MY FAVORITE GIFT

Becky opening her favorite gift on Christmas

I thought and thought about what I wanted to blog about today and decided that it was going to be about my favorite gift from Christmas. To give you a little background about this "book" that I am holding, I'm going to take you back to 1995 (wow...can't believe its been 12 years), the year my oldest daughter was born. I was living in Rexburg, Idaho going to colleg with my husband and my mom was out for a visit. While there my mom checked out the local Desseret Industries (comparable to Salvation Army) for a quick peruse. She happened upon this book called "A Creed for the Third Millenium" and decided (for whatever reason) that she would buy it - it was only a dollar I think. Upon brining it back to my apartment and browsing through it she realized that it really wasn't what she thought it was. After her departure I noticed that it had been left behind. (rude) So I called her and she said "oops, sorry about that." (uh huh) I decided that I would pay the couple of dollars to ship it all the way back to her in Massachussetts. (just to be a little obnoxious myself) Before I did, I wrote on the inside cover of the book a little note to warn her that she cannot get away with leaving her "unwanted" items at my house for me to dispose of and of course I told her how much I love her too. That is how this tradition got started. The next time I came into possession of it was during a visit back at my parent's home for Christmas. My mom somehow snuck it into my luggage for me to eventually find when we arrived back in Idaho and unpacked. It brought a big smile and comfort to me as we were far away at the time. This book has been passed now for 12 years and the excitement comes from hiding it in places where it will eventually be found. We always include a note and lately pictures to go along with it. One time I hid it on my mom's bookshelf amongst the hundreds of books when she was in Florida for three years. I think it took her about 6 months to find it. It has been such a treasure to me as I am sure it is to her as well. This year my mom wrapped it in a quilt that she made for Benjamin. I hope that this will continue on for years to come and that someday we will have the book filled. Below are some example of how we write our little notes to each other. Merry Christmas everyone!

UPDATE ON BENJAMIN:

Today we finally received the answer we were hoping for. Ben's cultures have finally grown out their susceptibilities and from the way they look, the infectious disease team thinks that it must have been a contamination both times. They can't be 100% sure but with the combination of the results and from the way that Ben looks we are all comfortable having him stay home. Hooray! Hopefully this will be it for a while. Thanks again for all that was done for our family during this crazy time of year. We love you guys!