a.rose

I have a tendency to have pretty high standards for what I will let the girls out of the house wearing.  I never knew myself for a control freak, but I see now that I kind of am.  I'm talking their clothes have to be matching, down to the socks, their hair has to be combed, and preferably Hallie's will be in a braid. But you know what?  Maybe this is a lesson you all learned long ago.  Sometimes, (prepare yourself) there are things in life that I can't control. I'm just guessing that its the same way for you.  And in those times, I've decided, its best to let it go.  Let it GO man. Just in case you need to learn this lesson, too. Another life lesson learned on this occasion: The Culver's butterburger is INDEED delicious.  Indeed.

Dear Nicole - Would you like to hear about my trip to Moab for the Rose Family Reunion?  It was a near perfect vacation, except for one small thing.  You weren't there.  You're probably wondering why you should have been there. A fair question, since you aren't a member of the Rose family. When we drove into Colorado Devin and I were playing a game called, "How far away is that structure, or landmark?" And then we'd watch on the odometer until we went past it to see how far away the farthest thing we could see was. (The farthest we got was 14 miles or so.) As we played and marveled at the distance we could see across the landscape, Devin said, "Yeah, but really the farthest we can see are those mountains." And I said, "We can't see any mountains yet." And Devin said, "Yeah we can, they are right there." Now, in my defense, I was driving, so my focus was really mainly on the road, not the horizon. As he said that though, I lo

(Please excuse this brief departure from my regularly scheduled posts about THE TREK .) Today in my mailbox I had not only a large envelope letter from the Marlboro Man people, I also had a box package.  What are they thinking? I wondered.  (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out this pos t.) Well, after I wrote about the series of letters and packages that they had been sending me some of you left comments saying that you couldn't believe I hadn't opened any of them, and that you wanted to know what was inside. So, even though I felt a little strange opening it, I did it for you.  And so, without further ado, if you are still curious what the Marlboro Man people are sending me, read on. The large envelope contained a chance to enter a drawing to win a large LED flashlight, and 1000 dollars.  It also had one coupon, and a large foldout brochure inviting me to join one of their ten "Preserve the Land" projects.  My favorite of these included th