Happy Father's Day 2011

Happy Father's Day to my dad, "Nick the Stick" - in addition to being an attorney, Dad has been the municipal judge in our hometown for the last 20 years, and that was Rob's suggestion for his campaign slogan. It didn't make it on the campaign flyers, of course, but it has become one of the many affectionate nicknames that we kids have called him over the years. We love you, Dad.

United States Navy, 1960

Dad and me, 1972

Dad and me 1996

Dad and youngest grandson, Henry, 2011

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This weekend we said our goodbyes to Uncle Chuck, my favorite uncle, who was a wonderful man, father, grandfather, and husband. Jace and I traveled to northern Iowa for the funeral. It was a bittersweet trip, such a sad reason to travel there, but wonderful to see my aunt and my cousins and their families, and spend some time together remembering Uncle Chuck.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Aunt Mary and Uncle Chuck, taken about 10 years ago:

Aunt Mary is my mother's sister, and she has remained a part of our lives since our mother passed away, almost thirty years ago now. Some of my favorite summer memories were at Aunt Mary and Uncle Chuck's home in Cedar Falls. We went to visit her for several summers growing up, and this weekend we had a chance to remember all of those things - blueberry pancakes in the mornings, long rides on the bicycle trails, and getting to see our older cousins, Mike and Laura. They were several years older, and already in high school and college when we visited in the summers - I reminded Mike this weekend how he always used to affectionately call us "rugrats" and give us piggyback rides!

Now Mike has a college-age daughter of his own, Emily - it had been several years since I'd seen her, and she has grown into a beautiful young woman, getting ready to start college at University of Iowa in the fall.

Emily and Eva!

Here's Susan and our nephew, Henry, with Mike's wife, Kathleen. Somehow I didn't end up with any pictures of our cousin, Laura - but she is as beautiful as ever, and is married to Matt, with two adorable sons, Michael (8) and Andrew (6).

Of course I did manage to get all kinds of photos of the kids over our two day visit; the older boys stayed busy playing games, swimming, and wrestling in Aunt Mary's back yard.

Cousins - Isaac, Andrew, Payton, Jace, Landon and Michael

The younger cousins had plenty of fun of their own, although they didn't try to keep up with the big kids. Aunt Mary and Uncle Chuck's church had a lunch in their parrish family center after the funeral mass, and the Sam and Eva enjoyed climbing the bleacher steps, while Isaac made his rounds visiting everyone.

I was so glad to have made the trip, and that Jace could go with me to see Aunt Mary again, after many years, and to meet Mike, Laura and their families. Aunt Mary and I have communicated by letters and email over the last several years, but I wish that I had made the time to travel and see them. Mike and I talked about this very thing, as we visited on Thursday night - how busy we all are, and that we don't have or make the time to keep up with our families.

This weekend served as a reminder to me that some of the best times I had as a child were spent with my siblings, cousins and family. Today, on Father's Day, I'm thankful for my immediate and extended family, and resolving to make the time to stay in contact, and keep building those memories for myself, and for Jace.

Good Fortune

Summer time is lake time, here in southwest Missouri. Some of my favorite times in the past few years have been with Dave, our kids, and the friends we have made at the lake. We still keep in touch with many of our lake friends, and have been down to the dock to visit a couple of times already this year. And while we love to see them, it also really makes us ready to get our own boat out of storage and get back in the water!

Dave has done an amazing job of tracking our finances each month, and we've both been pretty good about making sure we're staying within budget, so we're definitely getting closer to being able to get it out of storage. That Dave Ramsey, he's kept us on the straight and narrow - a great thing, even if we have missed our boat for the past two years.

A couple of Saturdays ago Dave, Jace and I had lunch at Leong's Asian Diner (I would recommend it, for any of you who live here - a little more expensive than other Chinese takeout, but worth the extra money in my opinion - scrumptious pork fried rice!) We were getting ready to drive to the lake to see Chris and Jana, and some other friends on the dock.

While we waited for our food, Dave took the iPad out, giving me a quick update on paper where we were time-wise with our finances, and we were discussing what we would need to do on the boat to get it back out. Painting the bottom will be the biggest expense, but it needs to be done, and the smart decision would obviously be to do it before we put it back in the water.

We grabbed our fortune cookies on the way out of the restaurant, jumped in the car, and headed south to the lake. Jace and Dave's were pretty typical fortunes, something nebulous about luck or admiration. But mine - now, mine is truly the real thing. Don't you agree??



Unfortunately, we can't live our lives by the cookie's fortune, so this weekend didn't find us at the lake in our boat. But perhaps we will be back on Banana Pancakes by next summer, enjoying the sunny days on the water.

