To my oldest daughter on this her birthday,
How could it be that my once sweet little girl grew to be this absolutely beautiful young lady?
How could it be that my once sweet little girl is now raising her own family and has a sweet little girl to train and teach to be a lady?
How could it be that my once sweet little girl is now teaching and training other young women to become as her?
How could it be that my once little girl who I could hold in the palm of my hand when she was born, is now standing tall and raising a righteous generation?
How could it be that my first born is now following in her mother’s footsteps in being kind, loving, caring, and watching over her own family?
How could it be, that we have been so blessed to have such a wonderful young lady who sets an example for so many?
How could it be, that when we say Kimberly you have to use “and Robyn” with her name?
How could it be, that where two once kneeled in the temple, there now stands 11 and ¾?
How could it be, that a couple filled with love for one another could have a family that means more to them than anything in the entire world?
How could it be that the distance between us is shortened through the Internet?
How could it be that this young lady grew to stand taller than many of her friends spiritually?
How could it be that this young lady continues in her example for all she associates with?
How could it be our number one child could be so bright, beautiful, and kind?
How could a loving Heavenly Father know the needs of a young couple when He blessed their lives with the three greatest children a couple could ever raise?
How could the blessings of parenthood be so great when all you think about is the well-being of your children and grandchildren?

Out of all things given us, we have three wonderful children who we love with all our hearts. We have a daughter who is having a birthday which signifies our aging, yet her birthday shows her maturity as a special daughter of a Heavenly Father who loves her beyond measure.
Her birthday today is our blessing into the eternities.
We will continue giving thanks for two special daughters and one wonderful son who bless our lives with their examples and their own desires for a righteous life.
How could we have so many blessings that our cup runneth over?
We have a Heavenly Father who does love us.
The windows of Heaven have truly been opened and the blessing of parenthood has been poured out upon us.
The blessing has been so great there is hardly room to receive it.
Oh how great our joy is with having such great children.
Happy Birthday Kimberly!
We love you honey.
Dad

I Blinked & She's Grown Up!

It's true...I blinked and look what happened! Kimberly has done the unthinkable...she's had another birthday! Do you realize what this does to me? I'm in complete denial. It is NOT possible for me to have a daughter that age! We've had this deal in our family that each birthday was my 28th. Then the unspeakable happened...she turned 28. I knew this meant that someday the ideal age was going to have to be turned over to her. So it is with much reservation on this, her milestone birthday, I hereby hand over the ideal age to Kimberly. May you have MANY MORE 28th birthdays!!! I blinked...

• and I was having a baby girl on Halloween. It was a Monday in October and we were having the first snow of the season. This, the nurses told me, was the reason I was in labor. She was a whopping 6 lbs. 4 oz. Yes, she was full term...just tiny!
• and she was starting to talk. She couldn't say her "K's"so we would say over and over...say Ka...Kimberly, and she'd say Ka...Timberly.
• and would watch her play outside with her friends laughing when she would not knock at her friend's door because she didn't want to pass their cat on the sidewalk.
• and was crying as I took her to kindergarten when she was still only four years old and after a talk with her teacher decided that another year home with me would be just fine.
• and I was amazed at how fast that time went by.
• and her popularity grew as well as her self confidence.
• and her world came crashing down on her when we moved to California.
• and she tried so hard to make new friends.
• and she made Freshman cheer.
• and she did make friends and grew in beauty and self confidence.
• and she cheered and cheered.
• and she was a teenager who turned boys' heads wherever she went.
• and she made Vocal Ensemble.
• and she sang and sang.
• and she was driving and dating and cheering and singing.
• and I was losing sleep waiting for her to get home when she was out.
• and she started dating an amazing boy, and I still stayed up and waited for her to get home.
• and she was graduating.
• and she left home for college...and I cried...and she cried.
• and she felt like her world was crashing down on her.
• and she made new lifelong friends.
• and she was glad she went.
• and my life changed when she got engaged to this amazing boy she loved.
• and we loved him.
• and her world changed.
• and she blinked....

and she became more beautiful and self confident and is saying that time is going by too fast.

