I thought. On the top of the bench it reads "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Good, huh!

It's a very peaceful place.

A TIME TO CELEBRATE

CELEBRATE WILL'S BIRTHDAY WITH LAUGHTER!

HOW LUCKY WE ALL WERE FOR HIM TO BE BORN.

We know Will's birthday is this Friday. It will be tough to get through, but we will-- because God is holding on tight to us all. We know that many of you will be having a rough time. I wish we could take the pain away. We thank you for all you prayers and thoughts for this special day. We were soooooo blessed to have a "Will" (one of a kind) born to us. I still say a prayer every night thanking God for sharing Will with us for as long as He did.

What more could we have ever wanted?

If you want to celebrate Will's birthday in your own way, please do so with a smile or a hearty laugh. You can even let a balloon go in his honor, play with a baby, or go play a game of basketball.

He's watching, you know, and that's what he would want, smiles, lots of smiles. Have faith, we will be seeing him someday.

Here is a poem I found......

I thought of you today, but that is nothing new.

I thought about you yesterday, and days before that too.

I think of you in silence, I often speak your name.

All I have is memories and a picture in a frame.

Your memory is a keepsake, with which I'll never part.

God has you in his keeping, I have you in my heart.

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God bless all the parents out there.

It's a tough job, but it is so worth it.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!

HAPPY, HAPPY EASTER

HE HAS RISEN!

What a fabulous day to remember the love our Father in Heaven has for us all (and I do mean everyone). We started it out by going to Sunrise Service and had a great breakfast with the people that came to the service.

We are so blessed that God sent His Son for our sins.

What an awesome God we have.

Now here is a cute picture of Kayli. She's now an official "crawler".

She does the army crawl so far, but soon she will be up on hands and knees. Boy Grandpa Tom is going to have his hands full now.

Here's Kayli getting ready to go on an Easter egg hunt. It was so cold even though the sun was shining.

This is the cutest picture of all. This was taken after Sunrise Service. She's all tuckered out. How sweet is that??

I hope everyone had a terrific Easter and we will be getting more pictures up here. By the way Tom and I had a good time on Spring Break. We spent a few days in Mesquite and a couple days in Vegas. Vegas probably won't be my favorite place to spend time, but it was a blast to watch all the strange (and I do mean strange) people there. We love our new car, it made the trip so easy.

God Bless you all.

Kayli's sitting up all by herself now. She thinks she "ALL THAT"

I was looking for a new chair for Grandpa Tom and Kayli was demonstrating this one.

We didn't buy it though.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME!!!

This is what Tom got me. WOW!

Saturn Outlook, 2009

love it

We are taking it on our first road trip. Going to Mesquite for a couple of days and then to Vegas for a couple of days. I will put some pictures on here later. Yes, just Tom and I. Angel won't let me take Kayli but we have webcams so she won't forget what we look like. Don't laugh, we're serious.

GOD BLESS AND HAVE A GREAT SPRING BREAK EVERYONE.

March 11, 2010

38 years ago, I married a man that I knew would be the best dad for my children in the world. I wasn't wrong. He's even the best dad for other people's children too. I was very fortunate and with what we have been through, our marriage has survived. We are very blessed and I thank God for him every day.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, TOM

I LOVE YOU AND I AM LUCKY THAT YOU ARE STILL IN MY LIFE.

THANK YOU, GOD, FOR THAT BLESSING.

LIVE SIMPLY, LOVE GENEROUSLY,

CARE DEEPLY,

LAUGH OFTEN,

AND LEAVE THE REST TO GOD.

This is a great recipe for life.

ANNIVERSARY TIME

This is Will's two year anniversary of the day he got his lungs. We need to acknowledge this day. Someone gave a very huge gift to him two years ago today. I pray for them and hope someday they (the donor's family) will get to realize the hope they gave to so many. Will was never sorry that he went for the transplant. NEVER. I hope everyone that comes in contact with anything to do with Will, signs a donor card. That would be a great thing to do in Will's memory.

GOD BLESS ALL DONORS' FAMILIES

STATE AGAIN

The Jerome Lady Tigers have made it to State again. FANTASTIC!

They play in Meridian Thursday night.

We will be there.

This is the last of the girls that Will coached on his team. They mean a lot to us and we wish them well. They can go far but to us, they are already winners!!!!

GOOD LUCK

I decided to change Will's picture. I hope everyone likes it.

It was Angel's birthday on January 28th. She turned 28 years old. What a wonderful woman she is, and a great mom, too. Tom and I feel very, very proud of her and I hope she knows that.

Happy Birthday, baby girl.

We love you so much.

Here is the cutest picture of Kayli---(do I say that about all of them???? forgive me) It looks like she is saying "What??? I didn't do anything! It was the cat."

Kayli turned six months old on the 9th of February. Happy half year birthday little girl.

She is such a H U G E blessing to all of us. God made sure he gave us the perfect little girl with the biggest smiles. Thank you, God.

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Here is Kayli getting her church clothes on. This is a little outfit Grandma picked up for her. It even had a little feather hat for her to wear. She was so stylin'.























Below:

is Aaron's team playing the Super Bowl. Even though the Colts didn't win, Aaron was proud of his team just getting there.

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Here is little Kayli all bundled up for our first walk in the stroller. Angel and I took her to visit the nursing home right down the street. Boy, was she a hit. We need to do more of that because it made their day. (and of course, Kayli loved the attention because she doesn't get enough of it at home. hee hee)


































Just another cute picture-she is almost always like this. She loves life. I think we could all learn from her.













