I'm exhausted. Tired at the core. We spent the day with Mom, with friends and with family. There was a little downtime, which you can see Susan took full advantage of in the awesome picture above.

Mike & Micky came by and so did Chad, both friends from back in the days when Jon, Susan and I were involved in Campus Life/Youth For Christ. Mike and I were leaders together at Everett High School and Chad was the leader for Okemos for Jon, Susan and I. They just naturally became connected into the family.

We were talking tonight about what a big heart my Mom has. Here's a story that really exemplifies it for us:

Cathie and my Mom were walking through the Mall and went into Hudsons. My Mom saw a woman, ran up to her and hugged her. They both realized that neither of them knew the other, and they probably stayed in contact afterwards and sent Christmas cards to each other for years.

There are a million stories just like this about my Mom. She loves people and people connect to her because she is a very genuine person.

The toughest part of today for me was when my son Nate was here. Nate, Cathie, my Mom, Dad and I all hung out in the room for a half hour talking. Nate sat there holding my Mom's hand, talking about life. There were moments when he was trying so hard not cry and be strong in all of this. I was sitting behind him with tears running down my eyes just watching him. Nate and I went for a walk afterwards and talked about it. It's hard for him, but he gets it. We talked about how this is a part of life, it sucks, but learning to be sad, understand it and work through stuff like this is part of life, and part of becoming a man - which is slowly becoming in such a great way.