It's the simple things we say thank you for

It is a beautiful day here in Adelaide, it is overcast  and a little showery but there is a gentle breeze and its quite mild.  My 21 month old daughter Ella is collecting pebbles from around the garden.  Riley our fury guardian is watching over her closely, patrolling the yard making sure its all safe.  Every now and then he will pinch her pebble collecting pot and scatter them all over the lawn, which causes Ella to stomp her foot in frustration and start collecting all over again.  This has been going on for over an hour and I never get tired of watching.  It wont be long until my 3 month old son Jake joins us.  I can't wait to see him share in the wonder of life, the simple pleasures of collecting pebbles, picking up leaves that have blown off the trees and getting covered from head to foot in mud.  

I should be doing house work as I can see it starting to fall apart and look like something out of hoarders again but it is a public holiday so I figured why not leave it until tomorrow.  Today is a special day, it is ANZAC day.  While some think of the 25th April as a day off, for many Australians is a sacred day, it is when we give thanks to those who gave their lives for us in war, to protect our lifestyle to make it so I can sit here under the verandah watching my daughter play.  I often think about what it would have been like for those men and women of service, how terrified they would have been to be so far from home and those that loved them.  The sheer horror at having to fire a weapon and potentially end someone's life, the fear of being killed or ending up a prisoner of war.  It's something we will never ever comprehend. So I say thank you, thank you for all that you did, had to do, forced to do.  Our world would be a very different place had these sacrifices not been made.

Lest we forget.

Lisa