Ten Years

Today's an emotional day for us. We're moving out of the house we've lived in for ten years, four and a half months. It's the longest period of time in my life that I've ever lived in one place.

Mikey was only ten months old when we moved into this house in East Tulsa in February of 2001. Cathy had wanted to live in this area since she was a little girl and much of it was brand new; 30 years later it wasn't quite as new and sparkly, but we loved it anyway. We've celebrated many important events in this house: we made a baby and celebrated a birth. We've celebrated many birthdays, including the first birthdays of both of our children. Ten Christmases and ten Easters. Ten anniversaries. Four full-time jobs for myself, not counting the flurry of short consulting gigs during the second year we lived here, when I had been laid off by an ailing company right after the dot-com bust + the WTC attacks. Four deaths of people we were very close to happened while we lived in this house, and two more of relatives who were much-loved but a little more distant. Lots of potty training. Five years of Cub Scouts. Three years of Christian School in two different schools, two years of home schooling and one year of public school. Several seasons of soccer. Brutal heat and crazy amounts of snow. Out of electricity once (or was it twice?) for a week or two at a time because of ice. Two different churches. Two different dogs and two pet frogs. Three different cars. Lots of movies and music. Lots of laughing, lots of crying. Lots of friends.

It's been a good run. I'm looking forward to the next ten years in Bixby!

Memorial Day 2011

Boy, has it been a long time since the last post! Lots has happened since then... birthdays, Christmas and Christmas Train, Mother's Day, museum visits, trumpet playing, Vacation Bible School. And now it's Mikey's last week of 5th grade! But I really wanted to mention the great time we had this weekend down in Texas with my brother's family.

I took Friday off from work so we could go down a little early; as it turned out, we let Mikey go to school and drove down to the Fort Worth area afterward. Saturday Candi had to work (at home), so the rest of us beat it out to the Ray Roberts Lake State Park to go swimming at the man-made beach there. Everybody had a great time and got sunburned (didn't wait long enough after applying sunscreen to go into the water... D'OH!!), and then we went home (with a brief side trip to a favorite thrift store, where my brother bought a disco light that looked totally like a Dalek from Doctor Who) and applied Aloe Vera. After that delicate process, we mounted back up and went to a restaurant called Babe's Chicken Dinner House, where we had some of the best fried chicken and chicken fried steak anywhere!

The next day was Sunday, so as always we went to Kevin and Candi's church with them, but this time was a little different... we lucked out and wound up there on the day of their annual church picnic! They have their picnic at a place called Circle R Ranch, and we ate some barbecue and then all of the kids went out to go swimming. Some of Kevin's kids went back inside later to play Bingo... my two stayed in the pool the whole time! After they closed the pool down but before we left, I had a few minutes to take Hannah down to the pony corral and let her meet and bet two very sweet ponies, Babs and Ginger. I know the girl must have been getting them ready to be put away after the pony rides, but she was so nice, letting Hannah have some time with them through the fence. Hannah loves animals, and I know that was a big deal to her!

(And yes, we wound up getting more sunburned... we've REALLY got to figure out how this sunscreen stuff works!)

Monday morning we weren't quite ready to blow out yet, so Kevin and I took Mikey and Emily out to a friend's pond to fish (Mikey caught the big fish of the day: a bass that was in the neighborhood of 20" from lips to end of tail! Picture below) while Cathy and Hannah went with the rest of the girls to the mall to do, I don't know, whatever girls do at the mall. Everyone had a terrific time; Kevin and Emily and Mikey all caught fishes, but I caught diddly, despite the fact that I had a brand new ball cap I had bought the day before that says "Born to fish, forced to work!" So much for lucky fishin' hats. Maybe I need to poke a few lures into it to activate the fish-catchin' magic. The mall bunch got to ride a carousel, so they had a great time too!

That afternoon Kevin grilled some steaks that Cathy had bought and marinated the day before, and we feasted a feast as good as anything you'll find at a restaurant. Turn that guy loose with a piece of meat, a bottle of propane and a match, and he'll work magic! We wound up leaving much later than we expected, and if you add my poor navigational skills to that (you wouldn't think it would be THAT hard to get from Oklahoma City to Tulsa, but I seem to have an awfully hard time at it) and we wound up getting home about midnight-thirty. But you know what? It was worth every bit of sunburned skin and every mile out of the way we drove. I don't think I've ever had that much fun on a Memorial Day weekend. Thanks so much, Kevin and Candi!


