That is John on the left with water ski at Uncle Hugo's cabin and of course on the right is Travis and Aaron.
Here we are January 23, my grandma Lee would have been 119 today!!  She was born in Norway and her family moved here when she was very young. 
I was looking for a calendar this morning and we always kept some of them on the inside of a cabinet door near the back door.  As I looked on the left side there was a paper in the shape of a little blue bear.  I knew it was there but had not noticed it for a long time.  I had written "I Love You" on it and had put it on something for Gail a long time ago, perhaps 5-10 years ago.  I never asked her why she kept it there but that was my Gail.  Of course that was a trigger for some tears. 
I have found that in the last many days it helps me to think of all the blessings God has given me and how he touched our lives so very strongly and so many many ways.  In the days and weeks ahead I will be sharing some of those times.  I will start today.
In the early 70's Gail and I started going to prayer meetings in Devils Lake where we lived.  I remember we had 2 big questions.  One was should we start tithing (sp) to the Lord and should we get up early in the morning to pray.  My salary at the school was not very much and money was tight as we had just purchased a house a short time before and John had started school which had titution.  The praying part was when can we squeeze prayer time in.  Gail usually had many many things to do and at the time I was putting in long hours at school and then trying to help out with the boys when I got home.  The first thing God let us know is we should give 10% to him and he would provide.  John needed shoes as the boys had tonka trucks and they ALWAYS went up and down the sidewalk with their hands on the front of the trucks and then they would drag their feet to stop.  They would do the same on the trikes.  Well Gail went up town knowing what kind of shoes she needed and she knew they would probably cost $10 or so.  She just said a prayer and said Lord please help us save money so we can give more to you.  She stopped at Pennys and there on the sale rack for $2 was the shoe she was looking for and in John's size--thank you Lord.  The second situation was prayer time.  We kind of thought the only time that would work was early in the morning but that really was not very appealing!!  Well a day or two after we discussed our prayer time our alarm was set to go off at 6:00 as we just did not think we could get up before that.  Well at 4:00 AM our bed completely broke as both of us were sleeping and our mattress was on the floor.  As we gathered our wits and looked at each other after we realized that the house didn't fall in we just laughed and laughed and said, "Lord, you win"!!