This past year has been crazy. So many things happened that were unexpected and unwanted. We talked about needing to write a book called "The Summer of 2016: You Can't Make This Up" It seems to have been one thing after another this year and now you've just had your birthday. Hopefully your birthday is something good that's happened for you this year, I wish I could have been there for it.

But I'm glad that I was there for the bad things as well. I know it's weird to be thankful for that, but it's true. I'm glad that I was home to see you go through the entire Summer. From telling you the coffee maker was off even though it wasn't because you seemed to be really worried about that instead of the fact you were in the hospital. To seeing both you and dad in hospital gowns and thinking "This is a really weird date." To bringing you home from the hospital and trying to remember what day of the week it was because honestly, I wasn't expecting that to be the first question you asked me. To when you broke your foot and tried to tell me it was just a sprain until I came to pick you up and saw your foot was twice the size it should be. Yeah, it was a crazy Summer, and like you said, you can't make this up. But that was just the beginning of the Summer.

The middle of the Summer was a lot of running around, driving place to place and eating fast food because we didn't stop long enough to eat at home. It made me realize that there is so much that you do for us at home that I could never really see because I would normally be in school or just sitting at home while you drove everywhere.

For example, food doesn't magically appear in our house. I mean, I knew that before. I would help bring the groceries in. What I didn't realize is how often you really had to go to the store to make sure that we all had enough food just to last us for a week. I also didn't realize how long it took even when we were organized about it. It took us a little over an hour, which isn't that long but it feels like forever when you forget things and then have to run across the store a few times. It got a little crazy sometimes.

Then almost every night that it wasn't raining we would take Lui to the dog park in hopes that maybe he would sleep that night. Which wasn't bad, we learned that we should never wear white, or open toed shoes, always look up in the trees for birds nests before sitting on the bench and things like that. We were also occasionally used as seats for the big dogs and towels for the drooling dogs. Then Lui would get jealous and just complicate the whole situation. But at the end of the day Lui slept and we were all happy he wasn't trying to go for a walk in the middle of the night.

Then we came to the end of the Summer. Everything started working out for the better and you got your boot off your foot. Thank God because that thing was annoying. At the end of six weeks, I think we both hated it. But at the end of the day I got to see you become so much stronger from the entire Summer. Even though it felt like you were being put through the ringer day in and day out, you still got out of bed. Even if it was to tell me you needed to go for a ride because you didn't want to stay home but didn't know where you wanted to go. So we took Lui to the pet store where he attempted to steal treats and walk out. We then spent more money there than we were planning but we found out we could get him to lay down in the back of my car for once so it was okay.

The point is, this Summer I got to see how strong you've become. I honestly would want to hide in my bed all day and never leave for anything again after what you went through. I got to see how amazing you are and how strong you are. I saw that you won't let anything stop you from what you want to do. Well, except for the law of course. I can't even begin to explain how much you mean to me and how seeing what you went through this Summer gave me strength to get through the stress that is college. So thank you for being the amazing woman that you are and I hope you had an amazing birthday. You deserve every happy moment of it.