HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Rachel

It's our Rachel's birthday today. It is very awkward for me to do a post without pictures. I am not a writer, so I depend on photographs to "carry" the story and say the 1000 words that I cannot think of ...

Having made my excuses above, I do want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Rachel anyway. I was going to show you how pretty she is ... I had a picture all picked out ... plus, I had snapped a partial photo of our gifts to her, not enough to actually SHOW the gifts, but just to give a hint at what they are. We are bringing these gifts with us when we visit Nick, Rachel, and the grandchildren in just a few weeks now. In fact, we hope to be at their house in just 18 days! I trust it will warm up down there in Texas in the meantime. I always look forward to our spring Texas trip because we leave freezing cold Michigan and enter the warmth of the south ... most often before we are finished driving through southern Illinois! The record snowfall in Dallas yesterday is a very bad sign however ...

(picture added on 2/14/10)

One of my favorite things about Rachel is that she likes to go places and do things ... fun stuff like visit little towns off the beaten path and just look in all of the cool shops ~ or go to used book stores and hunt for treasures (books!) ~ or bake something fun in the kitchen. And I like to listen to her read to the kiddos as they are all gathered around her. Simple stuff. Not complicated. But happy.

We hope you have a great celebration of another year of your life, Rachel. We are looking forward to a fun time with you and your family very soon.