Mikey's Monster Fish!

Jellystone Park

"I forgot the camera."

Those are the words I said to Cathy yesterday as we left the city limits of Tulsa, and that's why you won't see pictures of us with John & Sheri at Jellystone Park Camp in Eufaula, Oklahoma. But I'm not sure we would have gotten that many pictures anyway... we spent most of the day in the water, and our little snapshot camera is most definitely not waterproof!

We didn't go to camp... you can pick up a day pass for ten bucks apiece and use the facilities for the whole day without spending a night. John & Sheri had discovered the place somehow, and we had a GREAT time with them. Mikey and Hannah loved the pool (Hannah was wearing a floating suit, so she even got to go in the "deep end"... a whopping five feet!), and after we had splashed around there for a while (and got to dance the Macarena and the chicken dance and eat free ice cream... POOL PARTY!!!), we went on down to the lake swimming area, where the water gets a little deeper and where they have paddle boats, kayaks, a huge inflatable water slide and a smaller plastic slide, and a trampoline right out there in the lake. Awesome! Mikey and Sheri snagged a paddle boat while John and I swam out to the water slide, and they promptly ran over a life jacket which was floating in the water (presumably whoever had been in the jacket was on the shore somewhere and it blew out into the lake... I hope!) and so it was almost impossible to paddle the thing. Crazy! Hannah wasn't liking the muddy water, so she and Cathy went back to the pool. John and I went down the water slide, forgetting that unless you want muddy water up your sinuses, you should hold your nose when you go down a monster slide into the lake!

So anyway, we joined Mikey and Sheri on the paddle boat and managed to get back to shore. Sheri joined Cathy at the pool while Mikey snagged a kayak. Mikey and John and I went out to the trampoline; we discovered that a trampoline on water is a weird thing. The water absorbs some of the bounce, so it's a lot harder to jump. So we didn't jump for very long!

We joined the girls back at the pool and splashed a little longer, then we dried off and took a break to go across the street to Watts' Barbecue, a restaurant which is apparently somewhat legendary and which is owned by the family of former U.S. Representative J. C. Watts. It was good stuff! Afterward we went back to the campground and tried out the mini-golf course, but it was really hot and except for Mikey, who finished the whole course without us, our hears weren't particularly in it... the grown-ups and Hannah quit halfway through. :)

They have tent sites and cabins out there, and it would be a GREAT place to camp out! We may yet do that sometime, but the day pass was a great, inexpensive day with family and friends. Despite using waterproof sunscreen, each of us wound up with varying levels of sunburn... but we all had a great time!

Jasmine Moran Children's Museum

Last Saturday we took a day trip to Seminole, Oklahoma to visit the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum. We had a great time, as you can see from these pictures:

     
     
     

Usually I try to give a synopsis of what all went on in these blog posts, but in this case, the pictures are so central to the story that I sort of blogged in the individual photo descriptions. The real blog entry lives almost entirely on Flickr! You really should go there and take a look at each picture individually... it's easy on Flickr to enter a photo set and click "Next" on each page and go all the way through it. This is one case where the official Web site doesn't do the real place justice.

Click this picture of the museum's welcome sign to see all of the pictures and read the photo captions to see all the things we did:

2 Crazy Months

Wow! I took a look at the contents of our camera today, and was amazed at all the pictures I needed to upload! If you like looking at my family pictures, set aside some time to check them out!

If you've been reading this blog, you already know we've lost a lot of loved ones recently. We lost two grandpas and one aunt/sis-in-law. In the middle of all of that, we managed to have a nice Mother's Day. But wait... there's more!

