A few months ago we received a request from Chris Houghtlin, who had decided to decorate her family’s mountain home in Boone, NC with a collection of license plates representing each one of the members of the Houghtlin family…by birth state, year, month, and county, whenever available!! To make the assignment just a little more challenging, the family included one set of twins, who fortunately were born in California, where front and back license plates are required! Throughout the time it took to assemble the collection, we could easily sense the love and pride Mama Chris has for her own ‘bumper bytes’… after some crazy rummaging and swapping for appropriate year and month stickers, we sent the collection to her for what was to have been Christmas gifts for each of the clan who would then be assembling at the mountain retreat…but like so many women, she just couldn’t wait! So the unveiling took place at Thanksgiving instead, with each of the family receiving his or her own individual plate!! As the mist forms among the mountains and the moon comes out over the Shenandoah Valley, it’s nice to think of all of those smiling faces and the GAP plates beaming back at them.