days in the life of a
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December 2009
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December 26, 2009
QUIET MORNING AFTER
Yesterday morning I awoke to this, with a sense of anticipation and excitement in the air.
We had a wonderfully busy, fun, exhausting Christmas Day of gifts, laughter, family, and overeating.
But this morning...
...the house is still and quiet, and this is the scene from my chair and laptop.
Most of the gifts have been opened, with a couple of piles still remaining for our Minnesota peeps.
Very soon, Kamaron will be up and heading out of the house for an early morning run, and then slowly the others will awake and the house will come alive again.
We'll have a big breakfast and then send Kamaron and Anique on their way back west to Kansas City, where Sunday morning they'll board a jet and head out for a delayed week-long honeymoon to beautiful, romantic Hawaii!
For a couple of days Kyler, Kim, and I will relax and hang out, watch some ballgames (on the new, improved HDTV!), and regroup for Tuesday when Kristoffer, Dana, and Karter arrive.
And the excitement, noisy fun will start all over again.
But for now, I'll just enjoy my morning coffee, ponder the events and conversations of yesterday, and savor the early morning dark silence.
There's something special and sweet and restful about...
...the quiet morning after!
December 27, 2009
CHRISTMAS DAY BLESSINGS
Christmas Day was a day full of family blessings!
Three of our children were able to share the day with us.
Emily and Zach, who live nearby and we see often...
...Kyler, our college student who we're enjoying having home from IU a few weeks for semester break...
...and our newlyweds Anique and Kamaron, who traveled 8 hours from Kansas City to share the holiday with us!
Sweet little Christmas elf (our niece Sydney)...
...and an excited, ornery little Star Wars expert (nephew Foster).
Teens (nephew Morgan) and tweens (niece Paige)...
...high-schoolers (niece Erin), college kids (niece Brooke and Kyler)...
...and young adults out on their own (nieces Tiffany and Leslie, with Leslie's husband Joey).
New family members welcomed in (Kenny's wife Joyce and her granddaughter Jesse).
Speaking of new family members, these two joined the clan in August (our new daughter-in-law Anique holding our great-niece Macee).
Precious little angels (our great-niece Mira) and answered prayers (brother-in-law John who gave us all a huge health scare when he had to have a brain tumor removed a couple of weeks ago)!
Cute little Floridians (nephew Wyatt and niece Seanna) who rode a long way to share Christmas with us...and are hoping for a little more snow to play in before they leave.
How did these two grow up so fast...can't believe they're already 8 and 4?!
Talk about blessings! My two sisters (Barb and Maria) and Mama are high on my list. We don't all get together often, but when we do it's always a wonderful time!
And my greatest Christmas blessing, my amazing husband Kim!
We've been together almost 30 years and, I have to say, each year is better than the last! God knew what He was doing when He brought the two of us together, and Kim's been a blessing to me every single day since then.
And Kim loves to spoil me at Christmas (okay, EVERY day!)...which I love too!
I thank God every day for Kim...and today I especially thank Him for the wonderful blessings of sharing Christmas Day with so many people dear to my heart!
These precious people were my true Christmas Day blessings!
December 28, 2009
TREASURE HUNT
A nice retired gentleman stopped by the house with this 1893 map of our area.
He wanted permission to do some treasure hunting on our land.
According to the map, there was once a schoolhouse on the corner of our property, and he was wondering if we would mind if he brought out his metal-detector and did some searching.
After talking with Kim, we agreed to give him permission.
This fellow and his friend spent one whole snowy afternoon scouring the corner of the field.
As I stalked them from inside the house with my zoom lens (is it really considered "stalking" when you are keeping an eye on people on your land? I think not...), they would occasionally stop and confer, using a towel to apparently clean off something they had found.
It was interesting to watch them at work.
Even if I was spying, which I really don't think I was!
Just keeping an eye on things...
Just before he left, as promised, he showed me what he had dug up.
Clockwise from bottom left:
1907 nickel, 1888 Indian head penny, keyhole, pewter spoon, metal toe tip,and a Jews harpHe kept the nickel but left the rest for me to keep.
Not much of value, but a little piece of history from our very own land.
Very cool!
He told me he would be back when the weather was a little nicer...
...for another treasure hunt!
December 29, 2009
THIRTY YEARS AGO
December 29, 1979.
The day it all began.
The VERY FIRST DATE for Kim and me!
A couple of days before, I had been at my parents' house when the phone rang...a man asking to speak to me. Mama grinned as she handed me the phone (and, I suspect, eavesdropped from the kitchen!).
I didn't recognize the voice on the other end of the phone. He told me his name and asked if I remembered him.
(Of course I did! He was the handsome blond older brother of a girl in my class. I had admired him from afar, but since he was a whole two years older than me, I didn't think he had ever even noticed I existed.)
After a couple minutes of awkward small talk, he invited me out on a date. He would pick me up in the afternoon on December 29 and we would go to a show in Richmond.
My heart was pounding as I hung up the phone! Mama was still grinning, and not at all surprised that he had called me. She knew what was up...a couple of weeks earlier, she had run into Kim's mother at the elementary school Christmas program where our younger siblings attended. Peggy had asked Mama if I was dating anyone and the two of them basically connived to set us up.