When we were in Shreveport for Grandpa Mickey's funeral, Hannah got her first haircut:



Cathy had a birthday, and so did Michael:


Bonus picture of Hannah eating a piece of my birthday cake:



At The Bridge Church, we had our first-ever church picnic, which Hannah and Mikey LOVED:

   

The next Sunday as we were leaving church, Hannah said, "I want to go to the picnic!" I guess she had had fun!! We had to break it to her that the picnic only happens once a year or so, not every week. :)

Today was the "Taste of Summer" event at the Blue Bell ice cream plant in Broken Arrow. You plunk down five dollars a person, and you get to eat all the ice cream you can handle! There are also games and inflatables for the kids (Mikey and Hannah tried out almost all of them), self-guided tours of that plant (which Hannah and Mikey LOVED), fire trucks, a "fire safety house", a trailer with information about recycling, and even some live music. Cathy was planning on entering the ice cream eating contest, but she didn't get in on that this year. :) We had a blast! Don't believe me? Here are all the pictures, or take a gander at these samples:

     

Yesterday evening we were in Bixby to eat dinner, and we ran across the coolest playground ever! It's at the Bentley Sports Complex. I couldn't BELIEVE how tall one of their slides is. It must be at least three stories high! Here's the picture from their site (I didn't have the camera or I would have taken one myself):

Bye Bye, Grandpas

I started writing this post in May, but didn't quite finish, then I started again, adding the second part, but then was interrupted again by the events of this week. This has been an excruciating couple of months for my family. Read on and you will find out why.

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I have something in common with my children now that we didn't have in common two months ago. I wish it were something that could have waited, but these things have a way of happening when you least expect them.

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It all started for me on tax day, April 15. I was at my desk at work when I got one of the worst phone calls of my life. "Daddy's gone," my father told me, referring to his 86-year-old dad, my only living grandparent. Grandpa Mickey (his real name was Milton, but he was always Grandpa Mickey to us) had been in an automobile accident some time before, and had been having health problems since then; that morning he had passed away in his house, ironically, while getting dressed for a doctor appointment. I called my wife to let her know; I think it was almost as hard for her as it was for me. Her biological grandfathers have been dead for quite some time, and I think she had adopted mine in her heart as her own. We all loved him very much.

My earliest memories of Grandpa Mickey are of him in his easy chair. In fact, a LOT of my memories of Grandpa are of him in his easy chair; he and my dad and uncle are world-champion sitter-downers. Time at Grandpa's house often consisted of hanging out in the living room chatting until he fell asleep in his chair, and then waiting until he woke up to chat some more! As a child, though, I remember feeling a great deal of respect for him, bordering on fear. I wasn't at all afraid that he was going to abuse me, but I was definitely afraid to cross him. I don't remember him ever giving me swats, but I do remember getting severely bawled out a time or two! But I never had any doubt that he loved me. I've always hoped that as a dad I could be described by my children one day as "tough but fair," and Grandpa Mickey was nothing if not that. And judging by the reverent way his children always treated him, they felt the same way about him. He was always in your corner, but he wasn't going to put up with any baloney out of you!

Hannah hanging out with Grandpa Mickey, January 2010

Grandpa Mickey wasn't actually my biological grandfather. When my dad and his brother were very young, their mother was divorced from their father and later married Milton. He adopted her two sons, and then they had a daughter together. I don't minimize biological relationships at all, but to me it's notable that he was their dad, and then my grandpa, not by blood but by love. In my lifetime I went from visiting at Christmas, to living briefly with my grandparents as a child, to living in town, to living out of town, to being away at college, to even living at their house for a year or so as a young man, and never felt any annoyance from Grandpa at my youthful follies. I always felt protected and taken care of when I was around him. He knew about almost anything (with the exception of computers; he never owned one, although I did cart them to his house every now and then), and if you needed something, he probably had at least one of them somewhere. He loved my wife like a daughter; when we would visit, she would stay up late talking to him about country music, or just whatever. He loved all of his grandkids - my two kids and my brother's five - but taken in large doses, they could really wear him out!

When I was about fifteen years old, I got to go on a vacation with Grandpa Mickey and Grandma Clarice (Grandma passed away when I was in my mid-twenties). It was mostly a New England trip, although we threw in a little bit of Canada for good measure. I got to see the St. Louis arch, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, the Smithsonian and all the Washington D.C. monuments, Niagara Falls, and those Canadian stop signs that say "Arrêt" instead of "Stop". During that trip, I learned several things: (1) modern country music is just twangy classic rock; (2) Grandma wasn't much good with maps, but Grandpa sure appreciated a copilot who was; and (3) Grandpa did NOT like large cities. Grandpa was from a small town, and whenever we got anywhere near a population center, he would start having stomach cramps and have to live on buttermilk and Pepto-Bismol for a while! Despite that minor handicap, we did manage to visit all of the historical and touristy areas that Grandma and I wanted to see, and I have a whole hunk of wonderful memories to show for it.

