This past week, Macey stayed with us from Saturday to Wednesday while Ben and Shannon took off for a few days to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. Poor Macey was sick the day before she came, so the first couple of days, she was kind of miserable. All she wanted was for one of us to hold her. She did sleep well, though. I had forgotten how labor intensive and time-consuming little ones are. She is toddling around now, so she has to be watched every minute. It made me wonder how I used to do it with six little ones! Kudos to all you young moms out there!

On Thursday, I went over to Minneapolis to do some errands and to go to the temple. For most of the time we lived in Ohio, we were in the DC Temple district, which was an 8-hour drive away. Because we had small children, nursing babies, and really no one to leave them with, we didn't really get to the temple much. We were so thrilled when the Columbus Temple was announced and it was a joy to be able to go much more regularly and to only drive an hour. I was so sad when we moved to Wisconsin because the temple was farther away again. But it has worked out well and I have been able to go to the temple often. It's even more fun now, because I can usually sneak in a visit to kids and especially Lauren while I'm there.

When we are retired and ready to serve a mission, I would love a temple mission. Palmyra or Columbus would be great! I think Rene would rather go somewhere and teach people how to grow potatoes, but I don't really see a role for me in that. But that's quite aways down the road, anyway. Rene's schedule is very chaotic and unpredictable with tons of traveling, and sometimes, I get to go with him, so serving in the temple is not really feasible right now. I'm just saying....sometime!