Fourth of July Family Update with Little Lennox

Instead of starting off this blog with, "I think..." I wanted to just say, 'I know..." I know the best part of living in the Treasure Valley is the community feel. You can't really measure it, but you can feel it.

The #1 question I get when I'm out in public is, "How is your wife? How about your son? How is he doing?" We've encountered our setbacks like any other family. Who is to say ours is more stressful than yours? It's the caring part that I fall in love with so I thought I'd give you a look into our little Fourth of July and you judge for yourself!

Almost  3 1/2 years ago my wife gave birth to an amazing little miracle boy named, Lennox. If you ask him his name you will always get, "Lennox Jimmy Kicklighter." I call him Lennox Luv for short. Ten months after he was born we ran into to some health complications that were pretty severe. That would last for another year and a half. My wife has had her own health challenges and then just a month ago I found myself in the ICU due to a GI bleed. I've never been in the hospital one day in my life and here we are.

We found ourselves in the ER with our son just a few weeks ago that had me miss the Boise Music Festival. You just NEVER know what challenges life will hurl your direction. I look around my house and realize that we're so very lucky. I mean it was just days ago that a man senselessly took his aggression out on a 3-year-old's birthday party killing the little girl. Several are still in the hospital. A total of 9 were stabbed slating this the worse mass casualty in our state's history.

This Fourth of July Independence Day celebration was great but it felt off to me. It's hard to celebrate when you know that a family has been basically destroyed by one person's actions in a blink.

That said, we showed up. The city showed up. We kept moving. I enjoyed seeing my friend Maggie O'Mara from KTVB News Channel 7 cheering everyone on with her little family. I got to hug some of my favorites that wear the crown proudly from Idaho Miss Amazing. I was able to high five some of our most faithful listeners to the ones I've sat and cried with. That's what was so special as they slung water balloons our direction that it followed with, "Tell Lennox we love him!" Then I would hear, "Hey Keke! Tell Paige we're thinking of her!"

We finished up the Fourth of July Parade, grabbed a quick beer with Mateo downtown, and headed home to see my sweet little family. I just wanted to share some of these moments and let you see that my preggers wifey still does whatever she can to make everything an experience for our son. This woman. It's so humbling to know that if I wasn't here today - I would never worry about my son. That's a great feeling.

I hope you had a great holiday and get to enjoy the second part of the short weekend. Here are some of our personal moments this week.