Cathy and I got to sing "In The Garden" at Grandpa's funeral. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, but the honor of getting to perform at the funeral of someone I respect so much was only equaled by the honor of getting to carry his casket. We miss him terribly; it will be really strange when we go to visit family and friends in Shreveport to not stay with him at the big old house he built himself. Up to the very end, he lived there on his own, reading AARP magazines and watching the evening news and driving himself to Golden Corral to flirt with the waitresses and falling asleep in that chair of his. I'll always think of him as the model of an independent guy. Maybe one day when I'm an old man, my grandkids will see me in as positive light as I see him.

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A month after Grandpa Mickey's funeral, we got word that Cathy's father, Don Angel, was really sick. By the time we got to visit him in the hospital, he was very VERY sick, but he did have some brief periods of partial lucidity when he was able to communicate, and once he even gave Cathy a hug and a kiss and told her he loved her. A few days later he was gone, leaving the second hole in our hearts within five weeks.

Cathy and I met online in late 1998. This was WAY before online relationship-building was considered anything like normal, but we met through my Web site about a common interest of ours, and we hit it off immediately. We chatted online, then in long, drawn-out phone calls, and then finally I asked her out for an actual date. When I got there to pick her up, Cathy's dad wasn't there... he was working late and wasn't able to be there to meet me. So I didn't meet Don on my first date with his daughter, but I was able to find out what he thought of me soon enough. My job was not far from the restaurant which he owned and at which Cathy, her mom, and several family members worked, so I came to the restaurant for lunch one day. I ordered the chili cheeseburger. I didn't know until much later that what I got was not the regular chili cheeseburger!

The burger I got was served open-face. It was on a bed of lettuce that filled the whole plate. It was the ultra-deluxe, super-dooper, thank-you-for-making-my-daughter-happy-again cheeseburger. Now that I think about it, I don't think I ever brought that up again with him in later years, but that was clearly what he was saying to me. Since then, I've done everything in my power to make my marriage a joyful one - and show myself worthy of that cheeseburger!

Cathy and me with Don, circa 2000

I didn't even meet Don that day in the restaurant, but it wasn't long afterward that I did. When Cathy and I decided to forego the big expensive stressful wedding and run off together to Arkansas without telling anyone where we were going, Don was ecstatic and even gave us some spending money for the trip. I know he appreciated me for saving his daughter from the depression she had been experiencing, and I also know that as the years went by he appreciated and loved me more and more simply for who I was. We had many discussions about life, the Word of God, politics, finances... all kinds of stuff. I'm lucky to still have my dad in this world, but Don became like a second dad in a lot of ways.


I learned early on that if Don ever said, "Here, eat this," the proper response, hungry or not, was just to eat it... not out of courtesy, but because if Don said Eat This and you ate it, you were going to be SO glad you did. The man knew his food. He was a restaurant and catering man for most of his adult life, and I don't think there was a food that you could think of that he didn't know something about, and probably know off the top of his head how to prepare an amazing plate of it for you. He and Cathy's mom Linda fed me huge portions of more good food than you could imagine. I can't figure out why, after being in this family for eleven years now, I'm not as big as a house!

Don's wife Linda passed away in 2007. They married when they were not more than children, both still in their teens; this year would have been their fiftieth anniversary. The week that Linda died, I just remember that whenever we came over to Don's house, he was just sitting there in the middle of his couch. He usually had loved ones on either side of him. Sometimes he was shaking. He could barely move or speak. This went on for days and days and days. She had died at home, but he wouldn't leave the house, and we wondered how he was ever going to survive the loss. But survive he did; eventually he could speak again, and get around on his own, and once people were sure he would be OK on his own, we were comfortable letting him be by himself sometimes. Still, many of us visited him, and he took particular pleasure in spending time with his beloved nephew Wayne. Don loved his kids, their spouses, and their grandkids, and I think he received a lot of strength from having us around. But the grief of losing Linda took a huge toll on him, and that manifested itself in his body. He was constantly feeling ill, and as the years went by, it seemed to get progressively worse. Whenever we could talk him into going to a doctor, he would get medicine that would help a little bit, but his health problems always seemed to be there, lurking in the background.

