Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad's Birthday. I am sure he will not see this until later as my cousin is also getting married today, but, Happy Birthday Dad! So, off with a few facts about my dad:

• My Dad, like my mom, is the middle child. Only he is the middle of three boys, where my mom is middle of three girls.
• When my father was a child, his dad made him wear boxing gloves to fight his brother at least once. He likes to make people think he is a lion, but he is really a big teddy bear under any huff that he does make.
• My Dad loves to work with wood. He has had all sorts of wood working tools some of which have been passed onto my older brother.

Here is the Shop Smith that he still has. Mike went out to help him fix something "really quick" one day over Thanksgiving and instead the spring was lost as it shot out of wherever it was. We won't say whose fault it was, but lets just say, my Dad may have thought he had not found the right repair partner. They found a part that would work after a "little" searching at some stores. It was a quick fix after that. A few months later Mike went to pick up his dry-cleaning and the owner was working on a machine that he had been struggling with for hours to get the spring in. Mike went over and helped him get it in instantly. The owner was amazed. So, Mike learned from my dad. I asked Mike if he got a discount for helping out...he didn't. But he felt pretty awesome about it.

• He built the house we lived in in Pennsylvania. While he was building that house, I was allowed to go up with him on the top floor (we lived the basement). I was only two at the time and had always followed him and stayed away from the dangerous areas. One time that I went up with him I stepped into the insulation that was covering the unfinished stairwell. It was not solid and I fell head first to the tile floor below. They rushed me to the hospital where he gave me a blessing and miraculously I was just fine. (Okay, stop snickering, I am just weird naturally.) Needless to say, I don't think I was allowed up there again until there were no places to fall through.
• He loves to play games. He really enjoys playing games when he wins. Many times we would hear "I don't want to play that game, I never win". Which was followed by him beating all of us the majority of the time.
• He is very mathematically and computer-ly talented. His job has always involved computers and because of that we grew up with computers starting with the ones that basically looked like a keyboard hooked up to your television set.
• He loves his kids. Whenever one of us would get married he would be fairly put out that day and be a grump at times. Being the fifth child in the family I figured out what was going on. I let him know that I knew it was hard to let me go, but he better put on a happy face about it and not be grumpy about losing me to my Mike. He just chuckled. He is just so dang cute when he gets sheepish. :)
• He has a high pain tolerance. Really quite impressive really. This was not inherited by me.
• When one of the grandchildren prefers grandpa to grandma, he not so secretly relishes that fact. He positively glows. He loves it when the grand kids only want to be held by him or have asked, "Where is Grandpa?", as soon as they walk through the door. He loves it.
• His torso is longer than average, which Christian totally inherited.
• If you get Dad on the phone when Mom isn't home or is busy making dinner, you can really get quite a conversation out of him. The kids really like to talk to him too. Christian especially, will out of the blue say, "I am going to call Grandpa now".
• He really likes to travel and go on cruises with my mom now that all of the kids are out of the house.

Dad, I'm so glad you pulled through your surgery last year and are still here with us. What a blessing to still have you here with us. Katie and Christian regularly ask how you are doing and I know they love you very much. Happy Birthday! I hope it is wonderful.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Okay, today is not actually my Mothers Birthday. It was Monday the 12th. However, I forgot my new goal of at least saying Happy Birthday on my blog to my parents and my little family. So, a little belatedly, a few facts about the person I call Mom.

• I adore that woman and so do my kids. They know how to call her all by themselves and do it often. I think this is called following my example, because...


• I call my Mom nearly everyday.


• When I had my babies, she came and stayed with me for two weeks each time, which was invaluable. (Thanks Dad for supporting her in that!)


• She will kill me for this, but I think it is a near miracle having had seven kids, I have only heard her swear once. It was my fault. I was a teenager, but it was at that moment that I realized that the issue I was bent on being heard about was not in her control.


• She is middle of 3 girls born of good parents in California.


• Her sisters are Jean and Barbara whom we call Jeanie and Barbie.


• My Mothers name is Sandra and she goes by Sandy.


• She married at 19 and had 7 children. She thoroughly enjoyed having them, although each child came after a while longer than the last. Considering that the first two were 11 months apart, that was bound to happen.


