'God Bless Us Everyone' - Andrea Bocelli - part one

I'm on a mission to get caught up on my blogging before the end of the month. It's only January and I'm already a month behind! Ha! But what a month it's been. More on that later. But I'll start with our 2010 Christmas Eve.

Probably the most meaningful thing we did was completely unexpected. We had been planning on opening our family time capsule when we were all finally back together, but we didn't anticipate all the feelings it would evoke.

We created our time capsule on New Year's Eve, 1999, the night before a new century. We took this picture as we put it all together. Our oldest, Spencer, was 11 and baby Benji was 2.

Look how young we were!

We wondered how well our little bundle would survive the elements, buried under a rock in our backyard. We put everything in a rubbermaid container, and wrapped it in duck tape. We should do a commercial, because it was in relatively perfect condition! Only the ringpop and candy cane the little ones had put in were gooey.

Each of the kids had put something special of theirs in the time capsule...we laughed as we pulled out pokemon cards, a Kid's Sports Illustrated, art projects, a cassette tape, microwave popcorn, one of Benji's favorite bedtime stories, and a Furby! Remember those?

We had also had each member of the family fill out a questionnaire, and it was a roller coaster of emotions as we sat around the table and read them aloud. Sarah shed a few tears, and we all laughed...a lot! Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. It was truly, such a choice memory for me.

I can't believe how fast the time has gone. The newspaper headlines and grocery receipts we'd saved were proof that time has passed, and as I looked around the table at my babies, who aren't babies anymore, I felt a rush of gratitude, and a little regret. I wish I wouldn't have blinked. Oh, to do all again.