Who woulda thunk it ...

Sometimes I take a few moments to wonder simply at the amazing path our lives, and our sons' lives have taken.

How an American Boy from the country married a Canadian Girl from suburbia. How two incredible little boys from the Inner City of Saint Louis found their way to us, and us to them. How that American Boy and that Canadian Girl created two incredible little boys and we became a family of 6.

When I wonder at how our lives would be different if that 10000 miracles that brought us together hadn't happened. If Shel had decided to stay in the USA when his parents immigrated to Canada - he was going to, but at the last moment decided to come.

I intended to go away to university in Ottawa, but changed my mind choosing to stay closer to home.

If another family had been chosen for our sons. If the miscarriage that threatened to take Tanner's life at the beginning of my pregnancy had finished. If Caden had never been conceived.

What would we be doing? Would I be the journalist I had intended to become? Who would these boys be today? It's hard to separate the awe of who they are and imagine anything else. Would they have ever laced on skates? Would they be getting straight A's in school? Would they have a faith in God?

Too many if's to wonder. What I do know is who they are today. Amazing, thoroughly small-town Canadian boys obsessed with hockey with parents that love them, an enormous extended family that spreads across cultures and continent.

They are kids that chose to hang out with their family on a sunny afternoon and go for a skate on the pond.

Imagine the other possibilities.