Their little scheme worked and on the afternoon of December 29, 1979, Kim pulled into the parking lot at my apartment as promised in his dark green Chevy Malibu. As I peeped through the curtains, I could see that he was a handsome sight, spiffy in his pale green polyester leisure suit with his blond bangs sweeping across his forehead. He was sporting a mustache and looked much older than I remembered him.
(In the couple of days following that momentous phone call, I had looked up his senior picture in our high school yearbook and gazed at it several times a day, wracking my brain to recall any little interaction we may have had. I remembered we had taken a Latin class together, but he was very quiet and studious in class and rarely spoke. I did remember the speech he gave when he ran for class president. Well, I guess I didn't actually recall the speech itself, but how mature and capable and manly he looked as he spoke. Other than that, I only remembered seeing him in the hallways and cafeteria. We had never spoken that I knew of. In those days in our school, the underclassmen did not intermingle with the upper classmen...we watched them in awe and amazement at their adultness, doubting that we could possibly be that grown-up when we were juniors and seniors.)
I was a nervous wreck as I saw him drive in. I had primped all morning and used practically an entire can of hairspray on my hair, trying on several outfits before finally deciding on a dark green corduroy skirt and jacket that I thought I looked especially fetching in. As I watched him get out of his car and saw his green suit, I felt so pleased with my choice...our outfits matched, surely a good omen!
I watched through the window as he walked to the door, knocked, and then escorted me to his car. He suggested that we go see the movie Electric Horseman. I couldn't have cared less what movie we were going to, but if I had to choose I knew we surely couldn't go wrong watching Robert Redford (who had a vague resemblance to the very man I was with!).
I don't remember much at all about the movie itself, but a short time into it Kim reached over and without even looking at me gently took my hand. We held hands the rest of the movie, my heart pounding and hoping he wouldn't realize it. He laughed out loud several times, and I recall that when one rather embarrassing line in the movie made him laugh, I was thankful for the darkness so he wouldn't see me blushing.
When the show was over and we were walking out of the theater, he asked if I would like to go to dinner with him. Apparently (as he confessed later), he didn't want to commit to dinner until he saw how the whole movie thing went. I must have passed the first hurdle successfully, so he decided to add dinner to the date.
We had a nice meal, talked and laughed as we caught up with each other's lives since high school. He was living in an apartment in Indy and working as an actuary downtown, and I was in my first year of teaching second grade and coaching varsity volleyball and junior high girls' basketball at Hagerstown.
He was easy to talk to, I already knew he was smart and successful and had a great family, and when he drove me back to my apartment that evening I was already head-over-heels in love!
Kim parked the car, walked around to my side and opened my door, and walked me to my apartment holding my hand. As he said good-bye, he gave me a huge smile and squeezed my hand. I waited for him to make a move to kiss me, but...no move, no kiss. As I unlocked my apartment door, I felt all giddy inside but also disappointed that he hadn't even tried to kiss me and wondered maybe if he hadn't felt the same vibes as I had.
(Over the next 30 years, I would wonder that very same thing many, many, MANY times...very often we don't feel the same vibes! Sometimes we just operate on totally different wavelengths...guess that helps keep things exciting...)
It was a whirlwind romance. After only 3 months of dating, Kim proposed to me on April 4 and we were married August 2, 1980.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Kim is the best thing that ever happened to me, and our marriage gets better and stronger every year. It's hard to believe it's been so long...
Thirty years ago!
KIm at work, 1979
Me in my classroom, fall 1979
December 30, 2009
10 LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS ABOUT KYLER
Today my baby is 21 years old!
Can it really have been 21 years ago that he came into the world, a bouncing 10-pound baby boy to complete our family? He was a big, strong, healthy, happy baby with long arms and fingers...today he is a big, strong, healthy, happy, 6' 5" man with long arms and fingers!
In honor of my precious son on his birthday, here are 10 random facts you may not know about our Kyler.
1. Kyler's birth was the bright moment in a dark time for our family. The day before he was born, we buried Kim's Grandpa Fuson. When he was just 6 weeks old, Kim's Grandma Gray died. And during that same time period, Mama was fighting a battle with esophageal cancer. She had been diagnosed the fall when I was pregnant and had surgery when Kyler was just a few weeks old. At the time, she was told esophageal cancer had a survival rate of 5%...now 21 years later she's still going strong!
I took newborn Kyler (along with my other 3!) to IU Med Center to visit Mama, and the nurses warmed up his bottles for us! He gave us all hope and something to smile about when we were all feeling pretty low.
2. When Kyler's baby teeth came in, one of his top ones was enormous! As it turns out, it was actually two teeth fused together--a double-tooth. His siblings teased him (imagine that!) until he was self-conscious about it and didn't want to smile for pictures. Thankfully, when the permanent tooth came in, it was normal and after a few years of orthodontics, Kyler now has a beautiful set of teeth!
3. Kyler served as ringbearer in Mark and Alli's July 1995 wedding in California, wearing the white tuxedo Mama sewed for him...very cute at 6 1/2 years old!
