Mason Gregory Garka

Maybe I am coming late to this party. By now we all know the story of Brittany Maynard. The 29 year old who is choosing to take her own life before cancer takes it from her.  All you need to do is google Brittany Maynard and 6.4 millions hits come up. So I am joining the conversation late.  Except I am not conversing I am simply writing her a letter she may or may not ever see. Dear Brittany, I am so sorry. I am sorry you are terminal. I am sorry you have no hope. I am sorry you have given up and most of all I am sorry others have given up on you. When we know someone is suicidal we don’t encourage them. Instead, we wrap our arms around them, we tell them we love them and we work to get them help. We intervene. I am sorry that few have jumped into intervene for you. Maybe it is due to their belief that you are better off dead or that they are afraid that it would be selfish to ask you to suffer on their behalf. Wow. Brittany, There is more...

I was recently asked this question: What are you most passionate about? My initial thought was how do I sum this up???? So I asked my husband to help me summarize... In short this is what we came up with as a response. The thing that I am most passionate about (aside from my family)  is helping others overcome adversity in their life.   About seven years ago my husband and I learned that our unborn son would be born with a heart defect called HLHS (Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrom).   To keep it short, this meant that he was going to be born with half of a heart and would require three major open heart surgeries within his first four years of life in order to get blood and oxygen to all the places in his body that require it.  This was obviously a devastating blow as my husband and I were so excited to start a family and have our first child.  Through a lot of prayer, support from friends and family, and an amazing medical resource at Children's Hospita...

We got back into port at 8am. The original plan was to do some sight seeing and then head back on the train departing at 5:30pm. This is our luggage. Ummmm not sure what we were thinking. How are we supposed to cart it around with two tired kids???? This sounded great before the trip began. Now that it was over it sounded like a nightmare! Mason and Kendall were tired and we were tired. Thankfully my Mom said she would drive to Vancouver and rescue us. Once we got off the boat we took a taxi back to the train station where we waited 1.5 hours until she arrived and then in the car we went and before we knew it we were back home! THANK YOU MOM! We survived the BEST and LONGEST trip we have yet to take as a family. Then we blinked.  Within a few short hours I was back to work (and what a week to return...SERIOUSLY) and Mason started Kindergarten!

Today the Disney Cruise arranged a special meet and greet for Mason and Kendall! Finally after 7 days Kendall decided she would actual hug Mickey!!! They even walked around the boat with Mickey... Which made both Kendall and Mason feel really special since they were the envy of all kids who walked by! The Captain of the boat even stopped in for a visit! Once we were done visiting with Mickey it was off to meet Anna and Elsa! Don't let this face fool you. He was EXCITED! Goodbyes are always the hardest!!! Danielle. She was our Disney host and arranged a lot of fun activities for us. She was also the one behind all of the goodies left in our room each night..... Lito. Was our head server and with us each night at dinner! Jack was our Assistant Server and also with us each night... In fact speaking of dinner. Here are a few photos from our dinner shenanigans from the entire cruise! ...