Monday, January 30, 2006
Bunco Night
As we were hard at Bunco, Simon and Cody (age 5 and 4 I think) were playing with cars on the floor. Loud chortles of laughter and squeals of enjoyment accompanied their play. As I thought, "I don’t remember my kids being so loud at that age," I suddenly recalled a time when my oldest was in first grade. We had some guests whose boys were teenagers. As we sat at the table visiting, our little boys were playing in their usual delightfully exuberant manner, dashing through the dining room occasionally, and I remember our guest saying, "I don’t think my boys were ever so noisy at that age." I was a bit taken aback and perhaps somewhat offended. I did not remark upon the children’s noise at my house Saturday night, other than to comment how wonderful was the sound of their laughter, and why do grown-ups not laugh so loudly or easily as children do?
Those cute little boys were even able to sit on some laps and enjoy throwing the dice for awhile. "Am I winning?" was Simon’s question after each throw. Of course they also lost a car under the stove. I provided a broom to retrieve it. (Wow, what a lot of dust bunnies came out from under there! I must train my boys to do a better job of sweeping the kitchen!) And probably their favorite part of the night was after Bunco when they got to play Mario on Nintendo 64.
Some people – teenage girls – declined Bunco, preferring to hold babies. Here is Venisa with Jean’s little one, Sean. Then there’s the best sister-in-law in the world who insisted on giving up her spot in order to clean up the kitchen after the snack break. Doug, I don’t know what you did to deserve her.
Poor Will missed out on most of the fun, out on a call which I can’t tell you about because I didn’t see it in the paper yet and that’s the rule I go by. I will tell you that it had to do with equines. Will won’t admit that he loves Bunco, he tried to tell the family that he dislikes everything about it, including the dice, the noise people make when they’re winning, the noise they make when they’re losing, etc. etc. He's such a kidder. Fortunately he arrived home in time toat least partake of snacks and fellowship, sitting around on our new couches after the games were over.
I had a wonderful time and I believe it was shared by everyone here. Thanks for coming, family. To the Canadian, Californian, Hoosier ("Indianaian" just can't be right!) and Alabamian family, wish you could have been here!
Friday, January 20, 2006
I'm so Proud
Thursday, January 19, 2006
The Unattainable "After"
But there is hope. I have been praying for a miracle, or several miracles in the life of my dearly beloved oldest son. Today I saw a glimmer. He came home to do his laundry. I left for awhile, and when I came back, he was gone. I assumed that his laundry would, as usual, still be in the washer or possibly in the dryer. It wasn't in the washer. It wasn't in the dryer. It wasn't even lying in a pile on the couch. Yes, for the first time ever, he actually completed the wash/dry/put-away cycle all within a few hours! Things are starting to happen!
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Happy Birthday Will!
So when Will came down to breakfast, this was awaiting him. Notice, three presents before 7:00 AM. (Don't worry, I allowed him to eat more than this.)
When Nick went to his office to volunteer after school, we brought him this. (Sister-in-law Carol was already there with a more relaxing toy for him also.)
I cooked a fabulous dinner of his favorite foods - rib steak, rice pilaf, cauliflower with cheese sauce, shrimp salad, and of course, angel food cake and ice cream for dessert. And two more presents of course. I even refrained from inviting any extra guests to share it because I know that he truly loves only his immediate family.
Then we spent the evening watching one of his DVD gifts with him. He was very appreciative of the special treatment he received, although he seems to suspect I was trying to show him up. Not at all, I'm not that kind of person. I was just showing my love.
And I would have been able to post this earlier but the computer wasn't working. My expertise is limited to turning it off, waiting awhile, and trying again. That didn't work. Will spent some time on it with no success. When Nick got home from church, Will told him it appeared our hard drive was fried and we needed to replace it. Ever confident, Nick says, "Let me take a look at it." He soon re-appeared and announced, "I fixed the computer so I think you owe me $20." Will wants to know how he fixed it. Nick doesn't want to share his secret of success. Will insists. Nick had to admit that he replaced the stick of RAM that he removed last night to see if it would fit one of his computers. Yikes. So the next day, (I'm revising this on Thursday) our school tech person who Nick assists was in the office after school and I asked Nick if her told her what he did to our computer. His version was interesting. "I borrowed a stick of RAM to see if it would fit in one of my computers and then my mom was rushing me cause she wanted me to come down for my dad's birthday dinner so I forgot to put it back. Can you believe my dad spent an hour and a half trying to figure out what was wrong with the computer and he never even checked the hardware?" She said, "Well, Nick, we know there are a lot of people like that out there, so we need to make sure that we always replace any hardware that we might remove from their computers!" I guess there's "them" and there's "us".
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Prayer Wars
Monday, January 02, 2006
The Holidays are Over
New Year's Eve was our traditional get-together with the Trowers. In the morning, Will had to verbalize his annoyance about the one day of the year that you are forced to stay up until midnight whether you want to or not. At his age, he prefers to be in bed before that. But Andy was pretty smart, he got him to talking about ham radio antennas around midnight and Will perked right up.
Here is a picture of a non-traditional New Year's Eve - 1999, when everyone was hyped about Y2K so Will was on the job. I let the boys have their own little party with Tyler and Jeremiah, and this photo shows them ringing in the new year with sparkling cider - Tyler, Craig, Jeremiah, and Eric.
Then yesterday was our final big family gathering as visits from the brother from the Yukon and the brother from Indiana overlapped for one day. I must share this picture showing the mirth that ensued after a "whoopee cushion" found its way under the cushion on Carol's chair. You can see that John and Galen obviously enjoyed it. Whoopee cushions are not a normal part of our usual dignified Troyer family gatherings (unless Mark is in the area). But when Jewel's family is around, you never know what might happen!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!