My family had a mini-reunion of sorts this weekend. One daughter and her family flew to California while another daughter and her family travelled with us to meet them at Disneyland and to see our beloved Arsenal play a game in LA.

A great time was had by all. Disneyland was uncharacteristically “empty”. (The longest we waited in a line was about 30 minutes.) no one got crabby. It was a hoot. Then the next day we went to see the soccer match and had another great time. For my Hawaiian kids, it was their first time seeing the team live, so it was extra exciting to participate together. Plus, we won, so there’s that as well!

After the game, we took a short trip to a hotel near LAX where the Islanders were staying the night. After saying our good byes we piled into the car and drove back to the desert. A short 3 hours later we got home and put the final pin in our adventure.

That is when we realized that our oldest grandson’s backpack was missing. As near as we could tell, it had been placed on the ground while we were rearranging the car after taking out car seats from the younger grandkids.

My daughter called the hotel to see if anyone had found it and got caught in a series of transfers and virtual shoulder shrugs.

I called my son in law and had him go down to the lobby to investigate in person. We were so pleased when he held it up on the FaceTime call!

Sometimes when we are in recovery we need to accomplish a particular task. If we only have one tool in our tool box, we might not find success. Sometimes we need a second option in order to…

—Rise Up!!