Does It Get Any Better Than This?

On Friday, I had a feeling to call my second Princess at college and ask if she was willing to make the four to five hour drive to come home this weekend so we could celebrate her 21st birthday and Easter this weekend as she can't be with us this next weekend or in a few weeks over her birthday due to her 21 credit hours at school and work schedule. I left her a message.

She called me back and said that her room mate needed a ride to the airport half way to our house as her car wouldn't start. My daughters car has been making a horrible rattle and she needed to have it looked at but hasn't had time. We have had it welded about five times over the years but it still continues to be a problem.

Her friend gave her some gas money and she filled up. When they arrived at the muffler shop, they said it was a longer thing than they could do quickly. The friend she was giving a ride to said, "My dad owns a muffler place, I will call and see if after you drop me off, you can go there and he can help you." My daughter dropped off her friend, went to visit her friends dad and he put in a new pipe as the old one had at least five welds and charged her nothing and sent her on her way.

She arrived home just in time for me to finish cooking the shrimp dinner she wanted for her birthday and we had a doughnut for her cake and did gifts and watched "Tangled" for the evenings entertainment.

We had company for Saturday and both my oldest daughters high school friends were all in town for various reasons. They both saw people they haven't seen since graduation. They had a wonderful time visiting on Saturday. We got new pajama's and the girls all watched "Monk" together while the Easter Bunny did it's thing.

Also, yesterday, a neighbor was having a yard sale. We stopped near the end. She had at least 30 pair of almost new shoes. Most still had the price tag on the bottom. She said that we could take whatever we wanted and the money I was going to use to pay her I should put towards my third Princess going on her service mission to Kenya. We ended up taking most of the shoes and a few skirts.

Four of my five daughters ended up with some of those shoes. You can see how I used them in our "trail" of candy and movies for Easter this morning in the photo above. The girls were all trying them on as they came into the room. Here is the post explaining about "the trail:" http://thesecretisgratitude.blogspot.com/2010/12/follow-candy-trail-family-traditions.html

Yesterday, just after that, we were at a store and my daughter nudged me to look down and there was a shinny new penny on the ground. I asked the clerk if she wanted it and she said, "Its yours." I laughed and thought, I really do need to have more faith,He takes care of everything. I kept it to put in my "jar" for found money.

So, today, I am at Church and a man in our congregation asked how my daughters fund raising is going for Kenya. I told him we had about $500 more dollars to raise to make the next payment next week and get her ready to go. He said he thought that he could help with a few others and to let him know how it was going. I told him that one group had pledged $500 a few months ago and it never showed up.

After the meeting ended, he came up and handed me a folded check and said, "This is confidential." I thanked him and didn't look at the check as I was busy collecting kids and getting to the car. I handed it to Princess number three and we both gasped when we saw it was for $500! We have never been close to this man and I wouldn't say we are friends even. He is older and we haven't had much dealings with him.

I know God inspired him to share his blessings with us and make a life time memory for my daughter. I also know that he will be blessed for his sacrifice. The rest of the day, Princess number two picked up her friend on her way back to school. We are grateful they made it safely. The rest of the Princess's played their new "Mario" wii game. The photo at the top is the girls wearing their new aprons I posted about a few weeks ago. Here is that post: http://thesecretisgratitude.blogspot.com/2011/03/overall-cutest-apron-part-1.html

Really, does it get any better than this?