from thanksgiving

we love the sunshine of southern california. especially when we visit during the colder months of the midwest. little girl was in heaven, running around barefoot outside. (trying to go for a swim, but it wasn't that warm.) it was such a treat to spend time with mr. pike's family.

we also had a few days with my family in las vegas. we had a multi-generational family reunion on my mom's side of the family, and i was invited to give a presentation about my great, great-grandmother, mary mcquarrie.

two falls ago, my sister, little girl, and i took a little tour of scotland to see where mary grew up before immigrating to the united states. i guess our trip deemed the two of us as semi-experts on mary's life. so, mrs. wright and i put together a presentation to share with our family.

i loved reading through different personal histories that told about mary's life. she was an amazing woman of faith and humility. i wish i was a lot more like her.

while we were in vegas for the reunion we had a chance to visit the hoover dam. my mom's father worked on hoover dam -- he'd repel down the dam and inspected the concrete. that's some steep repelling. and we also got a look at the new bridge (which one of my cousin's helped work on) -- there's a lot of family history in the area.

it was a great trip to see so much of our family. unfortunately, the trip was too short. we'll just have to plan another one.