Our Traveling Life: Winding Down

The holidays are winding down. Today is New Year's Eve, but for us, it's just another day. We will be celebrating some with my parents for our annual dinner, but other than that, it's pretty low key. I have some pictures of the holidays and one special gift to talk about.

Before I get to the special gift, I need to tell you the story behind the gift. Don't worry, I will make it short.

When my sister and I were little, my mom bought a big book of bedtime stories. It was a Golden Book and most of the stories were their classics consisting of "The Little Train The Could," "The Pokey Little Puppy," and "The Saggy Baggy Elephant." There were also longer stories about firemen and doctors. This book was originally published in 1972. One story, in particular, was our favorite. This story was called "Daddies." Our own daddy worked every weekday and sometimes on a Saturday and traveled a lot. When he could, he would read this story to us before bed. It quickly became our favorite. To this day, my sister and I could recite this story, word for word. "What do Daddies do all day? Daddies work while children play."

As we grew up, the book, of course, made it's way to the basement. While packed away in the basement, in a box, on the floor, there it met it's demise. It rained hard one week and the basement flooded, ruining the book and many, many other things. We can't exactly remember when, but we figured about 1991. Having the book to read to our kids was now just a memory. My sister looked and looked for it for years. It was out of print and not one of Golden Books more popular books, so finding a copy was proving difficult.

Fast forward to mid December 2011. That story popped in my head one day at work. I went home and immediately started to search. I could not remember the title, but could remember the cover. After an hour or so with no luck, I called my sister and asked for the title. She gave me what she thought was the title, but it wasn't. I typed in, one last time, the title we had, but this time doing an image search and BAM, it was the first book to pop up! I clicked and it sent me to a website called vintagechildrensbooks.com and there it was! I did some research on the website to make sure it was okay, got the info I wanted and sent my inquiry. 3 days later, the book was in my hand. It was in perfect condition and even smelled as I had remembered it!

If you are still reading, great! You have probably figured out what happens, but I'm going to tell you anyway. We decided we were going to give this book to our parents for Christmas. I made a bookmark with a cute saying on it and a picture of our family and my sister's family. "What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance. They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life. And, most importantly, cookies." Rudolph Giuliani. This is the quote on the front of the bookmark. The back had the scribbles of my niece and nephew and the signatures of my girls. We placed it to mark the story "Daddies" and there you have it! Mom and Dad loved it and cannot wait to read it to our kids!