In August of 2009, Wayne passed away. It would be difficult to overstate the devastating impact of this on Don. He and Linda had been like an older brother and sister to Wayne since they were kids together. Wayne was actually one of the few people who could get him out of the house in later years to go do stuff. They would go fishing a lot, or just go out for burgers, or go coin-shopping together (they were collectors), or whatever. Don had two sisters, and one of them passed away a year or so before Linda did; outside of his other sister (who is still alive today), Wayne was emotionally the closest of his relatives still left from his childhood. Losing Wayne was another heavy burden on the back of an already overburdened man. Don's son Kevin took to coming over to his house daily to keep him company and make sure he was all right. My wife and I came over as often as we could, too, but sometimes he asked us not to come over with the kids, despite the fact that it brought him a lot of joy to be with them, because he didn't want to get sick in front of them.

We were privileged to be in the hospital room when we knew Don was probably going to leave this world and go be with Jesus. His breathing had become labored and noisy, but it was regular and actually sounded quite strong and loud. We sat there, visiting a little and cheering each other up, but I knew everyone in the room was listening, relieved whenever he took another breath.

Don took a breath, and then the next one didn't happen. I almost started to cry, because I knew it was the last breath he would take on Earth.

But it wasn't! After a long pause, Don took one... last... breath. And then he was gone. My firm belief is that he was fighting to the end to stay here for his family's sake. He was just that kind of man. He loved much, and he loved well. And now he's in Heaven loving his wife, his nephew, his sister, and all the other loved ones who went on before him.

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So now, within the space of just a few months, I have the recent loss of a grandfather in common with my two children. We will recover and we will go on with our lives, as Grandpa Milton and Papaw Don would have wanted us to, but each of them still has a place in our hearts that can never be filled again this side of Heaven. We miss them both so much.

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We love you, Theresa.

Yesterday morning, Cathy called me at work. "We need to get up to the hospital to see Theresa," she said. Theresa Angel is Cathy's brother's wife; Cathy and she actually knew each other at church a few years before she met his brother, and we didn't even all make the connection until later. In recent months Cathy and Theresa had started to become even closer friends than they had been before, and Theresa had declared that she intended to treat our children like the grandma they lost three years ago would treat them if she were still with us. Theresa had liver disease, diagnosed many years ago, and she's been on a liver transplant waiting list for over a year and a half. Early Monday morning she had gone into the emergency room with bruises all over her body, and Tuesday mid-morning Cathy's brother, Theresa's husband Kevin, had called her and told her to come quickly.

We didn't get there quickly enough. When we got to St. Francis Hospital, Cathy spent a few minutes talking to someone at a nurse's station, and then she came back to where I was (I was trying to keep the kids entertained while we were waiting), Cathy said simply, "She's gone." She pointed at the ceiling. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "You mean, gone gone?" I asked. Theresa had died mere minutes before we arrived.

We were crushed. We went up to the floor where the family was and spent some time with them, then we went downstairs to the lobby to wait with Kevin for his son David. Meanwhile the word was getting out, and my mom, who is a friend of Cathy's family in addition to being related by marriage, came up to give Kevin a hug of condolence and to take my kids off our hands and to McDonald's. Cathy and I stayed a little longer, and then after making sure Kevin was taken care of (his son was going home with him), we got in the car to leave; there was no reason to hang around the hospital any more. "Do you want to go home, or do you want to just drive?" I asked Cathy. She didn't know what she wanted to do, so I selected the "just drive" option.

These days it's really hard to drive around Tulsa without going somewhere that holds painful memories. Cathy's dad passed away not quite two weeks ago, so parts of town that are associated in our minds with him are still very much an open wound. And now parts of town that we associate with Theresa can be added to that list. To make it worse, there is so much street work going on in Tulsa right now that it can be a struggle to drive anywhere (don't get me wrong... the streets need it! But it's hard on motorists). I wound up heading out to Peoria and then down to Riverside, then I took Riverside out past Jenks to where it curves and becomes 131st Street. I knew that stretch would give me a chance to "just drive" for a few minutes without dodging any construction barrels, facing any stop lights or signs, or fighting any traffic. My brother's wife Candi called Cathy on her cell phone, and they chatted for a few minutes, which was good for Cathy.

