The pioneers didn't have iPhones and they were pretty happy.

Melinda and her sweet strawberry-blonde granddaughter after church.

The beautiful actress Gweneth Paltrow made a fun comment on an interview several years ago, and it has stuck with me. She said that when she was young and had a question that needed answering, she would call and ask her grandparents. But today the wisdom of our grandparents has been surpassed, and kids just ask Google.
     I've sat at many family events in recent years where almost everyone was staring at little devices, watching videos and Googling the longest chicken racing contest or whatever. My kids don't have "devices" with the exception of an old-fashioned cell phone to call for a ride after golf practice, but it's amazing how savvy they are about the world because of Google. They're very tuned into who the latest artists are, what clothes are trending, who won the Voice last week and so on. We're all so attuned to this global chatter with texting and tweeting and Facebooking and YouTube. It feels like our world is really big and we're all up on the important happenings of the world.

     Yesterday my daughter had a sweet 13 year old friend over for the afternoon, and I noticed a trend that I have been aware of since leaving the city for the South. While too many people even in small town America are overly plugged in, the culture in general seems to shun electronics. Slow internet and a lack of cell towers adds to the situation. Little Bailey wasn't savvy about any of the celebrity happenings or trends or songs. Instead she repeated again and again a little phrase that made me smile: "My family does (this), and my family does (that), and my family doesn't believe in doing (this or that)." Here is a smart, savvy teenager in designer jeans with a bright mind whose culture is still instilled the old fashioned way, via her family. Her parents are actually parenting, and her grandparents who live across the street are actively grand-parenting. I had another friend last week actually ask what I meant when I said that I would Google the restaurant. I had to explain that it meant to go look on the internet for information. It was a totally new term for my friend. She doesn't text more than once a week either, doesn't even have a touch screen phone, so I've had to learn how to have actual conversations. And I'm beginning to wonder if this savvy city girl has replaced the knowledge of my parents and grandparents with a handy little device. I haven't had to call my dad to settle a Scrabble controversy, or ask my mom for a recipe for a long time. Maybe I should.

The girls won a Nabi at the Lockhead Martin Science Night.