I Can't Complain...

Chris playing in Korea where Ken and I were able to travel.

I flew to Abu Dhabi from Los Angeles on January 15th, and 22 hours later I landed with Chris and Beckham waiting for me at the airport. It was a very long flight starting out at 6am in Orange County getting up, then driving through 8am traffic to LAX, sitting there in the airport for nearly two hours, flying five hours to Chicago, sitting in airport for connection, flying seven hours to London, then walking for what seemed like a full hour to make connection on British Airways to fly to Abu Dhabi. Blurry-eyed, muck mouth with needing to brush my teeth, matted-down hair from attempting to sleep on the airplane on one of those connections, and a headache from blood sugar challenges. (Long enough sentence?) But I can't complain. I'm here with Chris and Beckham, and I'm loving it.

Like so many things in life we tend to look at the trials vs embracing the blessings. I met a couple of people during this marathon flight endeavor to Abu Dhabi. One very friendly gal was from upstate Virginia near where daughter-in-law Cooper was raised. She was on her way to Paris as a linguist to study up-close-and-personal the French language. She has 9 brothers and sisters, and was fascinated with the blue baby blanket I was crocheting (which, by the way took me through three full skeins enroute!) I told her that this was for my nineteenth (19) grand child, and she started asking all about my kids and grand children saying, "you are so blessed." Yes...yes I am, I thought to myself.

Kelli Jo, me and Zoey at game in Istanbul

When sitting in London airport I also met a friendly English women whose husband was involved with the promotion of the PGF Golf tour in Abu Dhabi. We started talking (after she kindly made sure I was on the right train to gate 5) where she asked about my blue baby blanket I was "still" crocheting, and somehow the conversation went to the fact that none of my five fab children, spouses and 18 grandchildren live near me in Irvine, California. I mentioned, with a smile, that I had to travel a long ways to see all of them - Pennsylvania with Ben, Cooper and their five children, Orem, Utah for Angela, Eddie and their four girls (and soon a baby boy!), to Hurricane, Utah to see Josh, Ashleigh and their three wonderful kids, to Bountiful, Utah to see Chris' wife, Lesa and their four children, to Vegas to see David and Sarah, and now to Abu Dhabi to see Chris and son, Beckham. Rather than feeling sorry for my travel schedule she said, "you are blessed and lucky to be able to pick up and go wherever they are." Wow...I hadn't thought of it that way. My response was (after contemplating that)..."yes, yes I am. I can't complain!"