Monday, September 26, 2011

North to The Island...

Sunday was the Primary program at Church. The Primary is made up of kids 3-12 years old. Every year these adorable little ones provide a Sacrament meeting program with all the things they learned from the theme they focused on the year before. It is always a treat. This year was no exception.
 
My father was beside himself with joy watching these kids. We have tons of kids in our ward. They filled the choir seats and the three rows at the front center of the chapel with extra chairs placed around. Papa loves watching them speak (even when he can't hear them) and listening to them singing their little hearts out. So cute and so fun to see Papa so happy.

One thing that touched my heart deeply was watching Jack Jenkins. Jack is our bishop's son. He has Down's Syndrome. He sat on the stand with his little class. When it was time for his class to say their parts, Bishop Jenkins went to the stand to help Jack. They got the microphone fixed for Jack's height. Bishop placed a piece of paper on the podium. It was Jack's line typed in big letters. Bishop pointed to each word and Jack read his line. I couldn't understand the words but the Spirit was strong. I found myself reflecting on a Primary Program several years ago. Luella was teaching Spencer who also has Down's Syndrome. He was so happy to be held by her and have her help him say his line. I felt tears roll down my eyes then and I felt them again on Sunday.

It was moving to see these little guys do their parts. But I was also very impressed by parents and teachers who go that extra mile to help each child, no matter what their difficulties or issues may be, learn and participate. The hours spent by the Jenkins family to help Jack learn to function well must be enormous. That is inspiring.

We left church after I taught my Sunday School lesson, headed to Sadieville, put the things in the car for our trip, changed clothes to comfy travel clothes, and headed 'North toward The Island'.

Here are a few interesting things we noted on the Interstate:

A Cadillac SUV passed us. He had a propeller on his trailer hitch. Now, Claude has one on the back of his Jeep just like it. But Claude and I both found it a silly thing on a Cadillac.  Not so silly on a Jeep.

The 'Butter Jesus' framework is now up for a new 'Butter Jesus'. I'm not being flip here. Along I-75 is a huge church. They 'had' an enormous statue of Jesus in front of a man-made lake. It appeared Jesus was coming out of the water of the lake. The statue was made of a foam substance and was the color of butter. Hence, Jesus became known as 'Butter Jesus' and was a landmark for anyone who travels up and/or down I-75. Lightening struck it and it burned completely down in just a few minutes. The church determined they would rebuild. We have watched every time we have traveled between Kentucky and Michigan and it was never being constructed. This time, there is the framework and it appears from the steel frame in place that Jesus will be standing this time with his hand outstretched. We'll have to watch and see how it all turns out.

Claude and I had a discussion about a liscense plate we saw. The plate simply read 'A Frog'. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why someone would have their license plate say 'A Frog'. I posed the question to Claude about what they could possibly have been thinking. His answer..."They could be French." He said that just matter-of-factly and most seriously. I assured him I never, in my 61 years of existence have heard a Frenchman called a 'frog'. He told me I should ask Jake and Jake would confirm this. See, I often doubt my hubby's voracity as he makes up answers that sound perfectly viable that are just to get me to a quiet point again.

The other point to remember is that in Ohio and into Michigan the passenger side air bag warning light came on. Then the tire pressure warning light came on. We read the handbook and tweeked some things and it corrected itself.  Remember this for a later post to my Blog.

We got to the hotel, checked in and realized I didn't know where the folder was I made of all our travel stuff. I'm thorough when making travel arrangements. This folder had my grid of everything we were doing with all the times, contact information, rates, distances, etc. Our tickets were in there along with confirmation letters. Our passports were in there. We got up to our room, went through the luggage and bags. We found nothing. Claude said we would have to drive back to Sadieville (5 hours) to get that folder as we couldn't go into Canada without the passports. I said we could call Cindy and ask her to help get the folder and express mail it to us on The Island. Claude went down to check through the car again. I did some other things and then the light bulb went on. I grabbed my cell phone and called Claude and told him to look in my bag of Sunday School lesson materials I brought. I left it in the trunk to use on the drive home to Sadieville from Chelsea. He had already found it. We were very happy campers.

We had a nice Chinese dinner with Jake.  I asked him if there was a nickname for French people and he said, "Frog".  Turns out they both saw this in different movies. But it is a fact. 

Then Jake came to our hotel room and we chatted until 11:30pm. It was a great evening. 

Trip was off to a good start.  We felt good and slept well. I slept through a thunder storm that was strong enough to knock out power in our room.  Yep, I was ready for a good, restful trip.

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