Days 34, 35, 36, 37

Home is heaven with a baby in it. This is Addi meeting Grandpa for the first time. Shannon, Daren and Addi flew in for a visit.

Shannon got to realize her dream of pushing Addi around Mall of America in the stroller!

So much activity and excitement makes a little girl very tired!

Some quality time with Uncle Matt, and learning all about how to Facebook.

Day 32

This past week caught me off guard. It got me thinking a lot about being 16 again... back when the Dorothy Hamill haircut was hot. It got me to look at how different my life is (in a good way) than when I was a teenager. An old high school flame tried to reconnect with me this week.

The emotions ran the gamut from startled, surprised, flattered, nervous and finished with uncomfortable. I vascillated back and forth about "it would be nice to see how his life has gone, what's the harm?" to "this was 30 years ago... what's the point?" It took a week of stalling the poor guy until this morning when I finally and cowardly left him a voice message when I knew he wouldn't be in the office... that I didn't think the phone call stuff was a good idea. I appreciated being thought of, but that I've moved light years away from being 16... I have a sweet man who I've been married to for 27 years, 5 great kids and a precious baby granddaughter, and no room in my life for walking down memory lane with old boyfriends. And that I wished him a happy life. I had this whole script of a phone message that I had rehearsed 50 times in my head... but I prayed beforehand that I would say just the right thing... and what came out of my mouth was about 33% of what I had prepared to say. But it was just exactly what needed to be said. I can't believe how relieved I felt after I left that voice mail... cowardly or not.

Happily putting my "almost 50 year old grammie" hat back on. Phew!

Days 14, 15 and 16

Our original anniversary plans fell through... I was supposed to make a reservation at a fancy restaurant on Saturday night... not realizing I needed to do it 2 weeks in advance! Oops! So feeling very bummed about that, Hubz suggested I see how much it was to fly one way to meet him in Milwaukee. That started the ball rolling on a totally "on the fly" weekend... we have never done something like that without planning way out in advance. While empty-nesting will I'm sure be a downer in a lot of ways, it's cool having a trustworthy 17 year old who you can leave alone for a night and not worry. Leaving at a moment's notice will be one perk of no little ones at home anymore. So I left work at 1:45 and drove straight to the airport. Got to Milwaukee, Peter picked me up and we drove 200 miles to Le Claire, Iowa... on the way, in the dark, took an off ramp and followed the arrows to the "Boyhood Home of Ronald Reagan" in Dixon, IL... Reagan was the first president I ever voted for.

The next morning we woke up at our hotel on the banks of the Big Muddy in LeClaire, Iowa... I noticed lots of Bald Eagles this weekend... they must be making their way back up north. The hotel was great, a jacuzzi tub in the room... wonderful.

We left LeClaire and drove 2 hours south to Nauvoo, IL and attended the temple there for the first time -- we had gone to the Open House in 2002, but had never gone there in the winter... the river was frozen over (in Nauvoo, where it's shallow - not at other parts) and with the snow all around it was easy to imagine what it might have looked like during the westward exodus of the saints.

After leaving Nauvoo, we had a 400 mile drive ahead of us home! Kind of crazy to drive 700 miles in 30 hours when our original plan was just to go out to dinner! I loved the last-minute-ness of this little getaway -- we need to do this more often, it was fun!

Today it was back to normal, and here is where you can find us most Sundays - back at West St Paul ward, at our next-to-the-soybean-field chapel.

Day 13

Tonight Matt was in a band concert at South St Paul High School -- one of the songs they did was Canon in D by Pachebel... very beautifully. Then somebody yelled from the balcony that they needed to bring the music into the 21st century -- quickly the kids all donned sunglasses (Matt and AJ added the fake mustaches) and played Canon in D in a very jazzy, upbeat tempo. It was fun... I think they look like some weird 70's cops here.

I'll be doubling up on my photos over the weekend... taking a couple of days off from the computer for a road trip on our anniversary weekend with Hubz.

Day 10

My babies are almost all grown up and one of them with a baby of her own now. When they were all around 4-5 months old, I had "tummy shots" taken of each of them. These pictures hang on the wall along the staircase of my home. I remember when I took Shannon to Sears to get her first professional baby photos taken, and of course they take all these extra shots with a soft filter on a white background that are so perfect... but unfortunately with Dad working his first fresh-out-of-college job, and me not working at all, it was out of the realm of possibility that we could possibly afford the fancy, non-package shots. I remember that day like it was yesterday, taking my little $14.99 packet of pictures home with Shannie in her little car seat... and crying on the drive home because I couldn't afford to buy the "extras" and knowing they would just toss away those pictures of my beautiful, sweet, perfect baby. Agony!

What a blessing digital cameras are now... we can take hundreds and hundreds of photos until we get that perfect shot!