I didn't talk much. I felt numb. In addition to the death of Cathy's dad two weeks ago, we dealt with the death of my grandpa a month and a half before that. I've been strong and brave through all of those losses (and don't even make me mention the loss of Cathy's mother... grandmother... cousin... aunt... these all occurred within the past 4 or 5 years) ...but it starts to wear on you. I felt tired. I felt like a boxer must feel in the seventh or eighth round of a fight where he's getting the snot pounded out of him. It's not the first blow that gets you, or the second, or even the third, but when you start piling them up on top of each other, especially in such rapid succession... it's enough to wear the strongest man out.

We got to 131st and Memorial, and I turned left. Our church, The Bridge in Bixby, was just up at 121st and Memorial, and I thought there might be a chance that someone was there. Sure enough, Pastors Orlando and Kim were there, and Associate Pastor David, and they knew already (Orlando and Kim were friends with Theresa from her Grace Fellowship days, and Orlando had even performed in Kevin & Theresa's wedding). We walked in, and we were immediately covered with love and compassion. It was like someone putting a warm, comfy blanket on you when you're freezing cold; I think they helped to steady us both just by being themselves and loving us. They asked us what had happened and we filled in some of the blanks for them, and then they prayed for us and for our children, that we would be strengthened and that particularly Mikey wouldn't become fearful since all of those people he is close to have been going away all of a sudden. Orlando seemed startled to see me so distracted and a bit teary; I guess I generally control the way I act so well that people don't often see me getting truly emotional. So they don't know what a crybaby I truly am sometimes. :) Anyway, after receiving a couple of CDs of recent messages from Kim, we left there feeling quite a bit better.

We weren't far from Kevin's house in south Broken Arrow by this time, and since Kim had asked us to give one of the CDs to Kevin, we decided to go on out to his house and deliver it right away. When we got there, Kevin's car wasn't in the driveway, but we were surprised to see our great friend John Teeples walk around from the back. John and his wife Sheri have a lawn service, and they had been cutting Kevin & Theresa's grass. We got out of the car and told John the news; he was so shocked he dropped his weed eater. We walked around the back and shared it with Sheri also, then we all stayed put for a few minutes and talked about Theresa, and then just about "stuff" for a bit. It was so helpful, so therapeutic, to have real, true friends to help us get our feet back rooted in reality again. The whole experience had been so surreal that we needed someone to help ground us. Kevin got home and Cathy gave him the CDs, and then we said good-bye to John and Sheri and left, again feeling MUCH better after receiving the love and caring of friends.


Theresa was a WONDERFUL lady. She was amazing. Many of the people who knew her who are on Facebook commented on her beautiful singing voice, but for me, that was almost the least of the wonderful things about her. She had a huge personality; she could fill a room with joy or compassion or whatever else was appropriate to the situation. She had the biggest laugh; not loud and obnoxious, but full and hilarious, welcoming you in on the joke even if you had just walked in and had no idea what was going on. She genuinely cared about people; not just family members, but pretty much anyone who came into her circle of influence. I can't imagine Theresa ever excluding people from her life because of social class, race, appearance, language. She enjoyed life, family, and friends. When Linda and then Don died, Theresa was so concerned that we all were there emotionally for each other; this time we have to remember to be there for each other without her prompting (fortunately, apparently she trained us well!) Her daughters are all beautiful young ladies, and though they may or may not believe what I'm saying if they read this, I can see in each of them echoes of their mother's classiness. They're not just attractive physically, although they are that; they are all also top-quality women with high standards for themselves and respect for others. Theresa used to brag about them so much to us behind their backs! She loved them and her husband so much. We started missing her the second she was gone.

Here's her obituary in the Tulsa World.

Kevin & Theresa in 2007, visiting us in the hospital after Hannah was born

Mother's Day 2010

7am on Mother's Day I saw Mikey. This was significant, because I never see Mikey at 7am on a Sunday. On Sundays, I get up at 7 and grab my shower first thing because our water heater needs a running head start to heat water back up for the other family members. I usually wake Mikey up closer to 7:45 or so. But this was Mother's Day! Mikey was so excited... he wanted to make breakfast for Mama! I was doubtful; did Mikey really know what he was doing? More importantly, would I be able to figure out the cappuccino machine we bought for Cathy and make her some coffee? I don't even drink the stuff! But Mikey explained to me that he knew how to make pancakes, so I got him bathed and then grabbed my own shower, and then when it was the right time, we got to work.

