Trip Home

We decided to vary our trip home a little bit this year. The first part of our trip we drove up to Salt Lake to see Bret and Laura. Laura's parents are always so gracious, they invited us to spend the night and we were happy to.

Because we spent the night Bret and Laura invited us to come along for Laura's ultrasound. We were excited to do this. Laura's mom joined us as well. Since they limit the number of people in the ultrasound room, Michael, Cathy and I "tag-teamed" our participation. Bret stayed in there the whole time of course.

It was a comfort to see their little guy (Yes, it's a boy!). They can already tell by the ultrasound that he has his fingers and toes and his spinal column is good and he doesn't have a cleft lip. There is such amazing resolution nowadays. I remember my first ultrasound over 30 years ago, it was hard to tell that the baby was a baby. By the time I had Melinda 20 years ago, the technology had improved significantly and it has only continued to do so since then. After the ultrasound Cathy had errands to run so Bret and Laura joined us for lunch at 5 guys Burgers. Great food!

We left after lunch and headed to Rexburg. We stayed with some new friends. We had been planning on just eating dinner, but they insisted we spend the night so we did. It was an unusual experience, but not uncomfortable, to spend the night in someone's home that I hadn't "officially" met before. Sure, we'd talked on the phone and e-mailed, but never met. They're great people. They invited their bishop and his family to dinner and Family Home Evening as well. We had a wonderful time. After the bishop and family left, we spoke with them about their experiences of teaching English in China. Michael and I are applying to be part of that program. We turned in after visiting a few hours and woke up to....SNOW .

So here it is mid-April and we look outside and it's snowing! After a yummy breakfast we headed out, a little concerned about the passes, but confident that all would be well. It was well, but the snow in Idaho and Montana caused us to drive a little slower than we normally would. The snow finally stopped and turned to rain about 2 hours from our home. We arrived home while it was still daylight. Claire took the trip well, she slept nearly all the time.

I'm glad that we were able to take the extra time to visit and so thankful that prayers were answered and we ALL arrived safely home.

NS

All in a Row

One of the things that Ty enjoys playing with at our home is a small bin of cars, trucks and airplanes. In fact I've written before (a long time ago) about when we would play open & shut the car doors and his instructions to me to "Fix it!" when the semi tractor/trailer would separate (which they do ALl the time).

Ty's been consistently doing something else with the cars,trucks, airplanes, Nephi (a Book of Mormon action figure that we gave to him that happens to live in the cars and trucks bin. What is that, you may ask? He likes to arrange them all in a row. I haven't necessarily noticed a pattern (as in colors or types), but there may be one. So I looked out the other day and there they all are-a line-up about 3 or 4 feet long all in a row of all the items that live in the car and truck bin.

Now, here's something else he does. When he takes one of them out to play with, he moves all the other items in the row in to fill in the blank spot. Then when he's done playing with the item, he puts it at the end of the row. He's been very meticulous with this. For a 2 1/2 year old, I think that's great. I'm going to observe him to see if he continues to do this.

Carynn says that she first noticed him lining up the toy cars and trucks when Jamie lined up the cars in a row one time. Ty sure picked up on that quickly. Isn't it amazing how the power of example is evident even in small things? Amazing and a little scary. Our little ones (and others) definitely notice what we are doing and they learn so quickly.

It only takes one time.

NS

Lip Smacking Delicious!

Ty's always been very expressive verbally. One of my new favorites is the way he says the word "delicious." Yesterday at A & W he was enjoying some rootbeer. He smacked his lips, breathed out and said "Delicious!"

Another thing that Ty thinks is delicious is chocolate milk. Since chocolate milk and A & W rootbeer are two things I think are really delicious, I'm glad to see that my grandson and I have the same, shall we say, excellent taste!

Delicious!

NS