Baby Steps

Baby steps can mean a lot of different things to people. When a child takes its first steps in life it brings a lot of joy to the parents. It shows the beginning of the child's journey of doing things on his/her own. Baby steps also can mean taking things one small step at a time. Today is another day where I find gratitude in the small steps toward our family getting out and doing things together again.

Over the past few months Mary Ann has not been well enough to get out of the house often. In fact, she has not been well enough to be out of bed for very long. We have had the blessing of great families that have done so much for us around the house and with the kids. Meals have been brought in, laundry done, and extra attention given to Amanda and Erin. We are all grateful for the amount of help that has been given. Due to Mary Ann's condition, though, we have not been able to do much outside of the house as a family. Between snow storms there have been a couple of nice days where it would be nice to go somewhere or hit a park with the kids. We like to go on drives but until today I don't think we've gotten farther than 30 minutes away.

This weekend was different. Though we didn't get out as a family yesterday, Amanda went to the movies and to the bird sanctuary with Uncle Rick and Aunt Carol. Erin was very jealous but we kept her entertained. Afterwords, we all joined Rick and Carol for sushi at Osaka. Mary Ann has been eating sushi to satisfy cravings a lot lately. (I'd rather her have sushi cravings than cravings for Mexican food.) It was the first time we all got out together somewhere other than McDonald's or Wendy's in a long time. And Erin even behaved. (There will soon be a post about the transition from Evil Erin to Cute Erin. She has done a lot of changing these last few weeks.)

This weekend was General Conference and we normally go for a long ride and listen to conference. We didn't know if Mary Ann would be feeling up to it but fortunately she was. We didn't go as far as we normally go but we still had a good time. We decided to go see the new temples in Draper and Daybreak (Oquirrh Hills). After finding them and gawking at the huge castle-like houses by the Draper Temple we found a park to let the kids play for a while so Mary Ann's medicine can kick in. The kids got to play on the slides and swing for a while. Getting out of the house together may not be all that exciting for those who do it all the time. But for me, today was a great day.

Often the simple little things in life are taken for granted. Time together as a family should never be one of them.