Thanks for the snow, Ben!!!

Yesterday afternoon, we were sitting at the table eating lunch when we heard the rumble of the mailman's jeep driving nearby, indicating that some more bills and advertisements would soon be placed into our green, dilapidated, thrice-hit-by-bicycles-or-other-fast-moving-objects mailbox.

Miriam says, "Truck, Mommy. Truck."

"Yes, it's the mail truck," I reply.

A moment later, the mail truck has already been forgotten and we have moved on to other intelligent (and some not-so-intelligent) conversation. Suddenly, we hear a confident "rap, rap, rap" at our front door! Oh, goody! Something too big for the mailbox!!! We all excitedly send Daddy off to see what it is.

Daddy returns with an oversized, white envelope addressed to Mr. Tim Bixby in yellow marker. The return address identifies the sender as Mr. Benjamin Bixby of Burnsville, Minnesota. Well, well, well. Now here's a nice surprise! As Daddy gingerly tears open the package, out falls a little note:

"Uncle Tim and Aunt Ruth, I hope you enjoy these pictures I made at school." Carefully, Uncle Tim begins to unfold the crisp, black construction paper to see what sort of lovely artwork would arrest our attention. Unfortunately, Uncle Tim has a little difficulty recognizing the penguin at first because he is holding it sideways, and therefore assumes it must be some sort of flying object. I quickly correct him, and gasp at my first sight of Minnesota snow!!! Sent by our loving nephew special-order right to our very own South Carolina front door! I quickly--but nicely, of course--snatch the other picture from Uncle Tim's adept, but slow-moving hands and unspread the larger art canvas to unveil, you've got it--more SNOW!!!

It didn't take Uncle Tim long at second glance to see the penguin, and no longer could he understand how he had ever seen anything else. Notice, too, the careful depth applied to the image of the snowman. We're not talking just three circles piled one atop another. No, sir!!! This guy's got perspective! See the shadow? Clearly day is fading into dusk and the shadow thickens as it moves up the abdomen of the wintery figure. What a gifted artist! And what a gift to share. As you can see, the pictures now decorate our refrigerator. Thanks, Ben. We appreciate your thoughtfulness.

P.S. One question: what secret message is the codeword "F" supposed to convey? I imagine Grandma has an idea.