Putting Our Family First

Early November is always a time of reflection for me, as it is for many people. In the days coming up to Remembrance Day, I think about how thankful I am to have freedom, that has been unfailingly defended by men and women over many years. This freedom means that my family and I can own our own home, get an education, go to church, travel and live without fear of attack or injury. Ultimately, we can relax and focus on our priorities – which for many people means putting family first.
What does “family comes first” mean? It means providing every opportunity to our children that we can, especially those options that we didn’t have as kids. In our community, our girls choose to figure skate, sing, play piano, swim and participate in many other activities. There are many options, only limited by the number of hours in the day – a freedom we enjoy, but do we always take the time to appreciate it?
Putting family first also means that we aim to have a job in order to “have a life” not “have a life to work”. Being able to live in an area like Humboldt allows us to spend more time at home, rather than on the highway commuting. In our case, both my husband and I are lucky enough to work from home offices. We have breakfast and supper as a family almost every day.
The location where we picked to live (or that picked us, lol) also gives us the freedom for a great quality of life. Our family has many neighbours we are lucky to call friends – both adults and kids.

Our daughters can safely spend time in the greenspace behind our home, or head to another park nearby. Being able to give them this free will to explore and be with their friends allows them to grow and thrive – another way we can “put them first”.
We tend to take these quality of life factors for granted. If our country were not so well protected in the past and today, we could not enjoy the freedom to make choices that put our family first. For this I am thankful.
Lest we forget.