Dear Kids,
         Finally, there’s news!  There’s excitement!  Another baby boy Ackerson is on the way, thanks to Tom and Kim, again.  Tom sent us a text of the ultrasound a couple of days ago, which was the first we’d heard about it.  I think they kept their secret pretty well.  Their due date is July 18.  And this will be how many boys in a row?  It’s odd–when Lucy was born in January of 2010, the girls were ahead by four, 13 to 9.   But since then, our only girl grandchild has been Anna, compared with twelve boys. (Counting Barbarossa.  I’m calling the new baby that.  It’s such a great name, and they didn’t even use it on Blake.)  So, we really could use some girls!  But all these wonderful grandchildren are blessings from Heavenly Father, and I’m grateful for them all, girls and boys.
         Compared to that, nothing else is news.  It still snows every couple of days. We always have about a foot on the ground, since it packs down.  The deer still come strolling by, looking in our windows.  Our yard is their preferred route into the neighborhood, and I think somebody farther in must be feeding them, since they don’t exactly look skinny.  The cats don’t like them one little bit, but there isn’t much they can do.
         If John has shingles, is isn’t very severe.  He feels a stabbing pain in his leg now and then, but otherwise he feels fine.  Lucky!  I’m still dealing with my pain.  And walking with my cane, which I really like.  There are all kinds of things you can do if you happen to have a cane with you.  You can use it to pull a cat out from under the bed.  You can beat off a vicious dog, if you need to. You can point to things with it.  You can break up patches of ice on the driveway.  In all the old movies, every gentleman  had a top hat and cane.  We were just watching one where the hero used his cane to grab the villain by the arm, to make him pay a waitress her back wages.  So canes are pretty handy.
         Boy, gas has sure gotten cheap!  In West Valley, at the Rainbow station, it’s $1.85 a gallon if you use your Sinclair card.  It makes me want to go for a road trip, if I only felt better!
         But life is good.  With such a wonderful family as ours, I have nothing to complain about.
         Love, Mom