It's a good thing I love my missionary!

That would be my son Kevin who is serving an LDS mission in Brazil right now.  He has a birthday coming up and put in his request for a few items.

A month or so ago the letter postage rates went up about 5%, from $1.05 to $1.10 for international mail from the United States, so based on that, I figured the $16.95 I paid to send a "small flat rate box" at Christmas time would probably run me a dollar or maybe two dollars more this time.  I want to point out his box is just a little bigger than a VHS video box.  It's not a big box you can put a pair of shoes in.  Imagine my surprise when THIS amount is what showed up on the computer screen!

I paid it anyway because I wanted to get those things to Kevin for his birthday.  And because he's coming home in just over 6 months this is the last package I'll send.  So Kevin, take a look at the list in the first picture and you can see what is in the box.  Oh, now that I look at it, I see I forgot to list a small extra item you'll like.  It's green.

The only thing that made me happy at the post office today was finding out there are now international "forever" stamps and they are ROUND!!  I've never seen a round American stamp before.  It's not just the printing that's circular, the stamp you peel off the backing is also circular.  Very cool.