I realized this morning that it's only a little over 4 months until Landis gets on the school bus for the first time. Wow. I know he's ready but we have a little fine tuning to do yet.

Our trip to Michigan was a good one. We stopped in Louisville on the way up to visit our old friend, Nelson Martin, son of Landis Martin, my pastor when I was growing up. Yes, it's who my son is named after. Nelson lost his wife one year ago and we were pleased to hear that he is marrying a lovely lady, Margaret, on April 8th. They are excited. Needless to say with the stop in L'ville and having 4 kids in the van, it took us nearly 10 hours to get to our destination. But I shudder to think of how long it would have taken me if Dad hadn't been with me.

We visited my grandmother, Reubmommy, a couple of times and came home with 2 small quilts she had made.

We enjoyed an "afternoon tea" at my cousin, Roxie's. Roxie is pregnant with her 8th child, due in August and I don't have to say that with her 7 children, Gina's 2 boys and my 4 there was a lot of action and fun in the house. My sister, Kathy was there as well as my mother's sisters, Esther and Ony. Two more aunts, Sandy and Marilyn were there as well as Sandy's daughter-in-law, Erin. We had a really nice time sitting around Roxie's oversized kitchen island in her grand new house. With 8 kids, one of whom is in a power-wheelchair, a grand house is needed. Roxie called me before I drove to her house and invited Grace to bring extra clothes so she could try out Jeffery's shower. The shower is used by all the children but they probably wouldn't have had such a large walk-in shower put in when they had their house built had Jeffery not needed it. We laid Grace on the raised bath seat and rolled her into the shower. She loved it. I only got a little wet as I went in also and scrubbed her down. It was pretty handy to bathe her that way and then use a large built-in changing table just outside the shower.

When we left, Roxie invited us to come back this summer and stay at their home. She has done this before and she always encourages me to leave my kids with them so that Bobby and I can go out alone. Not that Bobby goes to go Michigan with me very often but when he does it IS nice to be able to go out 1 evening. At first I told Roxie she was crazy for thinking she wanted my kids to stay there with her 7. But last Tuesday it was fun watching the kids as they all played together and entertained one another. They're already used to loving on their brother Jeffery so to have Grace is just another gift. And they have a hamster!!! Oh, Landis and Hope fussed and fussed over (and nearly killed) that hamster.

There was a great snapshot taken of all 11 kids, mine and Roxie's but do you think I thought to get a copy of that pic? Of course not. Some other day. I will include some pics from the benefit Friday night. Grace is pictured with her favorite person in the world, Mr. Pat. His wife, Mary is hiding on the other side of him. The second photo shows our singers, l-r, Bobby, Jimmy Fortune, Kent Humphrey and Jason Humphrey.