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On a trip to Heber Springs Arkansas, we visited an enchanting place called Collins Creek.  It was the most magical place with cascading water and sunlight drifting through the overhead tree canopy.  It was one of those places you wish you could put in your pocket and take home with you.  We painted several days there.  On a wonderfully sunny day we stayed all day at the creek.  My husband jumped onto a large boulder in the middle of the creek and prompty took a nap with the water cascading all around him as I painted to my hearts content.  He claims it's the best sleep he has had in years,even with a cold hard rock for a bed.

I hope you enjoy the scenes I captured in pastel.  There should be more magical places like this in the world.  Perhaps there are and I know I will be excited to travel there and paint.

I am posting this today in honor of my son Michael.  He is a Iraqi Wounded Veteran.  Michael was critically injured in Iraq by an IED.  He survived his many injuries and is 100% disabled.  Our border collie, Sarah, has been his constant companion thru all the surgeries and trama's that are now his life.  The one thing that they share more than anything is-courage!  Sarah is fifteen now and very arthritic and also suffers from "doggy alzhimers".  We got Sarah in April of 2004 when she was ten.  Mickey was wounded in June of 2004.  When he came home to live with us with his lovely wife, Chrissy, he was very closed off and depressed.  He had just finished his last surgery to repair his face and they were moving here to live with us so we could help Chrissy take care of him.  He would not talk about his time or feelings to anyone.  Then one day, I heard him talking to someone on the porch of our home.  The someone was Sarah.  They started taking walks together and she was constantly by his side.  Slowly, he began to be more open and his attitude started to change for the positive.

As we swear in a new President, I just wish to remind all who read this of the sacrifices our soldiers make for us everyday of their lives to ensure our freedoms and way of life.  I have always been proud of my son but his courage since the bombing has totally overwhelmed me.

I founded the Grateful Hearts project in his honor and also to honor the soldiers from his unit who did not make it home alive. He keeps a memorial to them in his workshop that his Dad helped him put together.  Mickey put my name in for a special honor by the United States Army, which I received this week, for the founding of the Project.  We do portraits free of charge to families of fallen soldiers.  It is a nice honor and I am grateful to the Army for recognizing the Project and the work-but most of all-I am grateful for my son-Sgt. Michael Lee Davis.

If you know of a familiy that would like a portrait of their fallen soldier in either Missouri or Kansas, just have them contact me at [email protected] and we will be honored to paint one for them.

Have a Happy Martin Luther King Day and please remember our soldiers from all wars past and present who,along with Mr. King,  have sacrificed so much for the hope of a better world.