Mikey surprised the daylights out of my by knowing exactly what to do. He measured the pancake mix and poured and flipped the pancakes, and did a great job! I plugged in the griddle for him and sprayed the nonstick spray, and he did the rest! He even made some baby-sized pancakes for Hannah!

Meanwhile I was trying to figure out the cappuccino machine. I wasn't actually sure that the coffee I had bought (a Starbuck's "House Blend") was even appropriate, but I followed the instructions as well as I could and soldiered on. I actually accidentally released the steam before I put the dipper into the milk (whoops!), but I put a little more milk into the reservoir and it seemed to work out all right. When we got Cathy up, she had some pancakes and cappuccino waiting for her! She seemed to really like it!

Hannah had also picked out some earrings for her. Hannah has a knack for knowing Cathy's taste in earrings. At the store I showed Hannah several pairs of earrings, and no matter what else I showed her, she kept pointing at the dangling concentric loop earrings and saying "Those are Mama." Sure enough... they were Mama! Mama loved 'em!

We wound up a bit late for church; the worship service was already in progress. We came in quite a bit into the music part of the service, and had to walk all the way across the room to get to our seats. The congregation was singing a song about how glorious God is, and I set my Bible down on my back-row seat and turned around, and when I did, I felt the presence of God so strongly it almost brought me to tears! It was awesome worship. It was an awesome service!

Afterward we met my mom and dad for lunch at Carino's (the kids had picked out a hanging tomato planter for her), arriving early enough that we walked right up to a table with no wait at all. From there we went to Oklahoma Aquarium, where Moms were free for the day and the rest of us got in free on Mom & Dad's membership! We had a great time seeing sharks, fish, jellyfish, shrimp, horseshoe crabs... even beavers and otters! Hannah didn't want to leave... she wanted to keep touching the shrimp in the hands-on tank!

Mom and Dad went on to their own stuff for the evening; we went home to let Hannah take a nap (which she ultimately did not take) and then we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Texas Roadhouse was quite crowded, but we passed the time by eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the floor. Wish I could do that at home... that would be AWESOME!

Cathy told me this morning that after everyone was in bed last night, she cried from the happies. Sounds like a great Mother's Day to me!

Christmas Train 2009

Last night we engaged in one of our treasured family traditions: we spent the evening out at Dry Gulch, U.S.A. at The Christmas Train! The Christmas Train is quite an experience... Dry Gulch is a little faux western town (cowboy stuff) and at Christmas they outline all of the buildings with lights (beautiful!) and have Santa and the whole nine yards. They also have a real steam train that looks like one from an old west town, and you can ride it and hear the story of the birth of Jesus. It's SO much fun, and we've done it every year with Mikey (except for a few years when the Christmas Train inexplicably was not open).

It's a long drive to Dry Gulch... it's Northeast of Pryor, about an hour or an hour and a half from Tulsa. It's generally a good 5 degrees or more colder than it is in Tulsa, too; when we got there the thermometer in our car said 25 degrees (when we left afterward, it said 22!) And it seems like when our night comes every year, it's always REALLY cold, and usually windy enough that the wind-chill takes "freezing your spurs off" to a whole new level. But last night we were well-bundled and well-layered, and there was uncharacteristically little breeze this time, so we were pretty comfortable for most of the evening... maybe a few slightly chilled fingers and toes, but other than that, no complaints.

We got some chili/beef stew/corn dogs and had some dinner (my friend Joy was working the register... hi Joy!) then we went out to enjoy Dry Gulch. Hannah got to see a campfire for what I believe is the first time, she got to ride a pony, and she and Mikey got to hang out with the Jolly Red Guy himself, and we all rode the train, which Hannah LOVED! My favorite conversation of the evening with Hannah: "What are you looking at, Hannah?" "Dat!" "What, the train?" "The CHOO-choo train!" (Not that other inferior kind of train that they have elsewhere, I guess!)

The train ride goes right through the woods, but as you ride there is a soundtrack telling the story of God creating the world, the fall of Man, the coming of Jesus in the Christmas story, and then continuing on to Jesus' death and resurrection. There are beautiful paintings along the side of the train tracks that go along with each part of the story. When Hannah saw the picture of the angels at Jesus' birth, she said "I like dat!!" She also really liked the huge train-drives-through diorama of creation (which is just some big balls of something under blacklights, but it is kind of pretty) and as always, Hannah LOVED the part with the baby Jesus! At several points along the ride (the Nativity, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection) the scenes are live, with actors and everything (there were live sheep with the shepherds coming to see Jesus!) It's a great opportunity to let kids experience the Gospel in a different way, in a very fun setting.