My advice? Don't blink! Happy birthday Kimberly. We love you!

Big Boys Don't Cry - or Who Really Wanted the Lot on the Hill

Last Saturday I was doing what every good husband does on a Saturday (when you no longer have a lawn service), I was mowing the lawn. Our house sits at the top of a slight hill. We have a view of our neighborhood below us and we're up high enough to see the woods behind us. I love where we live. I love the view, I love the neighborhood, and I love the house. Michael calls our yard "the lawn that never ends." When we first looked at houses in Nashville, we found lots that sat on a 1/2 acre. Our house sits on a 1/3 acre lot. I asked a real estate person in a model home what people do with 1/2 acre lots. She told me "They mow them." Well I didn't want to spend all my time mowing the lawn. So I settled for the smaller lot. As Michael has found out, the hill or slope sometimes gets the better of you. That means if you aren't careful, you fall. One week ago, on a Saturday morning I was mowing the lawn. The ground was a little wet where the grass is shaded by the forest. I knew when I mow down, I don't always make it to the bottom standing. This was the case. I slipped and landed on my left side. No big deal for this go round. In fact, when I first realized I shouldn't mow the lawn down the hill was when I slipped and bruised my tail bone. If you can imagine sitting on an airplane for 13 hours to Japan with a bruised tail bone, I can say it's no fun. Well, this go round was a little different. My tailbone survived, my left leg below the knee developed this strange bump on it. I found myself wondering if I got something into my leg that caused an alergic reaction. Maybe I found one of those ficticous lawn snakes and he bit me. Maybe a spider bit me before I crushed him with the weight of my body landing on him. Maybe I should hire a lawn service and save my leg. Of course all I wanted was some sympathy. Diane looked at my leg and asked "now what have you done?" She thought it might be a tree frog jumped off the tree and attacked my leg. Have you heard of crazy tree frogs in Tennessee? I thought that was stretching it a little. Of course it didn't hurt so I kept mowing until I was finished. This included blowing the lawn clippings off the sidewalk to the neighbors house. I'm sure his lawn service will clean them up when they come. One thing about my hill is I sweat profusely while mowing. I call it my cardiovascular workout. Have I lost weight? No, but I find myself totally out of breath so it must be good for me. My hill isn't for sissies to work on. Being good pioneer stock with roots to Tennessee, I have to be tough.

After showering and seeing the swelling wasn't going down we visited the local "Doc in a Box" office that was open on a Saturday afternoon. I asked Diane if she would love me with only one leg. She said she would. I was grateful for this. The nice thing about the particular clinic we went to was the lack of a crowd. I didn't want anyone to hear me scream out in agony when the doctor amputated my leg before the wild tree frog venom caused my leg to grow larger than the tree trunk on the slope. The doctor took one look at my leg and said very calmly, "You have one heck of a hematoma going on there." He also pointed out that the swelling on the left side of my leg would drop to the foot in the coming week. All he said was "Go home and ice it." I was hoping for a new anti-inflammatory that would immediately take the swelling away. No suck luck on this one. Well, we now have just what the doctor said. I have a bruised foot. The doctor did promise me that no one dies from these things. That is a good thing because Diane doesn't want to start mowing the lawn.

Of course Michael now tells me he can't mow the lawn when he comes home because of the dreaded attack of crazy tree frogs. I've assured him the tree frogs here are nothing to worry about.

Of course what did I do yesterday? I put poison on the lawn in hopes of eradicating the mole that has moved into my slope. If I catch him I'll warn him of the crazy tree frogs in the back yard.

My dad will be proud knowing I didn't cry when I slipped on the hill. I did use the "D" word though. When I see him I'll have to thank him for sharing his vocabulary and having it stick after all these years.

Remember to watch out for crazy tree frogs and slippery slopes when you come to Tennessee.

Here's proof

Both cars got washed yesterday. I think he likes doing it. Don't get me wrong...I really do appreciate a clean car. I just thought I'd publish proof of his OCD.

