12 Hours of Time

Cell phones. Hard chairs. Laughter. Time warp. Beepers. Doctors. Lunch with sisters & mom. Worry. Waiting. Relief. Hugs. Home.

It isn't often you get to spend 12 hours in a hospital. I did today waiting with my Mom since Dad had surgery. She kept saying thank you for staying with her. It shocked her that I would do that. That makes me sad.

I hope that my family really knows that I love them and want to be there for them. In any situation any time for any reason. I can't always fix anything or even do anything, but I can be there. For support, to tell them it will be okay, for comic relief, to buy lunch or whatever. That is what families do. Ours feels like it is getting a second start after taking a couple of decades detour.

I am glad I know my mom, sister, dad, brother & sister-in-law better now than I did a year ago. I hope in another year I can say that things are even better.

Nationals Picnic

Well after a crazy 2 days of garage sale madness, our family drove 2 hours to a picnic with some great people.

In April we went to St. Louis to for the Bible Quizzing National tournament. Michael's team, Crunchies, was the surprize team on stage. They were not Lee's Summits top team but they were awesome! No pressure to win but oh they came really close. It was great to be back together for a few hours. And now to start studying next years material. Well maybe soon . . . .

Lemonade Stands & Bravery

Today we held a garage sale at Grandma Suzanne's. It was great--we sold a lot, made some cash and got rid of things we didn't need any more. It was rainy at first so everyone was needed to cover things with tarps. Then finally it cleared and the sun was out to stay.

Joshua and Megan had talked about selling cookies & lemonade at the sale earlier in the week. Cookies didn't happen because we were so busy cleaning out closets & boxes. But we did make lemonade to sell.

When I suggested this they were all for it; however, when it came to doing it their enthusiasm left. In fact at first, Joshua was the only one willing to sit behind the table and "pour." Cousin Emily "helped" him until Megan came out. After me doing some convincing, they moved to the end of the driveway and scraped together their courage to ask people if they wanted to buy a cup for 10 cents. After that Megan came over and said "That wasn't as scary as I thought." You must be brave to run a lemonade stand!

Family His & Mine

When you put two people together from different families, sometime you find that there are different ways of doing the same thing. Even spaghetti . . .

We have had the discussion about spaghetti before and I due to being out numbered(the children always do it HIS way) I keep the noodles separate from the sauce when I serve it. At my mom's we just mix it together. It was even said if there were leftovers the next day--it was better after being with the noodles for longer. Steve would just shakes his head. There are hardly ever leftovers of spaghetti here--too many hungry children I guess.

Tonight when we had my family over for dinner and a party I served, you guessed it, spaghetti--actually spaghetti casserole. Ironically, Steve's mother's recipe--sauce mixed with noodles! So maybe he just likes the sauce separate and has me conned about the whole family thing.

Then we had angel food cake, strawberries and cool whip. Another family "preference." Do you stir your cool whip before serving or just scoop it out? Does it really put more fluff in it if you stir it? Just something to think about. :)