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!

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

Today Kevin turns 37! In honor of this momentous occasion, here are a couple of shots of him from our fishing trip with a couple of the kids a few months ago. You can check out all of the pictures of that event, as always, on Flickr, at this link.

Here's the MONSTER fish that our birthday boy pulled in that day! Think of the fish he can catch now that he's a BIG boy!!!



(p.s. Sorry, kevin... I'll try and hold the camera EVEN CLOSER to the fish next time!)

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

February Catchup

A couple of important things have happened recently, and they've made it to our Flickr account but haven't made it to this blog yet. So here goes!

Last Saturday was Pinewood Derby for Mikey's Cub Scout pack, Pack 137. Saturday morning Papaw Jones and I took Mikey to Home Depot to the Kids Workshop to build a car display stand... it's maddeningly close to being just the right size to display a Pinewood Derby car! We thought it would be perfect, but it's a little bit too low for comfort. Still works though, so not a total bust!

At Pack 137 we're not particularly competitive at Pinewood Derby; they run a couple of races for each den so the boys get to race their friends, then later you can sign up for family-built car races or to race kids in other dens. Mikey's car wasn't the fastest one, but it wasn't the slowest either! He had a great time taking "instant replay" video with his video camera that Papaw Angel got him for Christmas the year before last. Meme and Papaw Jones were there too, to cheer him on and eat some pizza. Enjoy the few pictures below, or visit this page for the whole batch.

        

Back up to New Years Weekend... a few pictures from our great trip home to Shreveport (mostly Mikey and/or Hannah in Grandpa's back yard) are up on this page. Here's one of them:

New Year's in Shreveport

Wow... I feel pretty rested today. It's Friday, and I've just recovered from our trip to Shreveport last weekend! Too much fun all at once, I guess!

New Year's Day the office where I work is always closed, so since it was Friday we decided to take a day of vacation and make a 4-day weekend out of it. So we loaded up in the car and headed down to Shreveport! My Grandpa, Uncle and Aunt live there, and we keep trying to find chances to go visit. They've only got a chance to see Hannah once, about a year ago, so we knew she wouldn't probably even remember them. Gotta get the kids exposed to the Fam, right?

Well, she certainly exposed us to something. Tulsa to Shreveport is about a 6-hour drive if you don't stop, but we generally stop around Paris, Texas (which is roughly 3 hours from either end of the trip) for a break and usually a meal at McD's or somewhere. We stopped to eat a clown-burger and get some Happy Meals with talking chipmunks in them, got a potty break/diaper change, let the kids play for a few, then headed on out. Well, the late lunch plus the long car ride plus the afternoon sun flashing through the bare tree trunks was apparently too much for poor Hannah... about an hour or so after we left Paris TX, she gave us her lunch back.

So we were in a dilemna... two hours from our destination and a car seat full of something you don't really want to smell for two hours! We stopped at the first gas station we saw, and while Cathy took Hannah into the bathroom and changed her clothes and rinsed the fouled ones out in the sink, I stood there in the parking lot with some paper towels and tried to get as much of the stuff out of the car seat as I could. Then we sat Hannah on a blanket we were willing to sacrifice for the evening and drove to the closest Dollar General, where we bought a huge bottle of their generic version of Febreze, took the baby out of the seat, and sprayed it down, then sat her back down on the blanket again. Miraculously, although everything was still damp, our field cleaning job did the trick well enough that we smelled very little on the rest of the trip. Hannah was never sick after that, and none of the rest of us had any queasiness, so we figure it was motion sickness (as opposed to a virus or food poisoning). Even so, I'll bet it's a while before Cathy wants to stop at that McD's again!

We had a terrific time on the weekend. Grandpa's great; he gets tired easily, still gets his bouts of upset stomach, and keeps the house unbelievably hot in winter (the thermometer on the thermostat said 85 degrees one time that I checked!), but we love him so much. My Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Elaine hung out with us for a big part of the weekend, too, and they're always fun. This trip they took us to the Norton Art Gallery, which I've always heard about but never remember visiting. Grandpa loves to go out to eat, so we went out to Cracker Barrel (sort of a favorite for our family when we're on trips) and one of Grandpa's favorite places, which Uncle Jimmy calls "The Green Weenie". We missed my cousin Derick again this time; he was unavailable this time and last for different reasons, but I'm sure we'll get to see him again eventually!

