When God closes a door; he opens a window.I love opening the windows. I especially love it first thing in the morning when I open the blinds and then slide the windows open and the rooms are suddenly filled with light and a breath of fresh air. Less than 10 months after her older brother Christopher passed away, and just weeks after her cousin Ashleigh was diagnosed with a brain tumor, the birth of Tara brought light and a breath of fresh air to our family. Tara was a beautiful baby girl who brought a lot of joy and healing with her. It is appropriate that her middle name is Angela, she was truly an angel to all of us. She has always been an angel to me.
I had the opportunity to babysit Tara when she was a baby.
We all loved her at our house, it was fun to have a baby around. Ashleigh, who was nearly 3 1/2 when Tara was born often referred to her as "my baby", her little friends had baby brothers and sisters so I think she must have "adopted" Tara as hers.
When Tara was a pre-schooler her family moved away from Utah. It was very difficult to see them go. When they came back for visits or if we went to visit them we could always count on big smiles and hugs from Tara. She has always been a beautiful girl with a beautiful smile. For many years we had all hoped that Tara's family would come back to Utah, but I think that Tara was destined to be a California girl.
For many years during the summer Tara and her younger brother AJ would come to visit. Although they stayed at Granpa and Granma's house we always had a least one sleepover with Tara, Caitlin, and Chelsea. Tara was the oldest by a few years and I always thought that she was a nice "big" cousin for spending time with her younger cousins who thought that she was pretty cool. During a visit one summer Tara, Caitlin, and I watched the entire 6 hours of
Pride And Prejudice in less than 2 days, and we all loved Mr. Darcy.
Two summers ago we went to the beach house with Tara's family and Granpa and Granma. Tara, Marivic, Caitlin, and I went to LA to see the musical
Wicked together. It was a fun and memorable evening.
Some fun things to know about Tara: She loves to read and to write (check out her
blog), she loves to sing and has performed in her high school musicals (including the lead), she was a cheerleader in Jr. high school, she attended the 1st
and 2nd grade in one school year,
she has a sense of style, in elementary school she had her own club called "The Tara-dactils",
her senior pictures were so beautiful last year that her photo was front and center on the advertising mail out for this years senior's, she has been to the Philippines, she visited Ireland and England last summer, she's artistic, she's a college student, she's beautiful inside and out, she loves her family, she works at a shoe store, she loves sushi, she has a dog named Jake.
Our family was truly blessed on the day that Tara was born. I am so grateful that she's in our family and I hope she knows how much we love her.
Tara's picture on the advertisement
