Golden birthday

Today is what is commonly known as E's "golden birthday", because he is 27 years old today (the 27th). Happy birthday, E!

Lots of memories crowd in:
--the day he was born...I was awake for the first part of this c-section, and the doctor said, "Did you say we wanted a boy here? I'm feeling lucky! Look around, I'm wearing blue, the walls are painted blue...".
--P holding his newborn son for the first time...while I was still in the operating room and didn't get to watch it myself, the picture is priceless. I'll find it and post it.
--underwear and cowboy boots - E's favorite outfit. We called him "Cowboy Eric the Red Banana", a conglomerate of several nicknames all rolled into one.
--his first concussion...a fall all the way down the basement stairs in, you guessed it, his cowboy boots. Subsequent concussions included jumping/falling backwards out of daddy's arms (a freakish accident that would take too long to explain), jumping on the bed and bouncing off landing head-first on a carpet-covered-concrete-floor, running forehead first into a barn beam knocking himself out cold, a football incident, and at least two other times where concussions were possible but not confirmed. It's a wonder he can have a coherent thought after all that.
--flag football with his dad as the coach. P drove the other parents crazy trying to have six year olds run actual plays (kinda dragged out the game) but E and the rest of the boys learned a lot about the fundamentals (Vince Lombardi would have been proud).
--watching years of football from the bleachers. Several memorable moments: E had a "girlfriend" in the 7th grade, Rose, whom we had not met. There was a group of girls in front of us at one game carrying on, and one, who the others called "Rose", said rather loudly, "look at number (whatever it was) - he has such a cute butt!" Yes, it was her. And in E's senior year, his homecoming game, which they lost. He came off the field after the game and buried his head in my shoulder and sobbed. I believe I was crying right along with him. He was a team captain that year and won the most outstanding player award at the end of the season.
--singing together at the piano
--watching him play Perchik in Fiddler on the Roof after only two weeks of rehearsal. He didn't even try out, but took the place of a wrestler buddy who had broken a leg. We were awestruck.
--the day he stood behind me and rested his head on top of mine for the very first time. There were years where that posture was reversed...we stood that way a lot, with my head resting on his.
--my special song to him, which I sing again today, on his birthday:

If I had all the E's in the whole wide world,
and I stood them all in a real big line,
and if I could pick any E in the whole wide world
to love and have him be mine,
do you know who I'd pick?
and do you know why?
because I love my most special boy, E D...

Traveling notes

It's interesting how an hour-and-45-minute flight takes up a whole day...especially when you're an hour-and-a-half from the airport on either end. I can't complain, though, especially when past flights have included numerous plane changes, all in the name of saving a few bucks. I think I'm past that now, and was particularly thankful for a non-stop flight this time.

Winning the award for *worst trip on an airplane ever* is the time I went to visit T & P when they were at Letourneau University in Longview, TX. We lived in Rockford at the time, and P dropped me off at the Hoffman House to pick up the bus to O'Hare. I had just found a seat, was turning to sit down, and the bus forcefully bolted forward. I fell into the seat, in an awkward twisty motion, only to realize I had dislocated my knee. I do not have weak knees (literally or figuratively) and this is the only time I have suffered such an injury. "Suffer" is definitely the operative word, since I had no choice but to grab the offended knee and kick the leg forward, resetting the wayward joint. Ouch. It immediately ballooned, and I kept it up on the seat for the remaining hour-and-a-half (do I see a pattern here?) to the airport. To make a bad situation worse, THIS had to be the trip where I had brilliantly chosen the cheapest flight on the list by taking the roundabout way to my destination. You're not going to believe this, but I promise I'm not making it up. Ok...we started in Chicago and went to Cincinnati. From there we went to Atlanta, and of course, I had to take the train to a different terminal to find my gate. No doubt the farthest possible gate of any in the entire place (though I can't really remember for sure). Then we touched down in Monroe, Louisiana, because, according to the pilot who was "deadheading" on our flight and sitting next to me, EVERY flight that flew over Monroe at that time stopped in Monroe. Why, you may ask (as I did). Because at that time, the president of Delta Airlines lived in Monroe...that's why. At least I didn't have to get off the plane that time. So, who knows how many hours later, and how many miles of hobbling through airports, I finally arrived in Shreveport. Whew.