This weekend we had a couple of projects here at home, although the pending rain has kept us from completing the bigger of the two. Dave powerwashed the back deck on Friday, and it is ready to stain, when the weather cooperates. So we opted to start remulching the flower beds yesterday, putting fresh cedar mulch after spreading a weed deterrent. It did rain last night and this morning, so we were glad that we didn't start on the deck. Today we'll hopefully be able to finish the flower beds, and maybe grill out tonight.

Speaking of today, happy 32nd birthday to Tara, the youngest of my sisters!

Road Trip(s)!

I’ve got spring fever, but we’re back to 40-50 degree weather here in good ole Missouri - or “Misery”, as my aunt , who hails from Iowa, always liked to say when we were growing up! (Love you, Aunt Mary!) But I’m ready for the nice weather, and I’m already starting to plan some summer fun for the next several months. All trips have to be fairly “Dave Ramsey approved”, since we just returned from our scuba extravaganza. That’s the big one for this year. Last summer our big trip was our family vacation to Florida with Jace and Neil, which included renting a house for a week, a fishing boat for several days and a side trip to Universal City and Sea World for Jace and me.

So, what’s on the agenda?

· BBQ/Smokin’ Contest in KC – Jace, Dave and I will head up to KC for Dave’s boss’ annual event/contest in a couple of weeks… Dave and friend Garry (GDykes!) are partnering up to smoke some delicious recipes…. Yum!!
· St. Louis Cards – We’re running late this year in purchasing tickets, but I expect we’ll go to two or three games over the season – a couple with the kids, and one or two adult weekends.
· Visiting the Aunts and Uncles – Last year we headed up to see Uncle Rob, Aunt Tara and their families in August, before school started. Dave is going to try to join us this year, for a long weekend – it is always hard with his schedule, since he is gone M-Th. I’d love to make it out to North Carolina to see Aunt Ann - she says it has been 5 years since I helped her move out there, and I owe her a visit – she’s right.
· St. Louis Arch and the City Museum- Jace hasn’t been up in Arch yet, so that’s a trip for this summer – we’ll stay with Grandpa and Mimi, so our only cost will be for admission to both, and lunch for the day. I’d not heard of the City Museum until this past year, and it sounds like it will be a blast! When I was young, the exciting thing in STL was the Magic House - apparently the City Museum is in the old Brown Shoe Factory in St. Louis, and has some amazing things for kids, and the prices are very reasonable. Check out the link above!
· Zac Brown Band – Kansas City, Arrowhead Stadium - Dave and I are heading to see ZBB, Kenny Chesney and more at an all-day event in July; Tara/Luke are driving from Quincy to join us, along with several folks that work with Dave.

One other thing on my wish list is to take Jace to a concert; he’s never been to one, and always likes to hear about it when I go – one of my favorite things to do – because he likes music, too. (And, I need to take him while he’s still willing and excited to be seen at a concert with his MOM!) We have a big 3-day event coming to Springfield, and a couple of bands he would love to see (One Republic and Train), but tickets are $139 each for a three day pass – yikes! Maybe we’ll find lawn seats to something less pricey in STL or KC this summer. Any suggestions - let us know!

That’s my tentative list for now, but it will be a challenge to get it all accomplished -in addition to Jace and Neil’s full schedules of baseball games and our other commitments at home during the spring and summer. Never enough time to get it all in, but we’ll give it our best shot!

Forty!

Today I'm officially 40 and "over the hill"... ha! It is pretty nice to feel okay about this milestone... in fact, more than okay - happy about it, and just really, truly happy with my life, and with myself. A great feeling.

I've enjoyed a nice, quiet evening at home tonight. After our big birthday trip to Honduras and a whirlwind week upon our return, it is nice to just have some down time. Dave is in Dallas for work, and Jace is with his dad tonight, after our big Easter weekend in St. Clair. So it is just me, the doggies, a chick flick and the last of the lemon summer pie from this weekend. And, I started the evening - and my fortieth year - out right, with a trip to the gym for my cycling/cross training class after work tonight (which counteracts the pie that I'm eating this evening - or at least I'm tellin' myself that!).

One of the best parts of my birthday, though, was the time at home with my siblings this past weekend. All of us except Thomas were able to make it home, and it was a great weekend, even with all of the rain. The older cousins (Jace, Landon and Payton) all enjoyed playing outside between rain showers, and playing X-box, of course; we aunts enjoyed kissing on Isaac, Eva and Henry over the two days, and catching up since we hadn't been together since Christmas.

After Easter dinner on Saturday night, Jace helped Ann, Tara, Susan and Rob to surprise me with a birthday scavenger hunt (with clues from my childhood and teenage years - how clever!) ending in a big family birthday celebration over at Grandma G's house. The decorations were tasteful (no canes, no black balloons - instead, black and white chinese lanterns and pretty partyware:

The theme of the party was -of course- black, but it was fabulous -- they decided it should be one of my favorite things, red wine, and in particular BLACK BOX, the wine I like to bring home for our family gatherings. So they gave me a box of Black Wine to help celebrate the big 4-0, AND a Black Box cake - made by Tara - that was red velvet, just like the red wine! How clever is that!? And it was delicious, too!

