Over the River and Through the Woods...

The next part of the line should be, "to grandmother's house we go..."  but instead it's, "to our grand children's homes we go."  All week long we've worked to prepare for our trip to Wisconsin where fully one half of our grandchildren reside.  I'm terribly behind in the quilt-making department and so I've tried to get as much of that done...and succeeded in getting four tops done.  I just have three more to do plus all the quilting.  It is highly improbable that I'll manage all of that...but I can hope, right? 

This past week is notable also for four birthdays in our family.  Philip was born on the 15th and on my mother-in-law's birthday.   She, Mary (aka Marie) Wagner Bainbridge, is a lovely lady who I'm eternally indebted to as she gave birth to and raised my eternal companion and sweetheart, Rich.  In the last couple of decades of her life I believe she and I formed a great bond and I love her and miss her...and will be thrilled to see her again.  She has many wonderful qualities and and character traits which I admire and desire to emulate.  And, one of her great interests is one that I too share...politics!  Who'd have thunk?  We could talk for hours about the events of our days and the state of our country.  Mom would have been 94.

Philip turned 35!  I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that number!  However, I have years of wonderful memories of him from just the moment he was born to today and feel so blessed that we've been able to have him in our lives, especially when I look back at how ill  he was in those early years and how he struggled.  There are so many memories...and for just a moment I will indulge in walking down that lane to recount a couple.   

When we moved to Germany in 1984, Phil had just turned 5...in fact he turned five while we were in billeting.  We moved into an apartment in the little village of Siegelbach, a sleepy suburb of Kaiserslautern.   The town wasn't very big but it had a "Tierpark" or zoo and the kids loved to walk down to the gardens and the little stream.  One day either Wanda or Joey (don't remember which one right now) had an assignment to find some polliwogs and so Rich went with the kids down to the stream to search for them.   And, sure enough, they found some.  Philip was astounded by this find and he excitedly observed, "I've never seen so many polliwogs in my life!!!  They must be having church!  In fact, I bet they're having stake conference!!!"  We chuckled about that then and more than a few times over the years.

Another time, when he was just 4, my mother was cutting his hair out on the patio.  Some of his cousins were in the back yard playing in the sand pile and on the swing set when they started to have a disagreement.  As the argument escalated, one of them heatedly told the other that they weren't going to be friends anymore.  Philip was listening to all of it and observed to my mother, "what they don't know is you can pick your friends but you can't pick your family!"

And, this past week, Rich started going through some of the old videos we have of the kids...granted we don't have many, but what we do have are priceless!  In them he found the video that Philip and Joey made for an English assignment that Philip had been given to demonstrate various types of advertising.  That video is more than priceless to me.  He had put it off and finally, the night before it was due, he asked for help.  Joey, Rich, and I had a blast thinking up ideas and collaborating with him and the result was choice beyond anything we'd ever done like it.  If I knew how, I'd post it here.

The following day, the 16th, was my birthday.  My thoughts turned to my parents frequently throughout the day.  Why and how it is that I was blessed with such outstanding parents is a mystery to me, but I'm sure grateful for them!  I love them with all my heart and am ashamed that I was not always as appreciative, supportive, or worthy of them as I should have been.  I can only try to live to honor them today and pray that they will know how much they mean to me and grateful I am for their unconditional love and support, their patience, kindness, understanding, goodness, and their examples.  Their teachings and testimonies have brought my life such joy.

The same day, the 16th, Gideon shares his birthday with me.  He was a few days early and I really didn't think he'd be born on my birthday, but he was!  Surprise! Surprise!  He was such a cute baby!  And now he's 15!  How did that happen?   He's an awesome oboe player, has a fun sense of humor, is as smart as a whip, and is kind and generous.  Hopefully he'll get his Eagle this year and make straight A's.   The move to Monterey has been kind of difficult, I think, but he'll manage anything really.