4. We nearly lost Kyler (third from left) on the Haleakala Volcano in Hawaii in April 2001. Our family was biking down the volcano, basically 26 miles of coasting downhill single-file on a curvy mountain road. Before we left the top, we had planned to stop halfway down at a flower nursery along the road. I was in the lead, followed by Emily and Kamaron, then Kyler, Kristoffer, and Kim. I stopped as planned, and Emily and Kamaron also stopped. But the group had gotten a little strung out and as Kyler rounded a curve, he didn't see us stopped and flew right on by us, pedaling furiously because he thought he needed to catch up. When Kim realized what had happened, he told Kristoffer to go catch him. We were already going FAST...I don't know how Kristoffer managed to do it without wrecking, but he was able to chase Kyler down and stop him before we lost him down the side of the volcano! I suppose he'd eventually have stopped when he reached the Pacific Ocean..but it was a scary time for me!
5. Kyler had only had his driver's license 10 days when this happened! He was driving Kim's car to pick up pizzas at the Pendleton Papa John's for the varsity basketball team meal at our house when he turned in front of another car. Luckily, no one was hurt but his pride definitely was as he took quite a lot of razzing from the basketball players and coaches about it. But the incident did have a happy ending...Kyler claims his accident was the reason for the new median that was installed in that very stretch of highway soon after, making it a safer traffic area.
6. Kyler was an athlete his entire life, so I guess the fact that he only had two major injuries is pretty amazing. But they came at bad times (is there ever a good time to get injured?!). During his sophomore year, he broke his hand at the beginning of his football season and basically missed almost the entire season, coming back just in time for sectional. And his sprained ankle came at the most critical time! His senior year, the basketball team was 20-3 and sectional champs when he suffered a bad sprain during the first game of the regional. While the team managed to win that game with him on the sidelines and the trainer frantically worked on it before the regional finals against eventual state champ Winchester, he wasn't able to play in the finals and our team lost with one of our best players injured. We had a great chance to beat them if Kyler had played, but without Kyler's contributions and leadership, the team
didn't have a chance. If Kyler had been playing, who knows??? They could very well have been State Champs that year.
7. Kyler gave us a lot of exciting memories in his athletic career, but one of the biggest thrills was winning the baseball sectional his junior year. After a miserable regular season only winning a couple of games, the Raiders shocked the baseball world by advancing to the sectional final, where Kyler pitched the nail-biting, strategic
final innings against state-ranked Wapahani, striking out one of the best hitters in the state, to win sectional! It was one of those unbelievable, unforgettable moments when the seemingly impossible happened!!!
8. Kyler has always been a Star Wars fan, and Yoda is his hero. He adopted Yoda's saying as his mantra, "Do or do not, there is no try."
9. Kyler's senior year, he met Bill Polian, President of the Indianapolis Colts. Mr. Polian presented him a Colts All-Academic Award. Later, he would also be honored at the Colts Complex with a National Football Foundation Scholarship.
10. And lastly, but most importantly, Kyler has a huge heart for service. (He's the one in the blue and white shirt! Oh, sorry... 6th from the left!) He has a strong Christian faith and he lives it every day. He's been on several mission trips in the US...Appalachia, a camp for blind children, to Boston to help feed the homeless...and this spring he'll be taking his first international mission trip to work at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. He is generous and compassionate, with a big heart for others!
We couldn't have asked for a more wonderful son! You've brought us so much joy and love over the years, and we are so proud of the incredible man you've grown up to be. We love you!!!
Happy 21st Birthday, Kyler!!!
December 31, 2009
CHRISTMAS WITH KARTER (...and HIS PARENTS)
After a daring, adventurous escape from their Minnesota home (think blizzard, snow measured in feet instead of inches...20 degrees...4 am...car fully loaded with 3 people, one of whom is 8 months pregnant, and 1 dog and gifts and luggage...deserted highway...FLAT TIRE!!!), Kristoffer, Dana, and Karter made it to our house this week.
And we had Christmas all over again!
Sharing Christmas with an 18-month-old just makes it very, very special!
Karter got to pass out all the gifts, which I think he enjoyed as much as anything...
...even though some of them were nearly as big as he is!
He especially loved this one...Sesame Street wrapping paper, complete with ELMO!
Speaking of Elmo, check out these kicks...
Karter loved the bouncy "Gyraffy" that Auntie Em and Uncle Zach got him.
But he may have to share Gyraffy with Daddy!
Mommy and Daddy got their own toy!
Karter was very meticulous about picking up every piece of wrapping paper and throwing it away. He's a bit of a neat-freak...certainly DID NOT get that from our side of the family!
He got lots of nice presents, but of them all, he'll undoubtedly get the most use out of his books.
Karter loves books, and if anyone is sitting down, they are fair game as the next book-reader!
Auntie Em didn't mind...
...neither did Uncle Kyler and Kara.
Now that Christmas is officially over at our house, Grandma (oh, you should hear him say "Grandma"...too precious!) can spend the rest of the week snuggling, playing with, cuddling, reading, and basically just spoiling my little Karter!