Fortunately, today's flight was nothing like that. It did leave Tulsa late, but no one minded. When our plane arrived at the gate, it was accompanied by pomp and circumstance, including a soaking by two firetrucks. No, it was not on fire. The reason for the spray down was quite celebratory...a real "water welcome" for a group of Marines returning home to Broken Arrow from Iraq. They disembarked first, to the standing ovation of the crowd. I am such a patriotic sap that I was fighting a breakdown. Then, the rest of the people came off, and thirty minutes later we were ready to board. Thanks to the miracle of the cell phone, I was able to keep P apprised and he showed up at exactly the right moment to pick me up. This was one easy trip, even if it did take the better part of the day.

Oklahoma was beautiful, with all the leaves out and flowers blooming, unlike our northern hinterlands, whose trees are just beginning to bud and may see that four-letter-S-word (snow) in the next few days. We enjoyed lots of visiting and just the right amount of activity interspersed (seeing a newly-married-old-friend, lunch with my brother who was passing through town, dinner at Red Lobster, lunch with my aunt at a winery, and a trip to the genealogy room at the library). My dad located two photo albums that are over 100 years old - a true treasure! Because they were so heavy (over 5 pounds each), he kindly saved me from lugging them home and is sending them in the mail. Thanks, Dad! Thank you both for a great visit.

P.S. - a look around my dad's office brought to memory two more creative endeavors I previously failed to mention...the Navajo loom he built from scratch and on which he weaved (wove?) several very authentic-looking Navajo rugs, and his ukelele playing (self-taught, of course). What a guy.

April 22, 1930

By the grace of God, my dad has outlived all of his immediate family. His father and his sister both died at the age of 62, and his mother was 74 when she passed away. Today, my dad celebrates his 78th birthday, and am I ever thankful he is still here and healthy and active and sharp as ever. Happy birthday, Dad!

I am the only person I know that can say that their dad has published books AND had his own darkroom AND built a western town, a clipper ship, and about every kind of model airplane ever thought of AND had an oil painting phase AND built and flown u-control and remote control airplanes and built slot cars and tracks and model railroad tracks complete with stations and trees and scenery AND MORE... can you say that about YOUR dad? I can. My dad has superhuman creative energy and the discipline to see every amazing project through to completion.

Not everybody can say with confidence that they have always known with every fiber of their being that their dad loved them. I can. I have never doubted, not even for a nanosecond, the love of my father. My dad has always been there for me, has been my biggest cheerleader (along with my mom), and still, even though I've been an adult much longer than I was a kid, challenges me to reach new heights and be better than I was yesterday.

Thanks, Dad for all you mean to me! See you tomorrow! Happy birthday!

Wow...a whole week...really?

I know there's something scientific about it. There must be, because it is an established fact that the older you get the faster time moves. It sort of feels like a free fall about now, with so much happening in the past few (and next few) weeks.

The workshop went well on Friday. The seven hours total driving time made for a very long day, and Saturday was sort of a wash, lots of time spent vacantly staring into space. But H1 came over in the afternoon and we went for a bike ride and the weather was glorious.

No, we did not feel the earthquake. It supposedly rocked our world around 4:30 in the morning, and if would have to be one pretty big tremor to awaken me.

Last fall, our neighbor two doors down reported that their two Rotweilers went CRAZY barking one day and when they looked out the window they saw a VERY large cat (like a cougar or a mountain lion) strolling along their back fence. Last week in Chicago, a cougar was sited in a north shore suburb and was eventually cornered and shot. Here's wondering if it was the same cat...

Tomorrow and Tuesday are full work days in order to be ready to leave Wed. morning for Tulsa. I got a cheaper ticket out of O'Hare so P is taking me to the airport. Thanks, honey! Tuesday is my dad's birthday, so between now and then, look for a commemorative post.

Saying that made me realize my brother turned 50 earlier this month and I didn't write about him...sorry, M. The first memory that always pops into my head (and our recollections of this event are exactly the same, even though we were only 2 and 4 at the time) is when the boat motor standing in the corner of the garage fell over on him (he was no doubt trying to scale it) and severed his little finger from his left hand. I was sent to the garage to find out why he was crying. I ran back inside to report, my mother wrapped his hand in a white towel, and we were about to leave for the hospital. Unable to find the car keys in the midst of such trauma, our next door neighbor drove us, and truthfully, we could have walked there faster. Or so it felt at the time. I stayed in the waiting room, and I can remember my dad arriving, and hearing M crying from behind the big doors. It was decided to not reattach his finger, the rationale being that he'd never miss a pinky and having it there but not working right would be more trouble than it was worth. And they were right - it never slowed him down, not once, even while he was recuperating. He was as much of a little monkey as ever, climbing out of his crib at night with the cast up past his bicep to go to the bathroom. It's amazing how this event was burned into our young minds forever, and how when I think of him, this is what I think of first. Well, anyway, I gave him a call on his birthday, and welcomed him to the 50's, having, as usual, blazed the way first. I will always precede him. :)

I just hope that American is up and running and on time come Wednesday. I'd really rather spend my time with my family than in the airport.