We got to visit with some old friends of mine this time... we went over to Tom & Pam's house for some ferocious Wii playing with them and their two boys (Mikey especially liked the Monster Truck racing game they have, in which you basically crush everything you can see until you get tired of crushing stuff). This time we also made it out to a service at my church there, Word of Life Center, and ran into several people... Chad Giddens, Glen Ware, even Tom's sister Lisa (who I didn't recognize at first because she was like 16 the last time I saw her, and that was a LONG time ago!) We saw Chad's wife Dixie, up on stage during the music portion of the service, but we didn't get to talk to her, or Pastor Sam and Becky Carr either, although Dixie told me later on Facebook that she and Becky had spotted us from the stage and Becky told her an embarrassing story about me from when I was a teenager. :)

It was a great weekend; no puking occurred on the way home (although we did eat at Taco Bell and not McD's!) and we didn't even see any of the snow until after we got off the Indian Nations Turnpike. We're hoping to make this at least a twice-yearly trip for us instead of just this annual thing we seem to have fallen into, so it won't be long before we do it again!

A Wedding, A Firehouse, A Victory, and A Crown

Ever have a weekend where you don't realize how much has happened until you sit down and think about it? MAN, was this one of those weekends... and it's not even dinnertime on Saturday yet!

Last night, October 2nd, was the Dave Matthews Band concert. We were thrilled to NOT be there. Instead, we were at the wedding Cathy's second cousin Melinda to a great guy named Justin! When Cathy and Melinda were teenagers, Cathy had promised to sing at Melinda's wedding, so for over a month Cathy and I have been practicing "Bless the Broken Road" to get ready to sing it last night. I think Cathy's been killing two birds with one stone... I'm pretty sure she was looking for an excuse to sing it with me anyway. :) We got it all worked up, and we were ready to give it our best. Hannah didn't go to the wedding with us; she stayed with Meme (we didn't think Hannah was up to a wedding quite yet). Mikey came along... he's known Melinda since he was a baby (she tried to teach him karate or something on her once... I was afraid she was going to teach him that it was OK to hit girls!) and he wanted to come. He brought his video camera to record our performance (we have the video, such that it is... sound quality is far from pristine, but we have it and we'll get it posted if we can make it presentable).

The wedding was quite beautiful. Melinda was stunning. Her parents looked slightly uncomfortable but excited... just as parents should look at the wedding of their only daughter! The minister looked and sounded just a tiny bit like Ben Stein to me, and if Melinda sees this I feel pretty sure she'll laugh her rear off. I mean absolutely no disrespect to him; his message and ceremony were meaningful and beautiful. I kept explaining things about the ceremony to Mikey (everybody stands up when the bride comes in, they'll use the two candles on the side to light the one in the middle because the two of them are becoming one, etc.) so he would understand what was going on. And speaking of the candles... they took on a little bit of a life of their own. When the two cousins came in to light them with their long lighting sticks (which probably have a name, but I don't know it), apparently the lighters went out too early and neither of them could light all of their candles. Finally the girl took one of the candles that they did get lit and lit the others with that. Later in the ceremony, Melinda and Justin tried to light the Unity Candle with the candles on the sides of it... but they were all the thick kind (they must have been three inches thick!) and there was no way they were going to get the middle one lit with the others! Finally they got some of the narrow ones from the other candlesticks at the edges of the stage, did their lighting, and then Justin blew his out as people usually do when the unity candle is lit. Melinda forgot and gave hers back to her matron of honor! She tried to get Melinda's attention so Melinda could blow it out, but then she gave up and blew it out herself. :)

Originally Melinda wanted us to sing during the ceremony itself, but Cathy had mentioned that sometimes people have a live song at their reception, so that's how it was arranged. We almost decided to leave before we got to sing because it was getting late, but we were able to stay long enough and we got to sing. Justin and Melinda danced as we sang about the long, tough road that people sometimes travel until they find their soulmate... by the time we were finished, Melinda was crying so hard. She let go of Justin and started hugging Cathy... and hugged her and hugged her and hugged her. Then Melinda came over and gave me a hug too. I think the song meant a lot to her, and it also meant a lot to her that Cathy, who also traveled a long road before she finally found me, was singing it for her. It was worth every minute of the extra wait to be able to provide that moment for our friends.