SO..................................
It has been a while since I have put anything on here. We have been going forward in this thing called life. Getting stuff taken care of. One of the most important things has been writing the scholarship application for Will's memorial scholarship. We are so proud of that and we will let you all know when we award that to a young man and young woman from Jerome High School.



This has been a rough week. Some weeks are just better than others. We had to finalize Will's headstone and pick out a "perfect" picture out of hundreds and hundreds to go on the bench. That was rough because there isn't just one. We tried to find one that showed his funny, honery side. If you all know him, you know what "look" we were looking for. We are hoping that they will be able to set his stone bench before his birthday in April. Then we finished writing the scholarship application description of Will. That was harder than you would think. We had to put his "description" in a couple of paragraphs. Well, I could write a book about that so we really had our work cut out for us. It came out good, I hope.

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When someone who gives your life meaning dies, it makes you feel lost.

No matter how much you have prepared for it----you're not prepared.

No matter how many words we were allowed to share at the end,
there were still things we didn't get to say.

Someone who has brought us joy and laughter is not here anymore,

Life is not the same and sometimes it just hurts.

But then......Kayli smiles and we know how good life is again.
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I want to share with some of you what I have been pondering. (Some of you already have been led down this road.)
Nothing but the great "bumps in the road" that we have experienced, would have ever led us to know God as we have, and to draw from Him the measure of peace we have needed to continue on during these times. I am so glad that Will came to know what was waiting for him. That gives this mother's heart peace, most of the time. Our God is so awesome and I thank Him for the blessings He has given us.

One of the best blessings God gave us is all of you who love Will and Will's family.

Thank you and we love you right back at ya.

GOD BLESS

So here are the pictures that I promised (a little late)

Here is Kayli Mae taking a bath

She's just like her mom, she really, really loves the water.

This is Kayli in her new high chair that Grandma and Grandpa have at their house. We almost lost her in that chair. She looks so small but she is growing so quickly.

Here is a picture of Aunt Kim giving her a taste of pickle.

We thought it was so cute that she didn't like the taste at all.

Well....look down at the next picture

She's eating it all by herself. She LOVES them.

Now the next set of pictures is a great bunch.

We (the family) had another first.

Tonight we went to our first basketball game in Jerome since Will has been gone.

Here is Angel and Kayli watching something funny. Although Angel's face is funny enough there, I don't know what she was watching.

Kayli was so funny, she just kept yelling at the top of her voice. Everyone was saying that she was yelling at the refs, but Uncle Will would never, ever allow that, so I think she was just showing support.

Below:
This was the reason the family went to the game tonight. The school put up a permanent memorial board right underneath the score board in Will's honor.

They also said a little something about Will and the memorial scholarship that will be in his name. At our meeting last week we decided that we will offer a$500 scholarship to a boy and girl. So they announced that. The crowd was very loud. How great that was.

Here are we standing underneath the sign. You all need to go and see this. Pretty impressive, huh?

(and notice-we won the game too)

Most of you know us and know how hard it was going into that gym. That was Will's life, passion, and joy. We all decided that it was harder than we thought but we made it through and we saw so many of the kids that Will coached, many parents that we knew, and lots and lots of friends surrounding us ONCE AGAIN. We will go again. The school's staff is amazing and made all this possible. What a great gift to Will's memory.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

GOD BLESS EVERYONE THAT MADE THIS POSSIBLE.

I'm not very good about posting blogs anymore, am I?

I guess I just know this is Will's blog and there's not much to say. Maybe a few things now and then that are meaningful. Will's team the Dallas Cowboys are still in the running and doing great so all of you can cheer them on for Will. After the last game, Matt (our nephew) called and said Will is grinning big and chewing on a red vine right now. That's a great picture to put in our head, isn't it. Makes you smile.





Like maybe I will blog in a few weeks because we are getting ready to set up the "guidelines" on Will's scholarship. We have been raising money and we think we have enough to offer TWO scholarships, one for a boy and one for a girl. This is soooooooooooo special. We are very excited to be a part of something that will impact students and remind people what Will was all about. We will have a few other people helping along with Angel and Aaron. But we were trying to decide what GPA to put on the requirements and Brent told me that we needed it to be at least 3.5. The reason being is that Will ALWAYS had high standards and there is no reason that his scholarship shouldn't continue with that. I like that. Something of his 'standards' being carried on. He was always on his team to be better-do better in school. Will knew that that was the cornerstone that you had to build your life.



Even though Will is gone from us, he's still able to influence young minds. What a great memorial to him. I pray that we can keep this scholarship going every year.

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Kayli update

Kayli has been sick, it seems like forever. She had pneumonia and she's just getting over it. I'll tell you, you would think that I could handle something as "simple" as pneumonia after what I have been through with Will-----well, guess again. I was a basket case. That's not good either. Boy, I turned into one of those "grandmothers from ____ (fill in the blank). I was so nervous. What's up with that???? Anyway, after much pacing the floor, praying and holding her whenever I could, she's better. Thank you God. I did have a little talk with her and told her she couldn't do that again to us. Tom and I are toooooo old for this.

Angel got very sick also and so they had a double whammy to take care of at their house. Angel still has a terrible cough but I think she's getting better.

But the good news (at least for Tom and I) is that they are doing some remodeling on their house and they are staying with us for a few weeks. FANTASTIC! It is so much fun to have them (all of them) in the house when I get home from work. What a blessing family is. I know I have said it before but I will say it again--FAMILY IS EVERYTHING!!!!!

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I PROMISE I WILL POST SOME PICS OF THE SWEET PRINCESS THIS WEEK.

GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU