The Untold Story of a Priceless Gift

We've been back from vacation for a week and I feel like most of my stories from my trip have already been shared.  If you happen to be following me on this blog and you aren't my friend on Facebook then you have no idea that I'm referring to the Note I wrote on Facebook while we traveled to Yellowstone.  If you fit in that category (and I don't think any of you do) and you have 47 minutes of free time to read my Note, then let me know and I'll forward it on to your e-mail.  For the rest of you, I promise not to bore you with the re-telling of stories that have already been read.

It was such a long trip that it was hard to cover everything significant, so I saved one for you.  One of the days of our trip we just hung out around West Yellowstone, MT and decided to be spontaneous and see what we could come up with to do.  We drove up to the site of the 1959 earthquake which was just a dot on the atlas beckoning to us on a day we had nothing else scheduled.  (You have to understand that our vacations are usually very tightly scheduled so that we can fit in as much excitement and adventure in each day as possible.  Not necessarily my idea of a vacation but this is who I married).  Lindy had plans to take the boys to the rodeo that night and I had plans to have a little quiet time in the pop-up by myself so we didn't want to venture out too far that day.  In the afternoon, Lindy wanted to take the boys to a "Mountain Man Rendezvous" that just happened to be going on the same weekend we were in West Yellowstone.  Coincidence??  I think not.  I was completely fine with their little escapade because it meant I could stay in the van, soak up some sun, take a nap, and read a book.  That's exactly what I did while they explored for close to two hours.  It was blissful to me--the one who would prefer to just read a book on a beach for a whole week.

Anyway, when they returned each of the boys had a "treasure."  Jac had a throwing knife which he informed me could not cut me but could stab me.  In my nurse's brain it honestly doesn't matter.  Both equate to severed arteries and not such a great vacation.  I'm pleased to report that no unfortunate stabbings have occurred with the knife.  Ethan had a walking stick that was taller than him and usually kept the van door from closing for the rest of the trip.  He also already had a walking stick at home.  Gavin came back with a whistle.  A 4-year-old had a whistle to carry with him on the rest of our 3600 mile trip???  What was his father thinking?  The last thing they came back with was a necklace that Gavin had brought for me.  I immediately put it on and wore it for the rest of a trip.  Here are a couple pictures with said necklace around my neck:

It's multi-colored with big beads and little beads and every day I joked with Lindy that it matched whatever I happened to put on for that day.  He said if I had gone with them I could have picked out several necklaces.  He kind of missed my point.  It matched EVERYTHING.  Who knew that I would only need one necklace in my jewelry wardrobe!!??

Here's the real point though.  I have a lot of jewelry, both expensive and inexpensive, but there are some things you can't put a price on when your four-year-old brings it to you and says, "I brought this for you, Mama."  So, even if the necklace cost a measly dollar (and that was the actual cost), nothing is as valuable as the priceless gift from a boy to his mother.

Lindy asked if he could get by with buying me jewelry that only cost a dollar.  My response?  Sorry, my friend.  You'll have to keep the diamonds coming but I'll treasure the little beaded necklace as if it was worth a million bucks.  Because--to a mother--nothing is more valued than the tender, sweet thoughtfulness of her child.