It almost didn’t happen. I mean, she tried to cancel it all but Oma told her the dinner was already in the oven and the table set so the birthday party would be happening even it it mean not all could be there. In fact, I and my brother were already there when she tried to cancel, so if nothing else, we would have had a wonderful mean with just the four of us – my folks, my brother and myself.

The date for this family celebration had been chosen over two weeks ago and the occasion was set in motion over two dozen years ago. Oh I well remember the events of the 24 hours before the birth of my baby.

On the Sunday the 14th, I was incredibly busy as it was the day for our Sunday School Christmas Program and as the SS Director, that meant I was directing the program. It was a magical evening and as I was at the door shaking hands with all as they left, I had so many best wishes as everyone knew I was having my baby soon! We were up by 4:30 am on that Monday as we had a catering job for a Christmas Party at 6:30 that evening and the turkeys needed to get in the oven.

Then is was off to the hospital about an hour from home to have a baby. The day seemed to be taking forever as my eye was constantly on the clock. I knew the turkey was cooking, but the rest of the meal still needed to be cooked as well, and my hubby was at the hospital with me when he needed to be in that catering kitchen. We had agreed that he needed to be on his way no later than 5 so he could be ready to serve the guests at 7pm. Still no baby at 4:30.

But God heard my prayers that day and just before 5 my beautiful baby girl was born. Daddy held her, looked in her eyes and claimed her as precious and then passed her to me and left. I was so thankful she was born before he had to leave; but it all happened so fast, we never even had a chance to name her.

Later that night I tried to call home only to discover that due to some storm that about 80% of the city of Red Deer had no phone system. No phone calls out, no phone calls in. The city was in disaster mode – and would be for the next 3 days as that’s how long it took to restore phone service. It was an interesting few days watching a city cope without phone service. No 911, no fire calls, no lots of things. And the hospital was overflowing because there were so many of us they were discharging, but we had no way to call anyone to come get us. We were sent home Friday.

I know that the story of her birth made for some rather unusual reports. When we left the hospital, she didn’t even have a name yet as I hadn’t spoken with her dad since moments after her birth, so the paperwork was all filled out as “Baby Girl” and the clerk told me I had until 4 pm that day to call her or that’s what her birth certificate would read. The clerk made this special concession to procedure for us only because of the no phone fiasco of the previous days so she knew why there was no name chosen yet.

So in between carving turkeys and tossing salads for the 200 people at the luncheon, we did manage to pick a name. Our beautiful baby girl became Heather Grace. Heather – for she’s named in honor of her mom, sort of – you see, in Germany there is a flower named Erica, and the same flower in Canada is called Heather. And the Grace – for she truly is a gift from God as this pregnancy had so many issues, concerns and risks and even the events of that week made us realize that she was healthy and beautiful because of His Grace and His grace alone.

My how I ramble. All those memories flooded back to me as she’s trying to cancel her birthday party. She was cancelling not because she wasn’t looking forward to it … but we were in the middle of a huge snow storm, the roads were horrible, visibility was almost nil and she didn’t want people on the roads unnecessarily. There was no cancellation – two were already there, and we knew her sister was already en-route via public transit. We made arrangement her the other sister to pick up the birthday girl in her boyfriends 4×4 and we knew her brother would also have no problems getting there in his truck.

Supper was tasty, hospitality was warm, gifts were opened, pictures were taken and the cake was cut. It was a wonderful evening. The fellas even shoveled Opa’s driveway of the 18 inches of snow that was falling from the sky and Tim managed to fiddle with Opa’s snow blower and managed to get it started for the first time this winter.

Tonight, the celebration was shorter that most as everyone was later in getting there due to the roads and all wanted to get home before it got much worse. I was last to leave and I almost thought I wasn’t leaving as I got stuck in the heavy snow in the road in from of my parents house once I backed off their driveway. It took me a bit of back and forth … but I did finally get moving. The main roads were a bit better as they had had more traffic on them. I was glad to get home though.

And I give thanks for my youngest darling daughter. Heather Grace is such a blessing and she lives life with a sparkle. She’s now a pastry chef and she’s happiest with her mixer, eggs, flour, sugar butter and her vision to make up a batch of sweetness. She’s also an artist! Only an artist could create the incredible cakes she’s made. She has the talent and the creativity to challenge some of those chefs of Food Network and what she can create with simple sugar – well it’s amazing! Just like she is.

Oh, if you don’t believe and think this is just the rambling of a bragging mom, then see for yourself – she has some photos on her site. Then tell me she’s not talented!

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The sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach seems bottomless.

It’s gone – all of it gone.

I haven’t been on the site in weeks and on this site on months and yesterday I needed some info on my personal site – and it was gone.  Empty white space when I went to the domain name.

I knew it wasn’t some I had done as I checked on several computers and always the same results.  So I’m on the phone with the hosting company to ask – where have you put my website.

They check – all the other sites are up and working fine.  Just my personal domain and this journal.  But they have no idea as to why or what, so they will investigate… and see if it’s in their back up of their system.

A couple of hours later, they inform me that their back shows that the sites been gone for a couple of weeks and they wonder if I have a copy.  Ha!

Yes, I have a copy of my website on my hard drive- that’s where it was created and so it’s there.  But this is a Word Press site and it’s not created on my hard drive … and that I don’t have backups for because it’s not a html coded page but in some database system somewhere – and that’s all beyond my techy understanding.

They say they’ll check more and get back to me.  I give them the information I have – yes, I keep fairly detailed records.

A couple of hours later they let me know they found the database and they can rebuild the site.  That’s good because I wouldn’t know where to begin or what to do.  I just do the writing, not the restoring.

So now all has been restored.  I reloaded my website and it’s functioning as well… but I’m going to have to do a little work to let Google know I’m still around.  The site was down long enough for Google to notice.  Guess that means I really should be checking in more often.   I’ll try to do better.

Just for the record, just because I don’t put my praises online, doesn’t mean I’m not thankful.  I am thankful.  And this year more than before.

I consider each new day a gift from God! every friend an honor to know! and all backups a priceless blessing!  

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