What a beautiful day!

Today was fantastic! I actually got to take a whole day off and did not check my email or voice mail (until now :)).

But I feel like I need to start with Sunday first.

When we were in China and would go out to a nicer restaurant, Annabel jumped up and down and wandered all through the restaurant during the meal. The guide would laugh and say what a great spirit she had or how bright she was. To me it was just reinforcing bad behavior.

When we got home, this continued for a while, especially eating out and at Mom and Dad's house.

Yesterday we had lunch at Mom and Dad's with some long time friends. One was a man I have known the majority of my life, who is now 96 and can still out work me on any project. The other is our missionary/friend who is in Iowa.

Annabel and Grace sat so quietly during the entire meal, eating their food quietly, and asking and answering in quiet tones. I was so impressed! They were perfect dolls. They whispered and asked if they could be excused to go play. I didn't blame them.

But I really enjoyed talking to our friend from Iowa about the weather there. He said they had snow drifts that were as high as their car hood. He told stories about getting stuck in snow drifts and basically disappearing and how important it was for each to watch out for the other. It made me shudder to think about. He explained that it was law to clear your sidewalks and driveways. He had lots of stories about someone going to rescue someone and them getting stuck. School is rarely called off because the kids would just be playing in the snow if there wasn't school! I'm sure the kids see advantages to that.

We ended the day working and playing outside. It was such an incredible day here you almost feel guilty for those in places like Iowa.

Today was great!

The priority for the day was to take Annabel to see our minister in the hospital.

But first Grace decided to cook breakfast. I am very impressed with her hard work and diligence to get a variety of things prepared. Annabel thought she might starve to death in the meantime and told everyone that it took Grace a "huge" time to cook.

But Grace had soup and bacon for them with hot chocolate and for me a bagel and coffee. Wow! I felt like I truly was having a vacation day. I can't believe she cooked bacon all on her one. She would not allow us into the kitchen until she was ready.

Then we had to get flowers to take to hospital. After a lot of discussion we made our purchase and headed to the hospital. At that point Annabel asked what the flowers were for. OK, is it just to keep me on my toes?

Once we found his room, Annabel basically parked herself. She had asked how long we would stay. I suggested 5 minutes. She wanted 20. I said maybe 10, so she bargained for 12.

We found him trying to eat lunch but seeing the girls meant much more than trying to eat while in a semi reclined position. He had three guest come in right after us and I suggested that we leave, but Annabel said no. Thankfully his wife came in and suggested we go see the display in the lobby.

The display is of bronze hands a famous people from around the world. It was very interesting to see the variation in those who do similar tasks. Van Cliburn's hands looked exactly how you would expect a pianist's hands to look, long and slender fingers. Roger Staubach's little finger had a big lump on one side where it had been broken. Your hands definitely show your age as we looked at some where the veins were so prominent and the hands looked so frail and delicate.

We had a quick lunch at the hospital and returned hoping to find some solutions to our storage crises. This house is great but I think our stuff is more than it can hold sometimes. It doesn't help that the closets are very small and I have one filled with treasures that I can't part with for now.

Instead the girls began playing and I made a quick trip to Home Depot. I have a beautiful sunroom that I wanted to make as my retreat. It has instead become the docking station for all bikes, skates, skateboards, and plasma cars. We have a garage and a shed, but both have dirt floors and doors that are very difficult to open. Anyway we are still working on a way to keep those bikes safe yet easily accessible so they will be ridden!

We are all off again tomorrow!

I have an appointment to get my hair cut but changing my mind! Annabel prayed that my hair cut would make my hair long. We'll see!