I have Served My Country...

I just hope that I have served it well. So today, we wrapped up the trial that I was chosen to be on the Jury for. It was a huge corporation against a family not far from here (Naples). I guess I am glad of the decision that we made, I had to be convinced by listening to the other jurors reasoning, but I held my ground along with one other poor soul for 4 hours against the others. It came down to, was the boy who was injured and eventually passed away from complications caused by his severe burns to blame, or was the gas container in which he was using at fault. The Plaintiffs case was VERY convincing, but the other jurors and eventually myself and the one other poor soul I mentioned eventually decided that we had to go with what we had seen or heard and not necesarily what we felt. It stinks when your head and your heart do not agree.



On a MUCH lighter note, we celebrated Colton's 4th birthday Saturday evening here at our house. The bash kicked off just after 5 p.m. and was all fun and food and games from then untill we wrapped up around 9 (yes our parties are long, but they are for the entire family and the families of all our guest). To begin the evening, Mr. Lloyd Heard from here in Naples brought his 4-wheeler train (the cars are made from old 55 gal drums) and took us for 2 nice long rides around our neighborhood. The kids, moms and even grandmas seemed to really enjoy there turns and the dads and grandpa's and uncles must have gotten a kick out of watching us too. After the train rides were over the activities migrated back to our house and back yard for some good old hot dogs and chips. While we were eating the kids enjoyed playing in the yard and the adults had some relaxing down time while catching up with old friends. After everyone ate we came inside for Colton to open gifts. Our children are so blessed, I hope that I can do an adequate job as a parent to teach them that in their young lives. And as if that weren't enough to fill one evening, we then sang "Happy Birthday" to the special boy and had cake and icecream.



I appologize if ever I just ramble on and on, but I love my family so much and my life would not be the same without any of them.



Thank you for joining our wild and crazy ride through this journey we all call life. Maybe some of the craziness has subsided for a little while, but I will let you all know.



Untill next time,

Ashleigh