{"id":4186,"date":"2017-12-26T14:24:21","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T14:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/?p=4186"},"modified":"2017-12-26T14:24:21","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T14:24:21","slug":"the-day-after-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/?p=4186","title":{"rendered":"The day after"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday we were up early and on our way by 10 am. By noon we picked up Grandma and headed to Tom and Ali&#8217;s. Soon after we arrived Shelly made it and then their friend John. For the next few hours we did our best to have a family Christmas that for the first time, was not at Moms. In the end I gave Tommy a hug and told him Mom would have been proud. We all had fun opening presents, laughing, and hanging out together. Still though, of course, it just wasn&#8217;t the same. I remembered though, as Mom always said, you do what you have to do, and so we did.<\/p>\n<p>Lori, Grandma, the boys and I left about 4:30 and headed for the Marriott in Cherry Creek. I booked a couple of rooms so we could spend the night. We made it down by about 5 and checked in and then went to dinner downstairs. The food was so so but we visited and then Lori and I took Dixie back to Greg and Jae&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>By 8 pm we were back in our room and soon after in bed. The boys were tired and we ordered them some more food and left them on their own.<\/p>\n<p>We woke at 6 and headed up to the Concierge Floor (I&#8217;m a Gold Marriott guy, ha) for some coffee and breakfast. The stores open at 8 so we&#8217;ll head over across the street to the mall and exchange a few things. Then we&#8217;ll go see Grandma before heading up the hill.<\/p>\n<p>It was a nice Christmas although sad with Mom gone. There&#8217;s nothing that can replace Mom, so I\/m trying to just have her &#8220;live on&#8221; in spirit and in my memory. It must have been a dozen times yesterday I thought of her. Somebody would say something or sit a certain way or a song would come on the radio, that would make me think of her. We all miss her so much and wish she was here but of course she&#8217;s not. I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;ll take time but life will never be the same. The one thing I&#8217;ve come to realize is how precious life is and how one absolutely must take the time to cherish each day, spend time with family, don&#8217;t sweat the small stuff and tell those you love, that you love them. Not much else matters.<\/p>\n<p>Have a great day, rest up for New Years, and remember, my birthday is on the 29th, ha. God Bless and we love you all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday we were up early and on our way by 10 am. By noon we picked up Grandma and headed to Tom and Ali&#8217;s. Soon after we arrived Shelly made it and then their friend John. For the next few &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/?p=4186\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.2011familymakeover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}