It was thirty years ago .... yesterday.

We went to dinner last night with our good friends, Larry and Kay as a belated birthday present for Larry, who just celebrated a milestone birthday. Kay pointed out that it was on this day thirty years ago, that our little family was sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. Heather was the baby then and David was just getting ready to make his appearance. If you look at Janene, you can see that she was already showing him off.

When Janene saw these pictures, she commented " Oh look, two little kids playing house - with real dolls" It does kind of seem like we were just playing grownup then. Little did we know then how important that sealing power would be to us at this stage of our lives.

Janene and I never seem to be able remember this date. We spent a lot of years remembering the day in November before this day came along. Kay has always remembered, and has remembered to send us a card. Lisseth has reminded us lots of years as well. While we look forward to that day when we will all be together again as an eternal family, we try our best to find joy in the journey now. We can look back at what seemed like happier times in our lives, but we have a tendency to forget that many times we couldn't pay the bills. We forget that Janene was buried in diapers most of time and went days without an adult conversation when I was working out of town. We both agree that we would not want to go back in time. We have learned that life is what you make of it. The scripture says "men are that they might have joy". I would add the word "now" to that. It has taken me a long time to learn that lesson, but I try to make the most of it.

On one somber note, we would ask all of you to pray for Kay, who suffered a stroke this afternoon shortly after bearing her testimony at church. It will be a while before she can feel joy again in her life, so she and her family will need our prayers and God's love.