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The next step in Hannah's acceptance to PA school was to actually visit  Montgomery, Alabama.  In fact, it wasn't until I needed to buy plane tickets that I actually knew where in Alabama Faulkner was.  I had driven through Alabama multiple times as a child in the backseat of my grandparents' car on the journey from Lubbock to Tallahassee, but I had no lasting memory of any of it.  I was delighted to see that it sits very near the panhandle of Florida which meant I had some understanding of the people there. Hannah, however, does not ;-) Everyone she has spoken to has mentioned one of two things: (1) the weather and what an adjustment that will be for a Michigander, or (2) the culture shock she will experience, living in the deep South.  I have tried to explain to her, what it's like being a woman in the South, and it will be interesting seeing how Hannah adapts, or doesn't.  She likes being unique, and she might not change at all, but I personally love Sou...

 As a mother's day gift to you mama, I thought I would chronicle down the story of how my DnD group met because, as I've said before, it was too incidental to be a coincidence.  As some of you may know, this past semester in school, I was feeling a little out of sorts socially. Since I had just finished my violin recital and all lesson credits I needed to graduate, I had TONS of new found free time on my hands that I have never had as a college student. You wouldn't think not having to practice for an hour a day and lessons once a week would free up time, but it really did. I now had hours in a day left over after finishing homework. This, combined with the fact that while on my mission I discovered I liked people, made me start trying to have more of a social life. I went to club night at BYU for the first time ever (board game club), I started having more regular lunch dates with my friends, I even regularly attended church activities, which in turn got me my first semi-l...

It's been THREE and a half years since John, Glo and I have been diving anywhere, let alone Grand Cayman.  I keep a detailed dive log book, and the last two entries from 2018 record John getting the news that his privileges were being revoked at Chelsea.  In the three and a half years since then: John fought the hospital for ten months in legal proceedings and lost. He lost his job. We packed up and sold our home in Dexter, not knowing what would become of our lives. We lived in a two bedroom apartment for almost a year. Glo served a mission. John found a new job in Dearborn ("the best job I've ever had"), and started working for Geisinger in PA again We bought a home with a pool. Hannah graduated from BYU, lived with us for a year and a half (serving as RS president in the AA YSA ward), and begins PA school in the fall. I wish I could go back to myself, standing on our front porch crying into the shoulder of Amber Barney when she just hugged me and held me, and tell ...

It wasn't until just days before that the family decided we would have CoTE.  In fact, it took Glo texting her brothers herself and convincing them that we needed to do it.  However, I had been traveling for nearly three weeks, and we wouldn't pull in to Northville until late Thursday night (with CoTE beginning on Friday).  Hannah took the reins and went decoration shopping--I have to laugh because when I told her that I was paying, she bought $500 in decorations! Yeah, I took $300 of them back to Party City the next day, and the cashier asked me why I would ever buy so many only to return them.  I completely  blamed Hannah ;-) I had already gone Easter candy shopping (the day before Easter) because I knew there would be no candy left a week later.  And we had plastic eggs.  We bought some straws at Target and five dozen real eggs at CostCo.  We decorated the house, filled the eggs, and waited for everyone to arrive. What a fun weekend!  I me...

Surely I have used the title of this blog post before.  I have brought Glo home so many times (and taken her back to school as well), and as I always say, I love the journey.  I was thinking about it before this last drive, and we've seen some things along the way.  One time heading west, we went north and saw Mt. Rushmore for the first time.  And another time, in conjunction with book club, we took the southern route and spent a morning at the WWI museum and an evening going up Gateway Arch.  I used to just pound out these road trips, but they've become little vacations themselves.  This time, I decided we would make it a temple tour, hitting up four different temples, three of which are new.  Our plans got a bit crushed with a last minute decision to host Celebration of the Egg, so we only ended up hitting two temples, but it was still fun. Glo is a master packer.  I'm not sure which came first--her ability to pack, or us needing to pack up our ...

Beth and I share February birthdays.  Because Chris has never bought her a gift for her birthday, for Christmas, for their anniversary, for Valentines Day, or for Mother's Day, I came up with the idea of giving her a trip to Poland for her birthday to go pottery shopping.  He was on board  as soon as I texted him.  So I found one of my Polish pottery bowls, wrapped it up beautifully, found a card that said "Bon Voyage" and brought it to dinner.  I passed it under the table to him so he could give it completely as HIS gift.  Beth was overcome when she opened it, not believing that he even wrapped it, and in tears when the reality of it all hit her.  I was happy to stand back and let Chris take all the credit, which he did. I planned the whole trip.  I asked Beth if there was anything specific she wanted to do, but she told me no. She was happy to let me plan it.  With long COVID, it wasn't exactly the easiest thing to do, but come our April tr...