Mikey just now told me that he was sad the night didn't last longer.:)

This morning at 9, Mikey, Papaw and I went out to Home Depot to this month's Kids Workshop. The project today was a bank in the shape of a fire station (it's safety month) and Mikey did a great job on it. We've been doing these things for several years, and it's great to see how independent he is now with the work. Seems like the Home Depot projects make him grumpier than the Lowe's projects... the Home Depot ones are a little harder. :) He was done inside of an hour, and we were off to get Papaw home and pick up Mama and Hannah for the first soccer game of the fall season for Mikey's soccer team, the Outlaws!

The Outlaws are awesome. Mikey is so privileged to have gotten involved with Coach White and his team... many of the kids had been on the team for a year or two before Mikey, and he has grown so much being around more experienced players and learning from them and from the coach's excellent training skills. Justin (Melinda's new husband) is actually a soccer player himself, and hopefully he'll be able to be in town sometime for a practice or even a game! The Outlaws beat their opponent handily, and Mikey definitely did his part. He kept his head in the game, snagged the ball and got it going where it needed to go, and one time I saw him make a terrific pass to a teammate that got the ball out of traffic and headed toward the goal. It was AWESOME! If these kids keep working hard and learning, I don't see how they could avoid winning their division. I know, I say that after one game and without ever seeing their other opponents play, but I sincerely believe it. Those kids are GOOD!

After the game we went out with some friends of ours that we met through our boys both being on the Outlaws team... they are missionaries, and also music lovers like we are, so we had a lot to talk about over lunch at Monterey's (oddly enough, my whole plate of food, including a taco, was cool, like it had come out of a refrigerator... it tasted good, but it would have tasted better hot!) By the time we finished with the 11:00 game and then lunch, it was almost 1:30, so we headed right off to our neighborhood library, Martin Regional, for the annual Renaissance Faire (which had already started at 1!)

The Martin Regional Ren Faire isn't a hard-core Ren Faire like, say, the one that happens every year in Muskogee. It's definitely a "for the kids" thing, but they do have mock battles, costumed characters, dancers, people talking about life in the Middle Ages, and they even always have a guy with a real live hawk (Hannah LOVED that... she's a big animal fan!) On top of the regular Ren Faire stuff, they have crafts for the kids, puppet shows, and people who do things like tapestry weaving, wood carving, and doll making. Hannah is a year or two from being able to participate fully, but she and Mikey had a great time anyway! If you are in Tulsa and have kids or grandkids, I highly recommend looking it up next year around this time. It has a distinct "home-grown" feel, so don't expect glitz and flash, but it's a great time anyway. Many thanks to Martin Regional Library for hosting such a great event every year!

So now we're home. Hannah went straight to bed... then so did Cathy. So Mikey and I are batchin' it for a while until the ladies return to consciousness. Tomorrow we have church in Bixby in the morning, a Dallas Cowboys game that we may or may not watch in the afternoon, and then a fellowship back at the church in the evening. Alternately, we could go hear Jesse Duplantis at Grace Sunday night, but I think we may just stick with The Bridge this time. We love Jesse, but we want to get our feet wetter at The Bridge before we start going elsewhere for a service. :)

Monday night: Mercy Me at the Tulsa State Fair! And then Tuesday is Cathy's dad's birthday. This weekend is going to last all the way to WEDNESDAY!


Update: We did not go to the Mercy Me concert; it was chilly and drizzly and Mikey went to his Webelos meeting instead. I just realized that I never explained what the "crown" in the title of this post was! Mikey made a paper crown at the Ren Faire... Cathy made a little tiara for Hannah, too.

Riverwalk with the Cousins

This afternoon we packed up Mikey and three of his cousins and went down to the Jenks Riverwalk for some fun!

First stop:



Gina & Guiseppe's for some of the yummiest pizza in town. All of the usual suspects were there:


It took a while for the pizza to come, but BOY was it worth it! Before:



After (oh, the humanity!):



Then we walked down to the "splash pad" which is a fountain that kids are welcome to play in:



When the kids got tired, they dried off and we went into Fun House to play some games. The kids earned some tickets and picked out some little toys:


Afterward we went home to watch some movies on the DVR!



Catch That Kid and Ella Enchanted, anyone?

(Take a look at the rest of the pictures here!)

Happy Birthday Kevin!

Kevin and Candi and Mikey's cousins came to town... Kevin on the way to a worksite and the girls to stay for a few weeks. The first day they were here was Kevin's birthday! Here are some pictures...


