"This I am today, that I shall be tomorrow..."

I was tickling Kenny tonight and he said, "Mom, I'm not ticklish now, because I left my tickle spot in the other country, in that other hotel."  I love how living here is giving us the chance to visit so many countries that he would say that - like visiting another country is such a simple thing. And I suppose the fact that the French border is literally right in our backyard helps - each time we cross into France for shopping or bike-riding, we say - 'here we are - going into a whole new country!' It's pretty amazing.

Here are the kids kissing Daron goodbye as he left for HP - I told them to freeze because they looked so cute bidding him farewell at the elevator...

After finishing Louis L'Amour's 'The Walking Drum', my favorite passage is this:



"It has seemed to me that each year one should pause to take stock of himself, to ask: Where am I going? What am I becoming? What do I wish to do and become? Up to a point, a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be.  Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. This wish, however, must be implemented by deeds."

Whoa - so powerful!  Especially when coupled with the June Ensign story we read before bed tonight - "The Power of Education". This sweet girl tells her story of rising from childhood poverty in Brazil with her mother and 4 siblings going days without eating, sharing 1 egg between them all, and living on dirt ground... things that our children simply do not understand because they've never had to go hungry or want for things. Then she found Christ and through hard work and determination, graduated with a nursing degree in the US. Just an unbelievable story, one of the many that show that we can do and achieve anything if we commit ourselves.