Where have I been?

The last few weeks I've been short on blogging, due first to a case of the flu, and then to the need to do some big time catching up. This week I'm working feverishly to complete quilts for my niece and nephew who are graduating from high school this spring. The plan is to take them with me when I go to visit my parents in two weeks, so my parents can take them with them when they go to said graduations.

Also, I have more than the ordinary amount of traveling (which would ordinarily be none) coming up...next week is district conference, where I'm helping to lead a workshop on the finer points of developing a ministry to families. Then the week after that is a trip to see my parents, and on the heels of that trip is our vacation to Kentucky. The thing about vacations is that while you can't wait to go, by the time you get there you wonder if all the hassle of finishing up work and packing will be worth it after all. And it always is...

Upon arriving home from Kentucky, we'll be taking care of Hurricane and Tornado for a couple of days while H & S close on their house, pack the moving van and clear out.
The boys are saying new words everyday, and have started to sing. I can't wait to hear that!

On a seemingly unrelated note, yesterday we bought a new t.v. While this news in and of itself seems rather inconsequential, if you haven't bought a new t.v. lately (and our old one was pushing 20), t.v.'s are NOT what they used to be. Rather amazingly, we now have "high def" channels, and while we only have rabbit ears, the picture is out of this world. And, also surprising, we have channels we didn't get before. Apparently there are stations out there that you don't get if you don't have an HD t.v. Who knew? So now if I'm not blogging, I'll most likely be found in front of my new t.v., watching shows I didn't know existed, staring with gaping mouth at the unbelievable clarity.

Thank you, H2!

As if H2 hasn't had enough to think about, she's already been looking ahead to Mother's Day! Knowing that May will be CRAZY as they close on their house and move, she decided to make me an early gift. She redesigned my blog, and didn't she do a great job? While I have seemingly unlimited patience in some areas, web design isn't one of them. So, thank you, H2, for a job well done!

Going, going, gone

So just how do you, in a "depressed" housing market, put your house on the market and ON THE VERY SAME DAY receive not one but TWO full price offers? Some trick, to be sure...H & S are reeling from this development, but I'm sure H2 is not complaining that she only had to really clean the house once in order to sell it. When we got out of the Air Force, it took....are you ready for this?..... SEVENTY-FIVE (75)...yes, you read that right... 75 showings before we had a buyer. I put a little tick on the calendar each time we showed it, and at the end, it really was the 75th showing that finally came with an offer. And nobody ever said anything about the market at that time being depressed, or difficult, or whatever. H2 said that if this deal (they accepted offer #1) really does go through, they'll close in May and she and the boys will move to Nebraska, where they'll stay until they have the funds to leave for the UK.

The boys have been 2 1/2 hours away for the last 2 years...interesting that Nebraska feels no closer than England about now. :(

H(B)B, H2!

Lots of memories surrounding the birth of H2, 29 years ago...we were in the military, and after the birth of her sister two years prior (following a marathon labor/C-section), we were scheduled for a repeat C-section two weeks before my due date. Baby #2 was to be born on March 27. When I went in for that last check-up on the 26th, they did an x-ray and, though it was not conclusive, decided to give baby one more week in the oven. It took me a while to adjust to that change, having cemented March 27 in my brain, and that last week felt absolutely interminable.

We checked into the hospital the night before "birth" day, and after making sure that Nana and H1 were settled, P came to the hospital to be with me. We had already picked out names, and having had a "revelation" (or maybe heartburn?) P decided that the boy name we had picked out was inadequate and was convinced his new choice was far superior. I remember asking him, "are you HIGH??" The sentiment was nice, but the flow (too many "sh" sounds between the first and last name) was not going to work. Trying to sell me on the sentiment was not working, we were getting nowhere, and I finally said, "well, I'll show you...I'll have a girl."

