Let's Start At The Very Beginning, A Very Good Place To Start...

I had a good week with my husband. A good first business trip.

On our way to see my parents we took a slight detour through the town where I was born. My parents lived in a little town called Montezuma. So little, in fact, there was no hospital. So they drove 25 miles to Grinnell for me to be born.

As we drove into town, my husband and I just followed those blue hospital signs and found the hospital I was born in. I think I have seen it only one other time in my life. There is a postcard picture of it in my baby book. This didn't look like the postcard, but the hospital has been added on to in the last forty**ahem**cough** some years.

This is where I took my first breath:

A few days before, while Pete was in meetings, I took myself on a little road trip to the little town of Montezuma. I only have a few memories of living there. (We moved away when I was four.) Some of my memories are from the home movies (8mm) my parents have. I also remember my Rocking Horse birthday cake when I was four, not liking to go down the basement steps because there were no backs on them, sitting on the giant gas tank in the yard. Here is the house I lived in with my family for the first four years of my life: (brace yourself)
Yuck. I think it looks horrible. My daughter's boyfriend says it looks like one of those places where illegal substances are made. I have a picture from when I was about 2 with my two sisters, my brother, my grandparents and me on the end of the porch. It looked so much better those forty**ahem**cough** some years ago.

When I drove through downtown and saw the town square, I remembered it being all decorated for Christmas and Santa Claus was set up in a little booth on one of the corners. Even then I remember my mom telling me that Santa was just some man dressed up.

Here is a picture of the church we went to. This is where, as a little tiny girl, I first began to hear about God and His love for me. It kind of struck me and I had to take a picture of it.

That was just the beginning of an amazing life with God.