Happy 17th Markelle Sarah!

My dear early Valentine, we knew your name before you were born and you have lived up to your bright and spunky moniker. We also gave you the name of your great grandmother, Sarah Jones Brown Smith because, like her, you are elegant, beautiful, creative, much loved and a friend to all. We love you, Mer, and we are so grateful to have your shining presence in our home. Happy year to you! Happy life to you!

p.s. Thanks to my friend, Shauna Robertson, for this INCREDIBLE picture of Markelle--she really captured Markelle's inner beauty!

Miss Kelsey goes to the Holy Land

To my totally rad and awesome FAMILY. Thank you so much for emailing me!!! It was so good to hear from allyou guys!!! Jerusalem is so amazing And I've only seen it from sunset on. The center is so beautiful and yes mom, you can feel the spirit so strongly here! Even in my jet lagged state, when we had our welcome orientation in the auditorium and sang an opening hymn with the organ I seriously wanted to cry! I am so excited to learn everything about the scriptures and the history of the Holy Land. My roommates are so awesome, they are Ali (Snarr) , Jennifer, and Andrea. We all get along so well, I can tell this is going to be a rockin' room arrangement! I was totally so paranoid the whole time that my luggage might get lost, and I was praying my guts out pretty much the whole 9hour plane ride to Vienna. SO... prayers are answered because both of my suitcases made it to Israel. Oh yeah I forgot to tell you... the crazy Austrian people in DC made me check my carry on bag... I was friggin' out on the inside because that carry on was like my only saving grace if my other one got lost, and then they took it away from me. But thankfully I got both back, which was an answer to prayers, cause some people really did loose their luggage and haven't gotten it back yet. :( So the view from my balcony is AMAZING, I am going to do homework outside every day basically. And good news I found a running buddy, when we were touring the building, one of the guys in the group was talking about trying to find a running group to go in the mornings and I said I was gonna start getting in shape for my marathon in October, so we totally decided to be running pals. Money! Speaking of money, there is a guy in our group named "Ryan Money", so everytime I say "money" he looks over and its really awkward. ha. but I find it hilarious on the inside lol. Well, that's about all for now. I miss you all so much! Flying in airplanes stinks. Markelle, you would be swooning left and right here, everyone has an accent like sayid, and it's so awesome. MADS. the plane rides would have been SO much better if I had someone to pester the WHOLE entire way. HA. so next time I fly anywhere I'm taking you with... :) "bother bother bother bother.." haha. gotta love potter puppet pals. ok enough nonsense from me. Mom, I love you so much! Dad, I love you so much and thank you so much for calling me it made my whole day!! Smash, baby you knowI love you keep staying cool! Mads and Mer, you guys should be here cause you are the bomb... hahaha ok that was a horrible joke:) I love you guys tho. Keep emailing me!!!! Love, Kelsey

Good-bye, parting is such sweet sorrow...

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.--Kahilis Gibran

We said good-bye to our oldest daughter this week. She will be living in the Holy Land until April 23, 2009. As we helped her finish packing and getting ready, Steve and I had an emotional moment. Okay, that's not QUITE true--we actually had numerous emotional moments. Some of these emotions manifested itself in irritation, tenseness, being on edge, and flat out weeping. I tried to keep it together, but that last hug at the airport did me in and I could not even speak. Through out the day, Steve and I tracked her flights online, and that evening we all emailed her so that she would have a message waiting for her when she turned on her computer at the Jerusalem Center. When we received her email back, I immediately forwarded it to family and friends and Steve couldn't resist giving her a call. Today, Steve came up to me and said, "I miss my baby. Would it be bad if I called her again?" No, it wouldn't. We all miss her. It is much calmer and quieter at home, yet we miss her vitality and sense of fun.

This recent parting with Kelsey has brought to mind other partings in our family. It's been a little over twelve years now that my family gathered around the hospital bed of my brother Mark and sang to him our good-byes before his spirit left his body. How grateful I am that we had the chance to say good-bye to him, and tell him we loved him. I know this separation is temporary, but it is still hard and we miss him. I can't help but think of another parting in our family, that of my sister, Julie. Without knowing it, I said my good-bye and "I love you" to her at the end of what would turn out to be my last visit with her. I am grateful that I told her. I am sad that she left the way she did, but I am glad that she knew that I loved her.

One thing that my kids are really good at is saying the words, "I love you." We say that to each other a lot, and so I am okay with parting for a time because "There are no good-byes, where ever we are, you'll always be in my heart."

Karma is a beautiful thing...

Last week while on a walk/run with Jody, I randomly told her that I was going to go shopping that day to buy myself a new set of sheets. I love my bed, I love to sleep in my bed and hang out in my bed, and the best feeling in the world is climbing into bed with a set a freshly laundered sheets. So, a new set of sheets just felt like an indulgence, yet with a practical side that I could justify. Well, my cute friend--always the giver--immediately asked me what size I needed, king or queen. It turns out that she had an extra set of brand new sheets in her storage (given to her by one of HER friends) and that if I wanted them they were mine. The color was good, the thread count decent. I offered to buy them off her, but being the awesome friend she is she wouldn't go for that. So, I took them home, laundered them up, put them on my bed and that night I slipped between fresh, crisp, clean sheets and SLEPT LIKE A BABY!

Meanwhile, my cute husband was in St. George, riding bikes with his buddies. On the night before they were to come home, he received a phone call from Mariah, Jody's daughter. It turns out that she and her friends were on their way home from California when their car just quite on them, right on the freeway. They were about 20 miles north of St. George, and so they called Steve to see if they could stay at the condo with him and then get a ride back home the next day. So, our family received sheets from Jody, and we were able to give sheets to her family. KARMA!