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The Little Robin

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Working from home has brought me the opportunity to increase my appreciation of my home and nature around. Every year a pair of robins tries to build a nest above my front door. Normally we keep cleaning it off and work hard to keep that nest from forming above the door, but this year I decided to let them construct their nursery. Everyone was excited when four little blue eggs were added to the nest and we all watched eagerly, waiting daily for the eggs to hatch. Then one day, we saw one of the robins bending down and sure enough, four little birds were in the nest. They were so small that their beaks did not even reach the top of the nest when they opened their mouth for their parents to feed them. Day by day they grew until we looked yesterday, and it almost looked like four grown robins in the nest. They started bantering for spots and occasionally moved (or were pushed) out on to the window ledge. It seemed like overnight the birds had grown from helpless to ready to leave.
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Josh turns 16!

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We started planning for Josh's 16th birthday, months in advance.  Josh did not want a big party or time with his friends, he asked for a family weekend away.  So we started to discuss heading to Camp Luther and hanging out, but then we realized the lake might still be frozen.  So finally we decided to head to Chicago for the weekend.  But at last, we forgot about baseball and the baseball schedule came out.  It had Josh playing a doubleheader in Madison.  But we decided that that would still work until he was changed to a different JV team and now his game was in Green Bay.  So reservations were changed and hotels were booked for Milwaukee.  Who would have guessed that the week before April 21st we would get a blizzard and there would still be snow on the ground?  So with baseball canceled, we decided to leave a little earlier for the birthday trip. We started the day with a birthday breakfast for Josh.  He wanted pancakes and then we opened gifts.  Dave and I had decided that it
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Panama Day 1

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We arrived in Panama late at night.  Our trip took us from Chicago into El Salvador and then into Panama.  God blessed us and we quickly made it through customs, finding a taxi immediately to take us to the Hyatt Place in downtown Panama City. The next day started early as we awoke to our first morning in Panama.  With only one day in Panama City we were determined to make the most of it.  Okay, the truth was that I was determined, the rest of the family was dragging.  Dave and I finally were able to drag the boys out of bed, just in time for a ten minute breakfast and a quick one kilometer walk to the meeting place for our tour. We boarded a passenger van and headed out of the city to Gamboa.  At Gamboa we loaded onto a small covered boat and headed out into the Panama Canal.  Gamboa is a small town that used to house the workers during the building of the canal.  Today, the many men who painstakingly dug the canal have been replace by machines that continuously dredge the canal t
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