Everyone had cards for me, and then I opened my gift - a photo album celebrating my 40th birthday. Just hearing the comments from my brothers-in-law as I looked through the book, it was evident how much time my sisters had spent on the album - collecting pictures, emailing back and forth to figure out the years/timeline on them, and scanning the photos in. Ann compiled everything and then made the album online, spacing the photos, picking out the backgrounds and frames, etc.


I absolutely could not have asked for a more special, heartfelt gift for my birthday - there were so many pictures from over the years, starting when I was a baby, pictures of our mom and dad and the four of us, then pictures of Tara, Mom and Gmother/Gpa Lawson, Thomas, my teenage years, after Jace came along, and much more. Some of the pictures I truly had not seen in years; Tara was apparently the one who had a lot of them, I was amazed at all of the variety she had! Here are a few quick photos of the book, just to show it off a little:

The album is 20-plus pages long, and full of fun pages of pictures - plus a few pages at the end with pictures of me and my "favorite things": playing the piano, oatmeal and toast, coffee, taking pictures to go on the blog, reading, napping, drinking wine - and, of course, having fun with my family! So then we had to get a few "Sisters!" pictures to commemorate Easter 2011 - and this time we even let Rob in a few of the pictures:

It was a great weekend, and I was really glad to be with them to celebrate. Thanks again to Ann, Tara and Susan, and to all my family - we all have our quirks, but at the end of the day I wouldn't trade us for anything.

It is after 10:30, and this 40-year-old needs some sleep! Goodnight!

Countdown, continued

I'm in vacation countdown mode (two weeks and two days, to be exact) but the stress of getting everything done between now and then is either going to kill me or make me twice as ready for some time away! I'm in the process of hiring two employees for a grant at work, and of course the entire process is finally happening just in time to coincide with vacation. I'll be making the job offers on Friday, finishing up their training curriculum and orientation (new position, new process in our clinics, totally uncharted territory) and they will start the day I come back from vacation - no stress at all.

I passed my written scuba exam with a 98% (missed one out of 50) and Dave and I will get a couple more Saturday pool sessions in before we leave. I've also been working hard to get back to summer weight (and better muscle tone) with regular cycling and cross training classes - nothing like knowing I'll be wearing a swimsuit to get those priorities in check!

Tonight is Pancake Night for me and Jace, our regular Wednesday night tradition - now he's the one that's making the pancakes, which is nice for both of us! I'll treat myself to one pancake, and then some fruit and yogurt in addition.

Then I'll start tackling my list for the rest of the week - dog baths, continue painting file cabinet, laundry and some other cleaning. I stayed at work late last night in order to get some things done and take off half days tomorrow and Friday for Jace's spring break. Looking forward to spending some time with him, I think we'll go see a movie of his choice. Next week we're heading to St. Louis for the opening day Cardinals game, with Jace and my dad. I may have to work this weekend to make sure I can take off Thursday next week. Just have to keep reminding myself that I'll be relaxing on the beach in 16 days and counting!

Christmas at the Ranch

What a wonderful Christmas and New Years' celebration! It was awesome to have almost all of us home for the long weekend ... we missed you, Rob, Michele, Sam, Eva and baby Henry. Happy 2011!

Christmas 2010

Our holiday celebrations started with our family Christmas on Thursday night before Christmas. Paige finished finals earlier in the week and headed home for her month-long winter break. It will be great to have her home, and we'll hopefully be seeing her quite a bit before she heads back to Kansas City in a few weeks.

After dinner and gifts, we were able to take a family photo; actually we took several family photos (thank you to Gail for coming over and playing photographer, so I didn't have to try to put the camera on a barstool and use the timer, as in previous years), and Dave was cracking us up in most of them! I did manage to find one where we were all smiling and fairly serious, and had it developed in sepia tones for our New Year's photo card.

But this one below, with all of us cutting up, was one of my favorites:



Jace's favorite gift was an iPod Touch - we surprised him with Dave's old iPhone, converted to an iPod. He promptly downloaded a few of his favorite songs, several games and screen savers, etc. and has been playing it non-stop for the past week. It is hard to know what to buy Neil and Paige, but Dave did it this year, with GPS units for both of them.

On Christmas eve we went to the candlelight service at church, and then said goodbye to Dave and Neil on Christmas Day when they left for Florida to spend a few days with Dave's parents. Jace and I headed to St. Clair last night for a weekend celebration with my family... more soon, with some great pictures. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!