Her Stone is In!!!

Today I wanted to tell everyone how very excited we are that Karinne's stone is FINALLY INSTALLED!!  And it turned out beautiful!  

We have been hoping that the stone would be installed in time for Karinne's 1st Birthday on the 10th.  So I was very happy and overcome with emotion when I got a call that the guys were out there installing it Wednesday morning.  They wanted to make sure which side of the stone we wanted the vase on.  I just happened to be on a break at school so I drove out there real quick and called Curt to meet me.  It was a cold and blustery morning, so we didn't stay long.  But it was an oddly amazing feeling to see the stone ready to go in.

Wednesday evening we went out to the cemetery as a family to see how it turned out.  And to rearrange all of the decorations.  On Monday, Ian - our 3 year old - had been playing with his Easter eggs and decided he wanted to take some of his eggs out to Karinne's grave.  How sweet!  Made me cry.  Anyway - it was too rainy on Monday - so we took some eggs with us on Wednesday.  Such a strange and sad thing to fill Easter eggs for my baby girl with rocks to keep them from blowing away instead of candy she could munch on.  But still a good feeling to have eggs out there for her.

The photos really don't show just how lovely it is.  There is so much depth and beauty to the polished areas.  And the entire stone has these amazing sparkling flecks that catch the sun.  It looks different in different light too, depending on the time of the day.

There's room left at the bottom for Little One's name to be added someday.  The footprints are from Karinne's actual footprints and are the same size as her tiny precious feet.  I love how the sun shone over the top of the stone in this photo. 

DaNae and Noah were so excited when we talked about how the stone we chose comes from the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Mt. Rushmore area.  We went there on a family vacation 2 years ago and will certainly visit there many times in the coming years for a silhouette shooting competition Curt attends every summer. 

  

As we got ready to leave that evening, Curt and I agreed that it was a really good feeling to have it there.  Like we hadn't quite done right by Karinne until that moment.  I figured I would break down and cry seeing it in place.  But I didn't.  I just felt pleased that it was there.  Of course, we still certainly wish there wasn't any reason for it in the first place.  But we're glad it is there in time for her birthday.