The holiday season also reminds me of the journey I’ve been on for the last 17 years with this family of mine.  This picture was on our wedding day when the hope for our future was at an all time high (and I actually had a neck).  The road since them has been full of bumps and turns and up and down hills.  I wanted to include that sense of journey on our Christmas cards, so I had a good friend of ours and a agreat photographer use “journey” as our theme for Christmas this year.  No person seems to be happy at one time, as it often is.  It is hard for my husband and sons to believe that being part of a family is a messy business, and it is insane to think that should all nice and smooth all the time.  I think what makes this journey so hard is the expectations about what life “should” look like.  Perhaps that’s why I’ve retained my sanity here in crazy town…my expectations are limited to just a few axioms, and the commitment to roll with whatever comes.  The rules of what it means to be a family have changed for me since that day, which has been both a burden and a blessing.  But the journey keeps on, and somehow we continue to keep walking….together.