Sophie's Day

Sophie will turn 11 on Tuesday. For her birthday she wanted a hot pink ipod. I think she is officially a tweener! We got her the ipod with a cake to match. I had to take close ups of the cake because the details were so great! She had a sleepover last night with her best buddies. Then this morning we went to the local airstrip where they were giving free airplane rides to kids. I was able to talk my way onto the plane even though I'm just slightly over the age of 17. Anyone who knows me isn't surprised by that little detail. I also talked the pilot into flying over my house so I could get some cool aerial shots of my neighborhood. It was really fun. Sophie's friend, Annie, had never been on a plane so that made it extra special. I'm also including a totally unrelated picture of a wall in my basement. I made this cork board and put all my favorite travel pictures on it. In the center is a beautiful graphic that my friend Amy gave me that says, "Love One Another" with a map of the world on it. On the sides are some handmade wall hangings from Vietnam. If you want to read the comments I wrote on the aerial shots you will want to click on the picture to enlarge it.

He's left the nest

Most of the summer I've been gearing up for the day when Landon would pull out of the driveway, wave goodbye and head west to BYU. I've been crying about it for a year. So when it finally happened at 4:00am on Saturday morning, I was surprised to find that I wasn't even sad! He has wanted this for so long, how could I be anything but happy for him? I KNOW that he wasn't a bit sad to be leaving me! I spent the last 6 months trying to cram every bit of wisdom and forgotten lessons down his throat. Every day I thought of yet another life lesson that he needed before he went out on his own. There was the Eagle Scout award to finish, the Duty to God award to earn, the independent study Trig class he needed to finish. The packing to do, the applications and forms and scholarship info needing to be processed. I was honestly every teenage boy's worst nightmare. But he got it all done. Eagle Scout..check. Duty to God...check. Entrance to college...check. Scholarship...check. Some of these things may have been done at the last possible second, but he did them. And I take FULL CREDIT! So now he is gone. I have shed only a few tears. Mostly I'm just so proud of him and happy that this chapter of his life has finally begun. I just try as hard as I can to not think about the chapter of my life that has just ended.




His Hands by Annalise Kunzelman
His hands
Are my brother's hands;
The Lord's hands,
Doing the Lords's work.
Like Dad's hands
They are strong,
Powerful.
They help, and
Work, and
Play with
Friends and with
Me.
I see them writing
Essays,
Beautiful compositions,
And arrangements.
Creating something
Of his own.
They move, talk,
And explain things
To me.
Using signs and gestures.
His hands
Are music hands;
Pounding, flying,
Beating, tapping
Always, all the time.
Soon, his hands
Will be leaving hands.
They will wave in the air,
"Good-bye!"
And go away
To somewhere new.
But for now
His hands are here.
His hands
Are my brother's hands.