The Shoe

When my cancer came back in 2008, my oncologist gave Brad and I some advice. She said, "Now that you are stage 4, you need to think about the things you want to do and do them. Don't wait and say you will do them next year." Shortly after that doctors visit, I told Brad I really wanted to take the kids to Disney. It took almost a year, but we saved, studied and planned and made the trip happen. At the time Trent was five and Ian was two. In a perfect world, I would have waited until they were a little older, but it turned out all right and we had a great time!

A couple of days ago I unearthed the scrap book I made from our Disney trip. The boys and I huddled in bed looking at the pictures and talking about our wonderful memories we made. When we got to the end of the book, Trent motioned to the very back which has a picture of a shoe with writing on it. I had totally forgotten the shoe story, but it made me laugh as I read it to them. The story on the shoe said:

'When Brad looked at this scrap book he pointed out that one key story had yet to be told. The story consists of a shoe, a hotel safe, two little boys, and one security guard. Our first morning Brad tried to lock the laptop in the room safe, but couldn't get the door to open. So, the second morning when I saw that Ian had opened the safe my only thoughts were of what a bright two-year-old he must be. Both boys then huddled around the safe while Brad and I finished getting everything ready for the day. Once we were dressed, the backpacks were packed and the room straightened we asked the boys to put on their shoes. That is when Trents started laughing and said, "Ian put his shoe in the safe and closed it, that means he can't go." Upon further investigation, we discovered that Ian was FRAMED! To add insult to injury, clever Trent had locked not Ian's, but his OWN shoe in the safe. It quickly became the scene of chaos. Trent sobbing that he was going to be left behind, Brad yelling about how we can't take the boys anywhere, and Ian with both shoes, jacket and backpack on repeating, "I ready to go now." We had to wait about 10 minutes for the stoic security guard to come and open the safe. That's when I could finally start laughing.'