Familial Research and Development

 My sister-in-law (down syndrome) once said to me when we came to visit, "You're my favorite sister!" Do you have any idea how that made me feel? Man, I was on top of the world knowing that out of her eight or nine sister-in-laws and one blood sister, she called me her favorite. Then one of my brother-in-laws said, "Don't take her too seriously. She says that to all her sister-in-laws."  Wind out of my sails moment. Kicked in the gut. But wait just a minute. Why 'let' him deflate me like that? There's absolutely no reason to allow him to make me feel less special to her. This whole 'lesson' took me a few years to process and decide how I felt about it and what I was going to do with it. Raising six children isn't always easy. Somewhere deep inside I wanted for them something I couldn't buy at the store. Something they couldn't buy at the store. I wanted them to know what they were doing right. I wanted them to know how special...

Short and sweet. Watch kids in a nursery. You know, what's the politically correct term? Diverse. A diverse mix of little kids in a nursery. Look at a 'diverse' group of kids on a playground. What do you see? What I've observed is kids playing. They act like they are all equally kids and equally can play. When is it kids start picking up the intolerance for a difference of skin color? Is it when kids start hearing their parents making comments about races? I was a young child when I heard dad make comments like, "Those damn (insert a race)." Nearly a decade later I heard him say, "The (insert a race) are going to take over the Church." I had to wonder. I was old enough to reason at this point and ponder on what he said. Yes, that particular race was joining the Church at a faster rate than other races. So. Did that matter? Were they going to be able to 'take over the Church'? Who did the Church belong to? Who was running it? The Church belong...

  Looking at David’s ancestry and knowing he has ancestors buried in the Paris, Idaho cemetery, we just wanted to go see their graves-just because it’s a way of connecting with our ancestors. The mapping of the cemetery and plots leaves much to be desired-but after an hour we did find our ancestors and true to norm, they were largely buried in very near proximity to each other. Once Ruth enlightened us about the existence of a ‘man-made’ geyser in Soda Springs, Idaho, we needed to spend a little time there, watch it go off and know a little more about it. Like it was originally discovered as someone was trying to develop a mineral swimming pool, but the silly thing didn’t want to stop gushing. And another interesting tidbit, the Secretary of the Interior had to ask the City, via telegram, to ‘put a cap on it’ as it was throwing off the ‘precise’ eruptions of Old Faithful. FYI: https://www.sodaspringsid.com/recreation/geyser_park/index.php Sometimes married couples are ‘touche...