Off He Goes...

Today is a momentous occasion for Bantam12. He's flying on a plane, for the first time, alone!

It's kinda cool how this worked out. Father Rooster has a conference for work this whole week, in Las Vegas. It's the same one that was in Orlando last year, when I joined him on the last day and we stayed over the weekend and went to Epcot and Warner Brothers. So he asked if I wanted to join him at the end of this one, and go to the Grand Canyon over the weekend, since we've both always wanted to see it. But between the pregnancy/miscarriage and the work I need to do to get the house ready to put back on the market, I wasn't sure I should go.

Then Father Rooster thought of our 12-year-old son. His thirteenth birthday is coming up fast (in May) and with our two older kids, we made a big deal of preparing them throughout their 12th year for this milestone, which we celebrate with a Bar Mitzvah-like service. Father Rooster wrote the liturgy and we invite significant adults in their life--grandfathers, uncles, Dad's prayer partners--to attend and participate.

But this year, between pastoring a church and working a full-time job with a 3-hour roundtrip commute, Father Rooster hasn't been able to spend much time with Bantam12. So what a perfect opportunity this will be! They'll be spending 4+ hours driving from Vegas to the Canyon, and then have two full days of hiking--one down in, and one back up. They'll spend the night at a lodge at the bottom. They're both so excited!

So I may have Grand Canyon pictures next week! (Speaking of pictures, I had hoped to be posting "before" and "after" pictures of my house this week, but I forgot to take all the "befores" that I should have, and we're not quite to the "after" stage yet. But we'll get there....)

Meanwhile, I'm missing two of my favorite fellas!