This year we did something we don't remember ever doing before... we stayed until they came on the speaker and announced that they were closing things for the evening! On the way home, Mikey chattered about what he had learned and some things God had been speaking to his heart, and then Cathy talked about what she was thinking, and then when she was done, Hannah babbled some baby-talk for a while! I think everybody had a GREAT time. I woke up this morning content and peaceful, but a little sore... you try doing 30-40 reps with a 30-pound 2-year-old over a three-hour period and see how YOU feel in the morning. :)

The thumbnails to the left are to some of the pictures we took; you can find the whole batch on this flickr page!

December 2009 Update

Why has it been almost a month since I've posted an update? I don't know... all KINDS of stuff has been happening! Here's a rundown...

October 24 we went to Tulsa's Oktoberfest, which is one of the best-known Oktoberfests in the United States. We go every year and get a real imported German Christmas ornament. This year it was a little trickier... the people who we've always bought our ornament from (they have a store in Wichita, but they exhibit at the Tulsa event) were not exhibitors this year. We had to find a new booth with actual German ornaments! Several booths have ornaments, but we have a tradition of buying our family ornament actually from Germany... not Poland or another European country, and certainly not from the U.S. You can see all of our Oktoberfest pictures here!

Halloween weekend Mikey and I went with a few other Webelos from his den to Webelos Outdoor Weekend. We were hosted by Boy Scout Troop 8. The boys got to earn several of their Webelos advancement pins, and we had a great time! Since it was Halloween weekend, the boys from Troop 8 decked out the permanent castle building at Cub World as a haunted house. All of the Cub Scouts loved it! See all of our pictures from the weekend here.

November 5 we got to go with some friends to a Newsboys concert! Hannah didn't come, but Cathy and Mikey and I went with a friend of Mikey's and his mom and brother. I blogged about that concert here, and there are a few pictures that Cathy took at the concert here.

All four of us went out to LaFortune Park that weekend... it was a beautiful day, and Hannah and Mikey got to swing and play almost until she couldn't swing and play any more. :) The pictures we took are here.

November 17 I got a new Bible in the mail. It's a really nice, expensive Bible, and I was blessed with it by winning a contest! If you know me very well at all, you'll know what a big deal that was to me. You can read all about it (with pictures of the new Bible!) here.

Thanksgiving came, and with it came the Joneses from Fort Worth! My brother Kevin and his family came up to visit, and Mikey loves his cousins (five girls) to pieces. They stayed at my dad & mom's house the whole time, and as always, we couldn't pry Mikey away, so he stayed over there the whole time too. Cathy and Hannah and I went over to Cathy's brother Kevin's house (yes, we both have a brother named Kevin) and spent some time with them Thanksgiving evening, too. There are some pictures of Thanksgiving here. Check out the one of Hannah making friends with Theresa's purse-hound Tia!

That same weekend we took the kids (except the two babies) to see G-Force (Cathy didn't get to go to the movie either) and then afterward we picked up Cathy and the babies and went out to Rhema to see the Christmas lights, which were fabulous as always. They had a programmed light show set to music this year that was incredible! Pictures of those two expeditions are here.

Last night Mikey was at a friend's birthday party sleepover, and Cathy and I took Hannah to see Curious George Live. It was a very cute story about George helping his friend Chef Pasketti enter a meatball-cooking contest! The show was fun... all of those "Kid-TV-franchise Live" shows are great spectacles... and the actor playing George did some very convincing monkey moves! Hannah wasn't as mesmerized with it as we had hoped, but she had a lot of fun and came home with a Curious George Live flag banner. :) (Mikey had lots of fun playing Wii at Kai's birthday party, too!)

Today Mikey's soccer team played (and won) their last game of the season. It was REALLY cold... mid-30s and breezy... and several of the kids (including Mikey) were just wearing their regular uniforms with no extra clothes under to keep them warm! They were really COLD!

Finally, this afternoon when Hannah was taking her nap, we put up our Christmas tree and some other decorations. Here's the result:

Hannah REALLY likes a little ceramic Nativity scene that we always set out. She kept wanting me to let her hold Baby Jesus!