Passion for Life

    What I have admired most about Haley the last 19 years has been her passion for life. She wants to try everything, she gets so much out of life and she wants to be good at everything she tries. She is not going to let life pass her by. Her passion all started in preschool when she told me she wanted to be a dancer like her best friend Lucy. Then she started elementary school and she wanted to be a cheerleader. Then she wanted badly to earn gold medals on field day every year in elementary school and she did. Then she wanted to be a soccer player. She also wanted to play basketball, ski and mountain bike. She loved sports and she was good at them. She also sang in mini minstrels and troubadours and played in the school band in elementary school. She won a lot of art awards, even on a county level. She also always got awards for all A's and she got citizenship awards every semester in school. This girl wanted to do it all and to excel in everything and she did. I never pushed her at all in any of these things. It was her that wanted it. She made me look at her and life and want to be like her and not be afraid to try new things and get the very most out of life. She wasn't going to waste a minute of her life and she was smiling and laughing through it all. I wanted to have her passion.

She loved dancing and wearing pretty costumes

Dancing was fun with her best friend Lucy

She loved being a cheerleader and she got to cheer at high school games a few times a year

She took field day very seriously

She loved soccer and it became one of her biggest passions

She ended up with a lot of soccer trophies

She was a natural on the ski slopes

She sang in Mini Minstrels

Skiing with the family

She also sang in Troubadours

She played in the school band

She got all A awards and citizenship awards every semester making 12 that she earned of each

She got a lot of art awards

She earned gold medals on field day, making her brothers upset if she got a higher medal than they did

She loved fun and adventure of every kind. You name it she wanted to try it

She played basketball

She loved playing hockey with her brothers and the neighbors

     Haley had to wear glasses at a young age because she was unfortunate to get her father's eyesight. She has the worst eyesight in the family and she is basically blind without her glasses. As she aged her eyesight got worse and her glasses got thicker. We also found out her mouth was too narrow and her teeth were going to be coming in on top of each other so at a very young age she had to have an arch expander put in her mouth to widen it. The poor girl had to spend over four years with hardware in her mouth. She had wires constantly digging holes in her gums, a sore mouth when her braces were tightened and she even had her braces accidentally ripped off by a boy in her fifth grade class in elementary school. I was impressed that she didn't let glasses and braces affect her self esteem. She was out-going, made friends easily, she was very well liked and she laughed and smiled all the time.

At least she had brothers and a sister to share bad eyesight with

You can see the arch-expander in her mouth in this picture

Then she got full braces

And she got to have pink rubber-bands. She had a positive outlook on life

    Then came her allergy problems. One year we decided to get a real Christmas tree. Haley broke out in hives and she was having so much trouble with her swollen eyes and a runny nose that we took our Christmas tree down before Christmas and just didn't have one on Christmas day. The doctor thought she may be allergic to whatever they sprayed the tree with to keep the needles on. We were hoping she would grow out of these allergies but instead they got worse. We went on vacation and stopped at an overview once. We got back in the car and her eyes started swelling shut and she was having trouble talking and breathing. We stopped and flushed her eyes out with water and washed off her skin. It was scary how fast it happened. She loved soccer and she had soccer posters hanging all over her room. She was obsessed with soccer. But she had to call me during quite a few practices to come and get her because her throat and eyes would start swelling up while she was playing. It started happening more and more often. But still she loved the game and wanted to keep playing. She once ran into a field to help one of her friends catch their dog and got in bad shape fast. 

Her eyes are starting to swell up in this picture

After 4 years in braces she sure was happy to finally get them off

We even made her a big happy treat to celebrate

    In middle school she kept playing soccer, played volleyball, ran cross country, played basketball, mountain biked, skied, sang in the school choir and acted and sang in a fun group called Player's Club. Life was good and she was having fun. She got her braces off and she got contacts. Everyone loved her. I would go on the band bus to help chaperon and I was in awe at how many friends she had and how well loved she was. She would have her friends laughing hysterically all the time. Her passion for life continued. Life was practically perfect.

Dressed up for a party

Band again in middle school

Haley wanted badly to give her hair to locks of love (to make wigs for children with cancer). She also ran in several runs for good causes. She loved knowing she was helping people.

Her middle school singing group

She loves life

She loves to try new things.

Water-skiing for the first time

Mountain biking with the boys

Full of fun. She always had these kids laughing

She got more competitive in soccer and she was the biggest scorer on her team

She could not get enough soccer

She got to sing on the radio with Player's Club

Skiing with the family

Climbing skills she acquired while a toddler

Paragliding in tandem

She also liked to do acting whenever she could

She got plenty of chances to act and sing in Player's Club

And sing in the middle school choir

Her birthday cake with 2 of her biggest passions

And she kept winning awards. This one is for making it into the National Honor Society

More awards

She got so many awards we could wallpaper the house with them. If she did things she wanted to do them well.

    I thought life would be just easy and fun for her with no glasses and braces to worry about and only her allergies to deal with. She was excited about going to high school. Life was going to be good. But you never really know what is coming next. We didn't know how hard the next two years were going to be. I learned a lot from Haley watching her passionately pursue life like all of it's endless possibilities were a fun game to play. I love her passion for life. I think it has made me strive to look at life like she does and try to love every minute of it. Next comes the hard times. I learned even more from her when she was faced with trials she did not expect. That is when you really see what a child is made of. I will write about her tough times in my next chapter.