There are more pictures from the day right here!

Service for Wayne

The service for Wayne this morning was wonderful... everyone was very sad to lose him but the music and the message were very joyful. Wayne was a joyful person; a joyful service was the only option! He was an amazing guy. He came from a difficult childhood but became a terrific father and grandfather, and one of the most generous people you'll ever meet. Pastor told a story of a time when the church was picking up kids for service in three trips with a little passenger van; when Wayne heard about it, he bought them a bus! He was and is very much loved, and a lot of tears were shed today. We went to the graveside and heard the Scripture passage read, then we stayed a little longer... but Wayne's grave is right next to Cathy's Mom's, and seeing Grandma's grave again after two years was hard on Mikey, not to mention Cathy. It's still hard for even me to remember 7-year-old Mikey crying for his grandma; he started getting really sad when he saw her marker so he and I went and sat in the car instead of staying at graveside. Cathy stayed a little longer than we did, then we left to go to lunch.

In Cathy's family they always get together for lunch after anything like this; it was so fun to see people we haven't seen in a while! Every time we do it we always say, "We've got to get together when it's not a sad event, just to have fun!" Maybe this time we'll actually start doing it.

Afterward we went to Cathy's dad's house to see him; he wasn't able to make it to the funeral, but he was up and talking to Cathy's brother and nephew and the nephew's wife when we got there, telling stories about Wayne and stories about fishing and all kinds of stuff. Cathy's dad was in much better spirits than we would have imagined. I think maybe although everyone would want Wayne back if we could have him, we are all happy to know that he's well now, no longer battling pain every day. We're going to check in on Cathy's dad more often than we have been doing lately; we love him and we don't want him to feel like he's being abandoned by everyone he cares about.

It was a hard day. But it was a good day. Lord, thank You that You are with us even in tragic times. Be with this family; comfort, protect... and Father, help us remember to come together in good times as well as in the hard times. And come back soon!

Wayne

We just found out that Cathy's cousin Wayne died this morning.

Wayne was actually a cousin of Cathy's; he and Cathy's dad essentially grew up together. He has always been a favorite of hers. In fact, Mikey's full name is Michael Christopher Wayne Jones. Finding out he is gone is not a surprise, but it is still a shock.

Wayne was a successful businessman, and he was one of the most giving people you could ever meet. He bought the crib that Mikey slept in when he was a baby, and that Hannah sleeps in at my mom's house now. He gave us our second car, the one that I drive to work from time to time (an old car that he had anyway, but his impulse was to give it to someone who needed it instead of having it towed and crushed... and it's run very well ever since). I've never heard anyone in the family say a single negative thing about him. He is greatly loved.

Wayne had some serious health problems. He had a weight problem which he was constantly struggling to get under control, and that led to the usual list of associated health problems, but the thing that finally took his life was cancer. Over a week ago they started talking to hospice people, so it was clear that it was very serious. We did not know that it was going to end this soon.

Wayne knew Jesus. We know that he's not lost to us, and that where he is now there are no weight problems and there is no cancer. We rejoice for that, even though we miss him a lot. Seems like sometimes when we lose someone, things about them come into sharp focus... we realize and understand things about someone that we never understood when they were alive. Sometimes we just never heard the stories. I know that there are some great ones about Wayne, and I hope to get a chance to hear some of them in the coming days.

Love ya, Wayne. I look forward to seeing you again one day!

My Son Has Returned!

My son has returned from a dangerous journey!
My son has returned, no longer alone!

Okay, that's two lines from a song I wrote recently about The Prodigal Son. My son did not just return from a "dangerous" journey, but he did just return from a journey! Meme and Papaw just took him down to Texas to see his cousins, who live just outside Fort Worth. It was my brother's 35th birthday (MAN he's old!!!!!) and it was a surprise visit for him. They got back yesterday afternoon. They had a GREAT time! I haven't had time to hear all about it from Mikey yet, but I do know he spent some quality time with my brother's Wii, so now Mikey's trying to figure out ways to save up enough money for us to get one...

Cousins

I can't believe I've waited so long to blog this... the weekend before last, my brother Kevin and his wife Candi came up from the Ft. Worth area and brought their five daughters... Mikey's beloved cousins. They came to church at Grace on Sunday and rode the carousel... check out the pictures!