I cant say that it is very different from the love I feel for my daughter and sons. But, there is a special happiness from knowing our family is expanding to another generation. Our three kids are now 37, 34 (DD) and 29. We privately wondered if we would ever be blessed with grandchildren. The two boys (I should probably call them men at this point) are still light years from marriage. We are hoping DD and SIL will have another. He is from a family of four kids and his sister is having a fourth child, so SIl’s family culture is for larger families. . Fingers crossed!

My first 4 years of school were spent in a one-room school. I loved it! The teacher would sometimes call off afternoon classes so we could all be outside raking leaves, making snow forts, etc. The inked-out part is just the name of the town.

jrb451, The picture of Taxco was taken in 2005, but I was also there in 2002 and in 1982 or 1981. I used to visit friends in Mexico City almost every year. Nicole, I did buy some silver there, but the ring I bought appears to be silver plate instead of sterling, and so it no longer looks silver. I think Guanajuato is a better place to buy silver (there are silver mines there), and it is a nicer and more interesting city. Taxco is not as nice as it was in the 1970s and early 80s. I try not to travel during Semana Santa in Mexico because everything is crowded. Once I took the train from Mexico City to Oaxaca during Semana Santa, and I could only get a Primera ticket and therefore was not guaranteed a seat and had to sit on my suitcase in the aisle. I think this was in 1983 when they still had good passenger trains in Mexico with sleeping compartments. Anyway, I must have made a big of a scene trying to find a place to sit or a way to upgrade my ticket but finally resigned myself to sitting on my suitcase. Then someone came to me from Primera Especial (where seats are assigned) and told me that two couples had upgraded to a large dormitorio, and so there were now seats in Primera Especial. So I got to upgrade my ticket and sit in a seat by the time the train left Mexico City, which was nice. The person I sat next to (who had told me about the opening) was from Oaxaca, and I had a nice conversation with him, but he told me that I spoke Spanish too quickly and asked me to slow down - he may have been Zapotec. I guess I had gotten overly excited. I spent so much time in Mexico City that I also developed a Mexico City accent and used the latest Mexico City slang, which people in Los Angeles thought made me sound like a Mexico City snob. My brother went with me to Taxco in 2005 and took some good videos, which he put on DVD, but he never uploaded them to YouTube.

So I decided to search this date in my photos app and this one came up - pitaya cactus bloom 11 years ago. They last only 1 night, and when pollinated by moths, become Dragon fruit. Sadly, very few of mine were ever pollinated, and of the few that were, only one ever made it to harvest.