the bright family: the last (my last) PERFECT day

always so full of life....that sweet girl

sweet cousins...Ava, Austin, & Ashley

She wanted to ride on the Tiger...until she saw "tuga" the sea turtle

Well, I can't believe I am typing this.....I can finally sit down and journal about what has happened to my sweet little girl...On March 21, 2010, she went to be an angel in heaven. WOW, I said it...Ava is not here with us anymore...she has went to be with Jesus. So what happened, you might ask. Well, I'll journal what I can handle at this point. I hate going to "that night"...Jim hates remembering "that night"...so I am only going to write what I can.

We spent Friday March 19th at the zoo (morning/afternoon). Ashley, Aunt Brooke, Austin, Addison, Ava, and I all went to together. Ashely rode with us (Ava and I). We got there, and I realized that I forgot Ava's sunglasses. It was a beautiful sunny day that day, so I told her when we got to the zoo, I would buy her some glasses. So we get there and this place was unbelievably packed. We go in and go straight to the store to find Ava some new glasses. Well,, they didn't have any that I really liked, but Ava found her something she liked...a water cup with a swirly straw that she could see through to blow bubbles. She wanted "mommy's water" inside this cup so that she could blow bubbles and see them. We instantly go to the carousel....Ava's favorite. We get there and realize that we don't have enough one dollar bills to ride it with all the kids...and we don't want $20 worth of tokens...so this very nice lady comes up to us with 3 tokens and says here, I have these extra ones and you can have them. SO NICE of that lady to give us tokens so that we could ride (looking back, WOW). Ava had an absolute blast on the carousel. She was the only kid who giggled the entire time we were on it. I even looked at Brooke and said, "Ava is going to giggle the whole time she is on this". She had such a good time on that thing. From there, we went to the safari part of the zoo...the giraffes and then to the elephants. She was having such a good time. We ate lunch and her and Austin played on the rock and mulch while we ate. I went to the bathroom, and Brooke took the kids to see the monkey's...they were "singing" to each other. Brooke said Ava thought that was the coolest thing she had ever seen. We went from there to see the Zebra's, then the tigers. We saw the alligators or "crocodiles" as Ava would say. She didn't like the crocodiles because on Dora, she was always scared of the crocodiles. She recently told me, as she was sitting in her bed, that she was scared of the crocodiles on the floor...and that's why she didn't want to get out of the bed and get a new book to look at. So, we left the zoo...and headed to drop Ashley off.

Went to (cousin) Ashely's house and Ava insisted that she get out of the car to see uncle Terry. She went and gave him a huge "dinosaur" hug as she called it. Then we hopped in the car and headed to Brooke's house to drop off Ashley's car seat. When we got to Brooke's house, Brooke was outside holding Addison. Apparently, there was a snake on her front porch. Austin had already went inside and fell asleep. I held Addison inmy car, Ava was watching her tv (she wanted to go inside, but I was trying to hold her off so I could get her home for a nap) and Brooke walked by the snake and went inside. As we were sitting in Brooke's driveway, Ava was telling me she wanted "dinosaur yogurt". I told her we didn't have any at home...so she proceeded to tell me that she wanted to go by wal-mart to get some. After we left Brooke's house, I was completely exhausted...but Ava wanted her dinosaur yogurt, so we stopped by wal-mart and went in. I got her some dinosaur yogurt, "ephant cookies", and some other things for Easter that she wanted. We made it home and the whole way up the stairs, I was saying, "Ava, we have to take a nap" and she was saying "no, mama, no nap...Ava wake up". Since her tonsillectomy, she was sleeping so much better at night, she actually started to fight me a little bit on naps. SO, I let her eat some dinosaur yogurt while she watched Kai Lan, and we got ready to go to her room and take a nap. I laid in the bed with her while she read me books (remember, I am 36 weeks pregnant so I am exhausted from the zoo). Finally, I think I fell asleep first and I woke up and she was sitting up, laid over asleep on my big tummy. I laid her down on her pillow and fell asleep right beside her.

we woke up around 4ish. Daddy had just got home from work. He was extremely stressed b/c everyone at his work got their bonuses except for him. He immediately sat down to try and figure out all the numbers...Ava and I were hungry and daddy brought home pizza, so we all sat at the table and ate some Little Cesar's pizza...one of Ava's favorite dinners. Once we finished, Courtney had texted me to come over to their house, since it was so pretty, to let the girls play. Jim insisted that he stay home and work out the number...so Ava and I went by ourselves.

When we got there, Ellie was so excited to see Ava that she jumped up in the car before I could get Ava out of the car seat. Ava was squealing at the top of her lungs in excitement to see Ellie. When I got Ava out of the car seat, she ran to play with all of Ellie's and Abbie's toys...the barney car, Ellie's bike, the baby stroller with the mere cat inside. We played and played, and Jeremy finally called Jim and talked him into coming over. Jim came over and we let the girls play outside until it was dark. Then we went inside, let them eat a little bit. Ellie and Ava decided they wanted to color some pictures. So they got out the markers and colored some. Then, they decided that they wanted to eat some popcorn. So, Courtney fixed them some popcorn. Ellie, Abbie, and Ava all jumped on Courtney and Jeremy's bed and sat and ate popcorn. Courtney and I were sitting ont he couch when we heard a "boom" and that was the popcorn falling and hitting the floor. Ava and Ellie tried to pick it up...Ava eating a bite and then picking some up. They had such a good time playing in the bed together.

After the popcorn in the bed, we decided to give all 3 of the girls a bath. They were so excited to get into the bath together. Abbie was acting crazy in the bathtub. Ava didn't know what to think of her. After Abbie had soaked Courtney, we took Abbie out of the tub and left Ava and Ellie in there to play. They had a blast. They played for a little while and then we got them out. Ellie went and put on her princesses pajamas. Ava told me she wanted princesses "jammies" she said. I didn't have any in her bag, so I told her when we got home, I would change her into her princesses "jammies". So we left, and came home. By this time, it was like 9:45 ish when we got home. Pretty late for us, as we usually don't keep Ava out that late. When we got home, I went and got her "princesses jammies" just as I promised her. She played on "dada's bed" and said she wanted to sleep in "dada's bed". Her cartoon show went off, and then the upside down show came on. I knew at this time, it was getting real late, as the upside down show doesn't come on until 10:00. We took Ava to her bed, kissed "dada" goodnight and kissed "chico" goodnight. I sat in bed with her (usual night) and told her to pick out one book to read. She picked out a colors book and said she wanted to read it to me. I laid down, b/c again, I was just exhausted from the day. She flipped through all the pictures, told me about them and what the colors were. We took out her specially made "giraffe bow" from that day, turned on her lullaby music, and of course, her "blue stars" on the ceiling. I asked her everynight what color stars she wanted, and she ALWAYS said "blue". I turned off her light and laid besdie her (I always slept with her). She hugged me and said, " my mama, my mama". I snuggled up next to her and said, "that's right sweet angel, I am yur mama". She feel fast asleep snuggled up next to me....just as she did everynight.