Birthday Celebration

Rachelle and Sean have been planning Samantha's birthday celebration for months. They had planned on being able to unveil the headstone, but unfortunately it wasn't done in time. Saturday evening both Sean and our families met at the cemetery to enjoy some time at Sammie's grave. It was a beautiful evening and it was nice to be able to talk to everyone. The kids enjoyed seeing the grave and talking about Samantha.

 Rachelle talked a little about the headstone that they ordered then gave everyone a gift from Samantha. She gave us each a butterfly out of seed paper so we can go home and plant the butterflies and then flowers will grow.

 Then Rachelle talked about an Indian legend that says if you whisper a wish to a butterfly then let it go free, it will carry the wish to heaven (to Samantha) and it will be granted. So Rachelle let each of the kids whisper a wish to the box of butterflies.

 Then she opened up the box and let the butterflies go. This part, for some reason, got me really emotional. I knew she was going to do a butterfly release, but watching all the butterflies fly around was a very neat experience while thinking about Samantha.

 

 Some of the butterflies decided to hang out with us. One butterfly in particular stayed and let all the kids hold it. It was neat to feel Samantha's presence through the butterflies.

 After the cemetery we all came back to our house for a bbq. We had lots of food and lots of fun.

 Rachelle had a nice table set up with some special things. It was neat to look through the scrapbooks. I spent the last 2 weeks putting together a cd with the medley I arranged for Sammie's funeral as well as the songs from her funeral dvd on it. I made a cover and cd label and made one for everyone. We had the music playing in the background. It was a beautiful evening for a beautiful girl. Happy birthday Samantha. We love you and miss you!