After Church services today, I drove over to Hurricane to visit my folks. What's more, my brother's wife and the two eldest of their children have been visiting from Georgia, so I anticipated the visiting would be twice as fun as usual.

I turned the corner, squeezing my car between two construction barriers that declared the road closed to all but local traffic. (The road where they live is currently under construction, unpaved, with fresh cement curbs and sidewalks flanking both sides, brand-new utilities buried deep in the ground below, and recently levelled and compacted dirt and gravel road-base composing the road's surface, ready for the crew to top it with asphalt.) Because of the construction, few of the residents on either side can park their cars in their driveways, so this Sunday afternoon cars were lined up along the new curbs and gutters all along the avenue. I picked a spot in front of my folks' home and parked.

After bounding up the front stairs to the porch, I paused and gazed through the front door window into the living room (their window blinds were open) upon the whole crew gathered together as though doing something. My niece and nephew were there too, and Hunter spotted me right away. I made a face, and he grinned back at me, so I grabbed the door knob, twisted, and invited myself in.

It turns out they were holding a family planning meeting, complete with a printed agenda, scheduling this week's activities. I'd arrived just in time, only having missed the opening prayer. Hunter read the "Scripture of the Day", a quote from President Spencer W. Kimball:After they finished with scheduling, including my parents' upcoming fortieth wedding anniversary (Way to go, Mom and Dad! You're the best!), after a closing prayer, and a closing song ("Here Comes the Ox Cart" from the old Primary Childrens song book, sung in harmony, slowly, loudly, with great dramatic variation, and ending with improvisational aharmonic discord—Totally fun!), various family members shared snippets from their journals of days of yore. My mother read some tidbits to her grandchildren about their father when he was a toddler, and a kid.

After the sharing, it was time to break out the journals and write. As you can see, this 'blog is something of a journal to me, so this is the phase we're in right now.

My brother and his wife have helped Hunter and Blythe start journals of their own, having written some of incidents from their individual lives from before they were old enough to write on their own. I sure admire Andy and Jill for how they've brought up their kids. Hunter and Blythe are so downright likable. Right now Hunter and Blythe are showing their journals to their grandparents, who are chuckling at the incidents recorded therein. Their parents sure have written a lot in them. How cool is that? What a super thing to do for one's children!

I love my family. They're among my best friends. I enjoy hanging around them. I wish everyone could have such experiences, but I know they don't. I have friends whose family experiences are dramatically different, whose troubles sound like something out of a soap opera. I wish I could magically let them share my family so they could have some of the joy I have.

That's why it is so very important for children to be raised by two parents who are united and who love each other. What a blessing good parents who love each other and who love their children are to their posterity. And their children become a blessing to the parents.

I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for such blessings. I don't deserve them. I'm so lucky. I don't mean to be bragging or boasting. That's not my intent.

Thanks, family! I love you. You're the best. Keep it up.