Last night...

As Tim was grilling on our back deck, this is what he saw....Isn't the sky beautiful? It reminds us of Kara. We know our angel is up there. :)

Beautiful & Fun Weekend

The weather was in the 70's all weekend, and Kathy's best friends from college were in town visiting! Sue and Sharon flew in from Rhode Island, and we enjoyed catching up ( LONG talks), soaking in the hot tub, eating out, and the hilarious movie 'Bounty Hunter' at the Alamo Cinema Drafthouse. Can't wait to visit with them again. Tim and I are planning a visit to see them in RI during the summer. :)

The Music Room

Kara's bedroom is now our new music room. It was Tim's great idea, and is very fitting because of Kara's love of music.  We had the 'keepsake' from Kara's memorial service framed, and we are so pleased with the way it looks. As you can tell in the pictures, we displayed some of Kara's favorite things in the room. We look forward to spending time playing music in the room, relaxing, and thinking about all of the beautiful memories we created with Kara during her life.

Blog Book

Our first blog, http://karaannelang.blogspot.com, as most know, was started to document the birth and adoption of our daughter, Kara.  The blog began about two weeks prior to Kara's birth, and ended after her memorial service on January 2, 2010.  Tim found a very cool website, www.blurb.com, that can be used to turn a blog into a book.  Tim was able to format each of the approximately 275 pages exactly the way he wanted. He enlarged pictures and arranged everything beautifully.  Kathy helped with the editing, and some of the content.  After we were completely satisfied with the design, it was uploaded and published. We couldn't be happier with the outcome. It is the most special book of our Kara, that we will treasure forever. 

We wanted to let everyone know that it is available for purchase, if you are interested in owning your very own copy. As I mentioned before, it's a large book--over 275 pages, and contains more than 600 pictures.  If you are interested, you can contact Tim at his email address, tmlang74@yahoo.com. 

Pittsburgh Trip

Tim and Kathy spent a long weekend together in Pittsburgh, PA, and celebrated their 5th anniversary. We stayed at the Marriott downtown, where it snowed several of the days while we were there...and it was cold.  Will this winter ever end???  The time alone was great, and we ended up really enjoying our weekend.  The visit to the Carnegie Natural History & Art Museum was fun and interesting. The highlight of our trip was the concert at the Mellon Arena on Saturday night. Tim took a picture of the arena outside of our hotel room--which was upgraded to a suite at no extra charge. :)  We listened to Caleb Chapman, Kutless, and our favorite band, Casting Crowns.  The concert was awesome, which made the trip very worthwhile.

The Kara Anne Lang Memorial Scholarship

The Lang and Hennessey families have established the Kara Anne Lang Memorial Scholarship, at Eastern Kentucky University.  This endowed scholarship will be awarded annually to a junior or senior music education student who we hope will inspire children to love music as much as our Kara loved music.  We have been fortunate to start this as an endowed scholarship, and have committed to annual giving for the next 16 years.  The 16 years is significant because that is when Kara would have started college.  Kathy and Tim plan on giving well beyond the 16 year mark to make sure the scholarship has a solid endowment to continue long after we have joined Kara in heaven.

We are asking family and friends who love Kara to consider donating towards her scholarship.  Over the next several years those donations will make a big difference in a student's education and their future--in Kara's honor.

For those who may wish to donate to that effort, checks should be made to the EKU Foundation with Kara Anne Lang Memorial Scholarship written in the memo line.  The mailing address is:

EKU Development Office
CPO 19A
521 Lancaster Avenue
Richmond, KY  40475

In case you were wondering...Eastern Kentucky was chosen because Kara’s father, Tim, her grandparents, Tom and Barbara Hennessey, great-grandparents, and other members of the family are Eastern Kentucky alumni.

Celebrating February Birthdays

Thankfully we didn't have any more snow this weekend, and we were able to travel to Virginia to celebrate Aidan's and Krista's birthdays. Aidan turned 8 yrs old on February 8th, and Krista turned 35 on February 9th. We enjoyed a very nice brunch, as well as cake and yummy cupcakes. Although it was really good to spend time with all of our family, it was the first time we have gotten together for a special occasion without Kara being there with us.  It seemed very obvious to Tim and Kathy that Kara was missing, and that was difficult.  We know our angel Kara will always be with us in our hearts.

More Snow Pictures

Tim wanted everyone to see proof of all the snow he has had to shovel in the past couple of days.

February 2010 Blizzard

The snow started falling yesterday around 11 am, and has not stopped.  Tim has shoveled the sidewalks and driveway twice with the help of our very nice neighbor and his snow blower.  Unfortunately, Tim has to shovel a path every time he lets the dogs outside to go to the bathroom.  It will be interesting to see if the plows can make a good dent in this HUGE accumulation tomorrow.  The picture with the tape measure in the snow was taken at 10:30 am this morning. See how clear the deck and hot tub are in the last picture? Tim and I will definitely enjoy getting in it later tonight. The dogs are enjoying the snow--mostly they like to eat it. They're not stupid, because they won't even attempt to go into it where Tim hasn't shoveled. 

I posted this on Facebook, so bear with me if you've already read this there....While Tim was out shoveling, he was trying to focus on positive things while feeling pain in his back lifting tons of snow.  He imagined a conversation between God and Kara.  God asked Kara about one of the things she enjoyed most while living on Earth, and Kara answered "snow!" We know that God has a sense of humor, and we can imagine Kara laughing and being very excited up in heaven about the record amount of snow that is being dumped upon us down here. :)

Samantha's new hangout room

Tim converted Kara's playroom into Samantha's new hangout room.  Samantha was allowed to pick out the new wall color, and she picked orange.  We took the TV and computer out of Samantha's bedroom, along with the sleeper sofa from the basement, and put them into the new room.  Tim purchased two pieces of plexiglass, and turned them into dry erase boards for Samantha to write on.  We also hung the collage of Kara's photographs that Samantha designed to honor her little sister.