Breaking News!

Here is something mighty surprising: I just won a trip to Disneyland through a radio station contest! Woohoo! We don't know too many details - just that we'll stay in a Disney Resort Hotel and have park hopper passes for a few days. (They don't provide transportation, so we'll drive.) I think we'll go for my birthday. This is the picture from their website: (John was at work.) The funny thing is, I never win anything. I was just remembering a little anecdote that shows how bad my luck has been. Back when I was teaching, the administrators had gotten many gift certificates and items donated from local businesses to hand out to the faculty members as door prizes at our first faculty meeting. They proudly announced how many prizes they had, and I counted the number of faculty members present; all but two people were going to win something. I joked that, knowing my luck, I'd be one of the two. Sure enough, I was. I usually never even try entering things, but I just really, really wanted this. I know that the Lord won't always give us what we want, but this seems like a sweet example of His caring enough about my silly little wishes to let this happen for me just this once. Another thing quickly - our ward was just divided, and we were pretty sure that the couple who have been like grandparents to my kids lived too far away to still be in the same ward. (They taught Eli in nursery and now Eli and Tori go sit with them through much of Sacrament Mtg. They'll often give them little treats or something.) Anyway, I was so surprised when I saw the new boundaries: the top section of the ward was gone, as I'd expected, but the part of the street up where the Birds live was still in our ward. The kids had prayed about it with me, and it seemed like another beautiful example of the "tender mercies" of the Lord.