So I did.

I believe things have changed through the years and the medical care offered by the military has improved. Thank God. In preparation for the surgery, I was strapped to a skinny metal table, arms out at 90 degrees, and STARK NAKED. I think I was just too young to assert myself, because there is NO WAY I would stand for that today. There was an airman counting instruments and a nurse scrubbing my mountainous belly, and I was shivering from the cold. Mercifully, I did get to go to sleep, and woke up to the news that we had another daughter, perfectly formed, having all of her fingers and toes, looking like her sister (only smaller).

H2 was the easiest baby of our three, content to lie on a blanket looking around, just happy to be alive, and it didn't take any time at all before we couldn't remember not having her around. Once, I had put her on the floor on a blanket with some toys, and stepped out of the room to answer the phone. When I returned SHE WAS GONE and I nearly panicked. I called out her name, quickly scanned the room, and found she had rolled under her crib, out of sight.

Her first word was "some", and when combined with a pointed finger was all the communication needed for what she wanted to eat. She loved to ride in the front pack and was a snuggler. We took lots of walks with her in the pack and H1 in the stroller to meet friends here or there.

Through the years, she has faced life with determination and the willingness to work hard to accomplish her goals. She has not let disappointment get the better of her, but has let the hard times accomplish good and has witnessed firsthand the greatness of our God.

Thank you, God, for blessing us with this dear daughter. Thank you for entrusting her to us, and for the joy she has brought.

Happy birthday, honey!

One more thing...

As I posted (below) and was reminded of today's date, it has a great amount of significance in our family, being the moment in time 29 years ago today that H2 was born. I will post some memories of that day and of what she means to us once I'm feeling a little better.

Yuh you, H2!

The end of a streak

I think I must have brought this upon myself somehow, maybe a little too proudful in several announcements throughout the winter that I had been exposed repeatedly to numerous bugs but had caught nary a one. Maybe the pride before the fall thing...

Must be my turn, cause I got a doozy. Don't think it's the influenza that S had (my most recent exposure) since I don't have a temp, but I feel bad enough without one, thank you very much.

Back to bed...

A little irony goes a long way

Is it just me or does it seem more than a little ironic that our government would engineer a bail-out (with money I'm pretty sure they don't have) to homeowners who bought houses they couldn't afford? I've said it before...there is no sense in putting yourself in unreasonable debt all for the sake of the "American Dream." Making house payments that are meaningless to the principal had to make somebody stop, raise and eyebrow and say, "huh?"...didn't it? Besides, anybody who owns a house will testify they are a LOT of work and more often than not, an unsuspecting money pit.

I would have hoped that when the partisan lawmakers got together over something important enough to shake hands over, it would be something of more substance...more beneficial to our country as a whole. Instead, they are furthering the notion that you can spend money you don't have and if you wail loud enough, Big Brother will ride in on a white horse and save the day.

Huh?

Decision made!

So here it is - the vacation plan is now complete! Check out this link for a look at the "cabin" we're renting on Lake Cumberland. I use the word "cabin" rather loosely, because we'll hardly be roughing it. A call to the resort confirmed that there is plenty of water in the lake, so we went ahead and booked.

This discussion has resurrected a funny memory...after we graduated from seminary, we were on our "wanderings" for a few months while we were looking for a church. We had purchased a tent trailer for $400 and were sort of living in it temporarily. One day (and I don't even remember what state we were in), we plotted where we thought we might wind up by nightfall, and found a reservoir that looked inviting. It was about an hour off the beaten path, but the road atlas certainly talked it up, so we decided to go for it. The road to the reservoir was really more the "beaten path" itself, and after jostling our innards for at LEAST an hour (that felt much longer), we pulled up to the edge of the lake, got out of the car and gasped. No, not at the beauty, but at what USED to be a lake, but was now a huge, dried up crater at the end of an incredibly bumpy road. Hot, exhausted, crabby, and hungry, we pulled out the peanut butter, made some sandwiches and climbed back in the station wagon for the return trip back to the freeway via the Chisholm Trail.

You can see why we're not that anxious for history to repeat itself. But the nice lady assured me there is plenty of water to go around. I guess we'll just take her word for it.

While in Kentucky, we're looking forward to seeing Mammoth Cave again (that's another vacation story from hell...we must be gluttons for punishment), the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, and taking a train ride...and oh yeah, LOTS of relaxing in the "cabin".