First a note: Wendy, call me!!!!

Ok, now my real blog. We just got back from Boston late last night. Other than running out of gas on the freeway, it was a trouble-free trip! Well..ok...the man behind the dest at the DoubleTree hotel did not believe I was the person with reservations for some reason. He made me step aside and wait while he called my dad's room (my dad wasn't there) and then had me wait until he could somehow confirm who I was. ??? Eventually my mom and dad and Sadie came back from dinner and we were allowed into the hotel. It was a bit weird. But everything else was just fun, if a bit painful for those of us (me) who are not used to so much walking.

On Friday we did the Freedom Walk through Boston, stopping at the Old North Church and seeing Paul Rever's house. It was interesting. Then, in the afternoon we visited MIT and took their campus tour. It was also interesting, but the best part was after the tour when we went to find the film department but instead found the Lego Lab. This was a large room that looked very much like one of my kids' rooms-- Legos, electronic components, half-finished construction projects in various mediums (including plywood, styrofoam, plastic and wax, among others), pizza boxes and juice bottles, and people working on computers, putting stuff together, etc. In one corner, sitting on a half-burried couch, we found the guys who invented Lego Mindstorms. They showed us the project they're working on now-- a cool combination of electronics and arts-and-craft things like pipe cleaners, pompoms and felt. Also, they showed us a new computer program (called Scratch) they're working on that works like the click-together programing of Mindstorms, but is for Animation. Very cool. Peter climbed onto a model car they were buliding and asked tons of questions, which the guy building it was happy to answer. Then this same guy listened as Josh explained his ideas for capturing light and making an eternal flashlight. He said is sounded possible, and asked if Josh was a student at MIT. =) Bethany explained the solar-panel projects she'd building and he listened, asked questions and spent quite a while doing cool stuff with our kids. It was such an awesome place, with everyone working together on whatever their project was, willing to listen and help, and not think my kids were strange or out in left field. I wish it was all just down the street, instead of 10 hours away.

That night I collapsed, exhaused from all the walking. My legs recovered on about Monday.

On Saturday we drove to Concord and saw Louisa May Allcot's home, then drove to Plymouth to see the rock, the Mayflower and the graves of our ancestors. The rock was... a rock. The ship was pretty, but closed for winter (opens in two weeks), and the graves were mostly unmarked now because their markers were made of wood and didn't last the almost 300 years. But it was cool to be there and think of the people who landed there and to wonder what it looked like when they arrived, and if they are watching us visit their old lands. We had 9 ancestors on the Mayflower. One was Brewster, their religious leader and the only one with a formal education. Another was Billington, the first man hung for murder in the New World. Ahh... our notable ancestors. =)

On Sunday we got to hear the homecoming talk of Mike's cousin, Michael, who was returning from a 2-year mission in Russia. He told of a man who searched and searched for the true church of God and who finally gave up, held a loaded gun to his head and said, "God, I cannot find you here. So I am coming to you there." Then he felt a feeling, like a warm blanket being wrapped around him, and something said, "Wait just a little longer." The next day he said to someone that he could not find the true church of God anywhere. A woman, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who had not attended meetings in a long time, overheard him and said, "Go to this place. You will find what you are looking for." He did, and was baptized by Michael. Amazing.

On Monday we drove home. Betewn Baltimore and D.C. we ran out of gas. It was my own fault (of course). The light had been on, and I had completely forgotten about it, and kept happliy driving down the road. Until pushing on the gas pedal didn't do anything. Then I realized-- umm... Houston, we have a problem. To make a long story short, a man rescued us. Thank Heaven for good people on Earth. And we made it home safely by about 10:30 pm.

Book Recomendation of the Day: The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare. This is on a higher reading level than her other books, is fiction, and takes place in Palestine during Jesus' lifetime. She does a good job of showing the political situation and tensions of the time and the book is well-researched and well-written. Newbery winner. =)

I used to wonder why, for instance, when Madeline L'Engle began writing about Meg, did Meg's life suddenly change and become extraordinary. Would Honey have moved in next door to Trixie Belden if Ms. Campbell had not decided to write about Trixie? Why was it that as soon as any author began writing an account of some person's life, did that life suddenly have the most amazing things happen. And why didn't anyone ever decide to write about me, so my life could become interesting?

I was also concerned because I wanted to be an author, but every author's life I'd ever heard about was full of excitement and tragedy. J.R.R. Tolkien, for instance, was born in exotic South Africa, and his father died when he was only three. C.S. Lewis' mother died when he was ten, and he was sent to bording school. And Madeline L'Engle was sent to bording school in the French Alps when she was 12. I figured growing up with two healthy parents in St. Paul Minnesota, with no prospect of bording school was going to be a problem. I did not consider being burried under several feet of snow sufficently exciting. I prayed for a tornadoe to suck up our house, or for elephants to escape from the zoo across the street and trample our bushes, or for some mysterious event to send me to bording school, instead of Chelsea Heights Elementry school down the street. Instead, my friend's roof was taken off in a tornadoe, a flamingo from the zoo was found on my neighbor's roof, and when we finally got to move someplace exotic (Morocco), I begged to be left behind to attend Como Park Senior High instead of the Rabat American School (which DID have bording students). My parents were wise enough to drag me, kicking and screaming, to Morocco. Thank heavens.

Besides the lives of authors, I've also been thinking about a petunia plant we had in our yard. I was in my car driving down the street last summer when I saw a weed growing in a crack on the street, and did a double-take. Did that weed have a purple blossom? Weird. I passed it again a few days later and slowed to look at it more closely. It was a petunia growing in a tiny crack in the road. Very weird. A few days later Mike came home from work and said he'd pulled up the little petunia growing in the road and was going to plant it in our hanging pot, which he did. The poor thing just shriveled up and looked dead.

Oh, well, we figured. I had been worth a try.

Then suddenly one morning the petunia was alive. Very alive. It burst into green leaves, purple blossoms, and almost into song. Everyone in the family commented on it, and visitors would exclaim on our amazingly happy and healthy plant hanging outside the back door. The pot it was in had been empty because of my amazing ability to kill anything green, but this plant did not appear to be about to die. Fall came and I was sad that our amazing petunia would die. I thought about bringing it in for the first frost, but forgot to. Several other thigs in the yard died in that frost, but the petunia lived on. We had a couple of deep freezes, and everything in the yard went brown, everything except the little plant that still had purple blossoms and green leaves. I couldn't believe it.

One day Mike said some people in his office had some plants they were taking care of, and asked if he should take the amazingly still alive petunia into them so it could be out of the cold. I agreed, althugh I suspect it might have made it through the winter had we left it where it was. He took it to work, and I haven't seen it since. I think about it though. Bloom where you're planted, even if it's not bording school, exotic South Africa, of with sickly parents. And I guess I must admit, my life has been quite exciting. I should, perhaps, have prayed a little less diligently for excitement. =) Although I wouldn't trade it. I am, after all, a writer.