• She loves chocolate and onions, but they don't love her. However, as any good woman, she still partakes of chocolate...and onions.


• There was hardly a day she didn't cook for her brood of 7. We did have leftovers and for years, on Sundays, we would have pancakes for dinner.


• She is 6 years younger than my father and gave the engagement ring back to him 2-3 times before she finally accepted. (I can't remember if she refused 3 times or refused twice and accepted the third, but the three is in there)


• She got her degree in elementary education.


• She beat cancer a few years ago which we were beyond grateful for.


• She is one of my best friends and I love her for her loving nature.

Happy (late) Birthday Mom!

Mike Meets Some Family

Mike left for San Diego on Tuesday morning for one of his annual Boy Scout National Meetings. On the way, he stopped for the night in Ramona at his cousins house for the night. He finally got to meet Marlene Marchese Robershaw, his second cousin once removed. Or in other terms the daughter of Mike's Grandpa Joe Marchese's cousin John Marchese. Yes, I had to look up how to say it technically right. He was very excited to meet her. When I met Mike he was nearly family-less. He is the only child of an only child, his beautiful mother Nyla who has passed on, and didn't know much of his extended family growing up. We found her Marchese Website last fall but didn't think it was really his family because his grandfathers information was a little off. We finally contacted Marlene because several things that he remembered did match. She was ecstatic when she realized it was a match and some of her information on Grandpa Joe was incomplete. We were blown away and have been thrilled ever since.

Here is Marlene and Mike at her lovely Ramona, California home that she shares with her wonderful husband Ron. Even though she had never met Mike face-to-face before, she invited him and his coworker/friend Derek to stay at her house last night. That is faith!

Thank you Marlene for doing all that genealogy that helped us reconnect with family again! The kids and I can't wait for our turn to meet you and Ron soon!

My Acting Family

Every once in awhile I get asked about my actor Sister and Brother-in-Law. I discovered my BIL, Brian's, MySpace page from an email he sent out and the clips of the acting jobs he has had. Now I can share with you what I have been bragging about. As soon as I figure out how to embed Rachel's (it doesn't have a code at the end, sorry Rachel) I will get it up here.



Funny and true story. My kids were jabbering and rhyming in the back of the car today and the kids somehow started to use Rachel's name.

Christian stopped and said, "Aunt Rachel is my favorite aunt".

Katie then returned "Yeah, and Uncle Brian, they are my favorite."

I chuckled and thought about telling them that they shouldn't have a favorite Aunt or Uncle, but then asked why are they your favorite.

Christian immediately responded "They have video games". I laughed.

Katie said, "And they live close to Disneyland....oh and the popcorn, I love the popcorn."

Uncle Brian happens to have a real movie theatre popcorn popper that makes very yummy popcorn. So, apparently to win my children's affections you need video games, live close to Disneyland and have access to a really cool popcorn popper. It doesn't hurt to be super cool and give the kids the attention like they don't have kids themselves (oh, wait they don't,...until November). But at my kids age, that is hard to quantify. Love you guys!

Piano

Katie's first year of piano lessons ends today. She has loved finally putting music to the piano she has "played" since she was small. As the year progressed she has played for us many times for our Family Home Evening song time. Every once in a while we get to sing a new song.


Here is a picture of her teachers students getting together to play for one another and play some music games. She really enjoyed it. My friend Chelsea teaches her and does an awesome job. Even though I can play piano, I have not become perfect in my patience. Since my kids tend to block me out, it is worth the money to send them someone else. It is fun to hear how well Katie is doing when I pick her up after her lessons. We look forward to the music that will fill our home for many years to come.

What will make me come up for blog air?

Okay, now I realize from looking at the date that this may seem ridiculous to finally post THIS to some of you. But I just love the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer. You always hope that a movie is going to be done well of a book that you have really enjoyed. I loved Eragon but the movie, in my humble opinion, was horrible. They could have done so much, and it just fell flat. Trailers don't tell you that it is going to be a good movie all the time, but this was just too much. Okay Twilight lovers, what do you think? (Thanks Annette for the link!)