A Little Mudd on the Tires

Don't you hate it when this happens?! Especially after having paid for the deluxe car wash on Saturday. It didn't rain either, or I could have gone back for their 48 hour guarantee. No such luck! We have this little thing going on around here called road construction. In an effort to cut down on the amount of dust you get in your face while following the car in front of you...they have made sure to give the road a good watering. I mean water!!!! Don't they know we're in the middle of a draught? They've also done a tremendous job of smoothing this dirt road. Thank heavens for good shock absorbers. You actually get the feeling you're off roading somewhere in the backwoods of Tennessee...oh yeah...that's where it is. I mean, I've seen men proudly driving their four wheel drive trucks covered in mudd. It's a statement! It's a signature! It shows the world what a macho manly driver you are. You just don't get the same reaction when you're a woman driving an Altima.

For those of you who know my husband, he's all about clean cars. I know this about him so, of course, I told him about my exhilarating drive to pick up a friend who was going with me the other night so he wouldn't be surprised when he saw it the next morning. He wasn't surprised, he just didn't expect it to be THAT dirty. His first impulse, I'm sure, was to wash it off then and there, which he probably would have done if he had seen it the night before. Unfortunately, it was early in the morning and he didn't have time. The truth is, Mr. Clean doesn't have very much time these days, so I've been instructed to take it to the carwash ASAP. I do appreciate his anal retentiveness when it comes to a clean car...there's just a little bitty part of me that wants to go to his office and switch cars so that he has to drive this one home. I'm even tempted to write "wash me" in the dirt.

There's no Place Like Home

Yes, I am officially unemployed once again and have decided to give this "stay at home" thing another try. I found, after a whopping two months, that working can really crimp your style. Not that I have a life really... but heaven knows I wasn't going to find one in Mayberry! I thought I'd share a few things I'll be missing out on:

• Rick and Bubba in the morning (yes it is an actual radio talk show program...they have a pretty catchy theme song that caught my attention when surfing channels one morning.)
• The quest for the perfect commute, and ultimately realizing there is only one way out of Dodge which is down a two lane country road with enough traffic on it to require a three lane highway.
• Practicing my sounthern hospitality wave to every car I let in front of me on above mentioned road.
• The ten or eleven motivating thoughts posted outside the churches I pass on my way, and pondering the one that reads "Spiritual but not Religious? Find what you're looking for...join us on Sunday."
• Testing my driving skills as I drink my Slim Fast and check my hair and makeup while all the while staying on the narrow road that has no shoulder.
• Being happy I am at least going against traffic.
• Passing by a farm on Franklin Road and never getting tired of seeing the cows and the beautiful view.
• Entering historic downtown Franklin and feeling like I've stepped back in time.
• Once again testing my driving skills as I navigate my car down a long gravel driveway to park as close to the fence as possible allowing three other cars to park in the backyard of old yellow house turned dental office.
• Knowing that later I will have to back out of said driveway...YIKES!
• A day full of phones, patients, money, scheduling, fighting with insurance companies, e-mails, x-rays, computers, sales reps, ordering, copying, fixing equipment, toothaches, prescriptions, filing, entering data, making deposits,writing checks, schmoozing, and spit sucking.
• Off the wall questions about my religion. Example..."with your church's view on polygamy would someone having an affair receive any kind of discipline?"
• Trying not to laugh at such questions answering them with as much grace and dignity as I can muster.
• Impromptu lunches out with the office.
• The feeling of satisfaction that comes when you know you've really helped someone.
• Wondering how a doctor can still make money when he trades for a service someone can render when they can't afford their dental needs.
• Watching someone smile for the first time in a long time after having some excellent cosmetic dentistry.

Yes...I'll be missing out on some good things and some not so good things. We'll see what becomes of me. I'm just thankful I have a choice. For now that choice is home, and there's no place like home! Wish me luck as I continue my quest to get a life...we're not in Kansas anymore Toto!! We are far away and over the rainbow!