A Great Man Has Died

As I awoke this morning and clicked on my internet connection - I had the feeling that I needed to look at the church website (www.lds.com) to catch up on the news. Although the news was not truly a surprise because somehow -- I feel I had been prepared to read that a man I have come to love and admire had died -- Gordon B Hinckley -- a prophet of the Lord had died. I shed a tear or two and then a sweet feeling of peace and joy overtook the sadness. This wonderful man, again, is going to see his Lord and Savior. He will be with his beautiful and loving companion - Sister Hinckley. He was a faithful servant and his service could not be matched by many. His example was a beacon and a comfort for me -- I will truly miss him.

"Is that snow?"

So, where to start? .... Well, when all else escapes you -- the weather seems to be the natural topic of choice. Perhaps something else will develop from there...

It actually snowed in Atlanta, GA. It actually snowed for most of the day yesterday. The kids played the whole day in the snow -- well, practically. You see, snow is not common here and therefore snow playing equipment (snow suits, snow gloves, water repelling coats, etc) are not a normal purchase and unless you choose to hit the higher elevations not necessary to purchase/pack/maintain from year to year. Therefore, I believe that each of the kids came in a total of 5 times to strip down and put their clothes into the dryer for a half hour -- then reclothed themselves and headed out again. Jarom and his friend made a snow fort -- Shealyn created a snowman(that later became a casualty of the slope in the back yard and the undermining of its foundation by her brother) and Anna just ran around skipping and dancing. Loralee has an ear infection and runny nose -- she didn't get to go outside this time.
The kids' only regret was that it wasn't a school day. This thought leads me to the previous day when there was the threat of icy road causing a problem with the buses ability to collect the kids for school. At 615am, I woke up the kids for school -- Jarom rushed downstairs to watch the Weather Channel to see if he could hopefully return to bed. As we watched the report, I could hear him quietly saying, "just one more, just one more." I thought perhaps he was hoping that the ticker at the bottom of the screen would repeat itself and hopefully show that his school had been canceled. It wasn't until he'd left for the bus that I realized he was actually pleading with the tv to drop the temperature -- our area was showing one degree above freezing.

We'll Try This Again....

My father-in-law has often made the comment the instead of "New Year's Resolutions" that maybe we ought to call those "get my life together" goals made at the first year --"New Year's Revolutions". So -- as with every new year - I have made the goal to keep better in touch...or at the very least make our lives available to friends and family far and near.
I created a blog about a year and a half ago -- with every intention to keep it up -- but my life seemed to enter a craziness similar to that of my newly found favorite sport of NASCAR. I have since forgotten how to access that blog page ...thus the new one -- hopefully, I will gain inspiration from a couple of my sisters and a friend that have been able to successfully keep their family blog sites ongoing.