Trades of Hope

Selah Farm Thanksgiving 2023 ✅
Carrying on the tradition my parents started so many decades ago. Love breaking bread with family, friends, strangers, international students, and more. Missing some family today, but feeling thankful. 🧡

272 7

Open

Selah Farm Thanksgiving 2023 ✅
Carrying on the tradition my parents started so many decades ago. Love breaking bread with family, friends, strangers, international students, and more. Missing some family today, but feeling thankful. 🧡

I thank God every single day that social media didn’t exist in 2003. #highschoolthenandnow

635 53

Open

I thank God every single day that social media didn’t exist in 2003. #highschoolthenandnow

She’s been gone 21 years, but it feels like I blinked.

323 12

Open

She’s been gone 21 years, but it feels like I blinked.

God is in the details.

57 5

Open

Happy 30th Anniversary to the Vietnam Women’s Memorial! What an incredible day with incredible veteran friends. I pray that I was able to honor my mom 🇺🇸 She should have been here. ❤️

Happy Veteran’s Day to all who have so selflessly served. ❤️

133 6

Open

Happy 30th Anniversary to the Vietnam Women’s Memorial! What an incredible day with incredible veteran friends. I pray that I was able to honor my mom 🇺🇸 She should have been here. ❤️

Happy Veteran’s Day to all who have so selflessly served. ❤️

Today was so special. I had the privilege of representing my mom as she was posthumously honored (among six other incredible women veterans) at the Military Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery @womensmemorial. I was able to reconnect with and hug so many dear sister and brother Vietnam veterans that I hadn’t seen in a few decades. We hugged, laughed, and cried as we shared stories.

We ended the night with a candlelight ceremony at the Vietnam Veteran’s Women’s Memorial. And to answer your question, no.. I can’t get through listening to taps while I watch as a bunch of retired Veterans salute. 😭

This weekend, instead of taking advantage of mattress sales, thank a veteran for his or her service. 🇺🇸 #veteransday🇺🇸

273 13

Open

Today was so special. I had the privilege of representing my mom as she was posthumously honored (among six other incredible women veterans) at the Military Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery @womensmemorial. I was able to reconnect with and hug so many dear sister and brother Vietnam veterans that I hadn’t seen in a few decades. We hugged, laughed, and cried as we shared stories.

We ended the night with a candlelight ceremony at the Vietnam Veteran’s Women’s Memorial. And to answer your question, no.. I can’t get through listening to taps while I watch as a bunch of retired Veterans salute. 😭

This weekend, instead of taking advantage of mattress sales, thank a veteran for his or her service. 🇺🇸 #veteransday🇺🇸

My once in a decade “visiting where I grew up” photo dump 👉🏼

1️⃣ where I carved my name in the cement of the sidewalks I lobbied the town council for when I was 8
2️⃣ in front of my childhood home
3️⃣ on my sidewalks. Yes. They are mine. I put them there.
4️⃣ crying in front of the abandoned Tortilla Factory. May it rest in peace.
5️⃣ peering in the windows of the Tortilla Factory - the back room where the Tuesday night Folk Club met every week. Literally hasn’t changed in the 12 years it’s been closed.
6️⃣ downtown Herndon
7️⃣ at the Veteran’s memorial in downtown Herndon that my mom helped to dedicate when it was established.
8️⃣ visiting grandma
9️⃣ with my mama

312 29

Open

My once in a decade “visiting where I grew up” photo dump 👉🏼

1️⃣ where I carved my name in the cement of the sidewalks I lobbied the town council for when I was 8
2️⃣ in front of my childhood home
3️⃣ on my sidewalks. Yes. They are mine. I put them there.
4️⃣ crying in front of the abandoned Tortilla Factory. May it rest in peace.
5️⃣ peering in the windows of the Tortilla Factory - the back room where the Tuesday night Folk Club met every week. Literally hasn’t changed in the 12 years it’s been closed.
6️⃣ downtown Herndon
7️⃣ at the Veteran’s memorial in downtown Herndon that my mom helped to dedicate when it was established.
8️⃣ visiting grandma
9️⃣ with my mama

👇🏼SHARE IN THE COMMENTS: what or who are you grateful for? Tag them and tell them why! 🩵 #countyourblessings #countingmyblessings

54 1

Open

👇🏼SHARE IN THE COMMENTS: what or who are you grateful for? Tag them and tell them why! 🩵 #countyourblessings #countingmyblessings

Go Heels!

Kid’s first Carolina game ☑️

85 7

Open

30 years ago, I was nearly eight years old, and there I stood amongst a large crowd on a hot July day. I watched my mom, (in the video she’s in the blue dress on the right) as she stood alongside General Colin Powell, then-Senator John Kerry, Diane Carlson Evans, and more as she held a shovel in her hand and broke ground on our country’s first-ever monument to honor American military women: the Vietnam Women’s Memorial on the National Mall. A few months later, I stood in a larger crowd on a much cooler day in November and watched as that monument was unveiled.

Even in my eight-year-old ignorance, I knew how much the day meant to her as I’d watched her and Diane and so many other women fight so tirelessly for their fellow women veterans to be given the recognition and honor they so deserved.

This upcoming Veteran’s Day weekend marks 30 years since the unveiling of that monument, and I’m honored and humbled and endlessly grateful that this weekend, I will get to be there to represent my mom. I was asked to speak at the women’s memorial on Saturday morning and share my mom’s story. If she were still here, she would be there, just like she was every other Veteran’s Day.

I’m thankful that I’ll get to bring along my husband and kids and that they’ll get to stand in the cold just like I did all those years ago, but I pray that they know what a legacy their grandmother left and how even though she’s been gone 21 years, her memory lives on. I pray that the words I share honor her and all the other incredibly strong and brave women she served alongside in Vietnam.

If you’re in the DC area, I’d love to see you there. The storytelling ceremony will be from 9am-11am at the Women’s Memorial with a larger ceremony at the Wall at 1pm.

Side note - what I love most about this video clip is, you can hear my mom laugh. If you listen for the incredibly loud laughter… that’s her. ❤️

255 29

Open

30 years ago, I was nearly eight years old, and there I stood amongst a large crowd on a hot July day. I watched my mom, (in the video she’s in the blue dress on the right) as she stood alongside General Colin Powell, then-Senator John Kerry, Diane Carlson Evans, and more as she held a shovel in her hand and broke ground on our country’s first-ever monument to honor American military women: the Vietnam Women’s Memorial on the National Mall. A few months later, I stood in a larger crowd on a much cooler day in November and watched as that monument was unveiled.

Even in my eight-year-old ignorance, I knew how much the day meant to her as I’d watched her and Diane and so many other women fight so tirelessly for their fellow women veterans to be given the recognition and honor they so deserved.

This upcoming Veteran’s Day weekend marks 30 years since the unveiling of that monument, and I’m honored and humbled and endlessly grateful that this weekend, I will get to be there to represent my mom. I was asked to speak at the women’s memorial on Saturday morning and share my mom’s story. If she were still here, she would be there, just like she was every other Veteran’s Day.

I’m thankful that I’ll get to bring along my husband and kids and that they’ll get to stand in the cold just like I did all those years ago, but I pray that they know what a legacy their grandmother left and how even though she’s been gone 21 years, her memory lives on. I pray that the words I share honor her and all the other incredibly strong and brave women she served alongside in Vietnam.

If you’re in the DC area, I’d love to see you there. The storytelling ceremony will be from 9am-11am at the Women’s Memorial with a larger ceremony at the Wall at 1pm.

Side note - what I love most about this video clip is, you can hear my mom laugh. If you listen for the incredibly loud laughter… that’s her. ❤️