No more electric typewriters . . .

We are a far cry from my graduation, when I received the latest in portable electric typewriters. At one point I dropped it (it weighed a ton), and after that it was touch and go (excuse the pun).
Hurray for cyber space! Don't be fooled by the picture--the only thing I had to do with picking out the gift was saying "Uh huh. Yea. Sounds fine. Mmmm. . . .
...THAT much??!!"
Tim's comment to Timothy when he opened it: "Wanna trade?"
Tim's comment to me: "Thou shalt not covet."

Life's Simple Pleasures

May 19 and 20 will always be special, because that's when Bekah S. brought Jake "on approval" to see her adopted Berlin family. Yep, he passed with flying colors!! Wonder if WE passed? Forgot to ask that! (L to R seated: David, Becca, Bekah, Jake. Standing: Timothy)
A long awaited visit from "Tante" (Aunt) Niekie, our adopted Aunt from Amsterdam days. She brought along her sister-in-law Gertie. After hearing the benefits and obligations from Niekie of being an honorary family member, Gertie decided it was a pretty good deal. :) Both Niekie and Gertie fell in love with Montrose, as everyone seems to. The first morning Niekie had disappeared--she was off taking a morning walk up to GGF's grave. Here we are at Buttermilk Falls. Yes, Rosie, they climbed up those falls just as quickly as I did!

I've been climbing "The Falls" since I was old enough to tag along with the "big cousins." This is the first of three falls. The water is ice cold even in summer. A lot of the base of the creek are huge flat slabs of slate, making splashing around lots of fun and a bit slippery. There is even a "pool" about 4 feet deep at the base at one of the falls for those who think blue lips are a fashion statement. Rebecca and David took the morning off from Cyber School because it is their favorite spot to show people. Sadly, there was no taking the morning off for Timothy, who was yawning in his college courses. At the end of the falls is a beaver dam.
People around here call this place Salt Springs because settlers used to get their salt from this area. Kudos to anyone who can tell me why my family called it "Buttermilk Falls." Maybe we just like making up our own names, eh Jan?

It's not my fault!

My sister reminded me that I should say WHY I am two months late celebrating Becca's birthday. You see, she had a GREAT birthday at the her cousin Rob's rehearsal dinner the night before he married Tina. We bought a cake that served 24, but Walmart must be catering to a crowd of monster cake eaters or else they are just trying to sell more cake (I suspect the latter), because we were eating that cake until we left Brookhaven! Anyway, by the time we got back in town and found a weekend when it wasn't Easter or something else, David suggested her having a party on HIS birthday weekend. Ahh, what a big brother. He really scored points on that one! Hannah had never had an official party--when there are 7 siblings, every day is a party--so I offered to host the double party. I hadn't counted on rain, and Becca had told the girls they would be goofing off in the woods and watching a horse movie. Turned out their favorite game was outside the gym in the dark. Apparently David is just as good a boogie-man as a monkey. He hid in the dark, and then the girls went looking for him. He then sprang out from hiding to scare them to death. If fun is measured in terms of screaming decibels, the party was a huge success. Anyway, that brings me back to Rob and Tina. I know you would like to see their picture, now wouldn't you? So would I, but I think they are on Tim's computer, so check back in a day or two and I'll have posted one on this entry.



While we're at it, how about a picture of Torrey's wedding? Torrey is my sister Jan's second daughter, who married Chris in December. Tim and her other Uncle Rob tied their knot. Here is my family all gathered at their church. There isn't a picture of my family all gathered at Rob, Jr.'s church--we were all too busy getting lost! Anyway, you can see my beautiful family.


Here are the four sibs--my oldest sister Jan is the blond matriarch and is capable of just about anything. I've often been tempted to write her in on the presidential ballot--I'm sure if I did, the first laws she would sign would be one telling us to CELEBRATE!! She's a VWW (Very Wise Woman). My second sister Rosie is queen of organization. She can feed 1000 people spaghetti and still have friends when it is all over. Then there is Rick--you can't see in this picture, but if you want a really good hug, his are the best. All four of us are hopelessly sentimental. The amazing thing is, we really like each other!! Thanks, mom and dad.

Happy VERY belated birthday, Becca!

Rebecca, birthday?? Wasn't that last March? Yep, well, we are a bit late. She and Hannah (on the left sharing the bed with Becca) celebrated together by inviting the other four girls, who slept in the freezing cold all scrunched together on the sleeping porch. We dumped quilts on top of sleeping bags and the girls had a blast, not much sleep, but lots of fun!


Here are the girls on their way down to the conference gym--Sarah I, Leah, Becca, Olivia, Hannah and Sarah II. Sarah II's dad saw the rain and in the middle of a busy program dropped by the house to offer to let us have the entire gym for the evening--a nice gift for all the girls!

This has been a packed week--back from Williamsburg Monday night, Districts on Tuesday, Heiko and Michi Tuesday night, David's birthday on Thursday, Heiko and Michi leaving on Friday, Becca's party, the arrival of Rebekah Sotelo (our unofficially adopted family member) with her boyfriend Jake (who passed our rigorous test of approval). Saturday I made three shifts of breakfast! Today and yesterday Becca is at 4-H clinics with the love of her life--Freeway, a horse her friend Olivia and her family rescued and are letting Becca adopt for the summer. She and Olivia (riding Puddin') have big plans for the summer!

Sixteen, so clear the road!

Yep, our runner turned 16! Our family tradition is taken from Holland, where we began celebrating Dutch-style. While David slept the night before (or pretended to), I decorated his bed with streamers and signs like Happy Birthday Monkey Affe (David's nickname--Affe is also Monkey in German). Meanwhile, Heiko and Michi and I were busy blowing up balloons and hanging streamers all over the living room, including one that said "Hartelijk Gefeliciteerd" which had survived the fire! The morning of David's birthday, we all trouped upstairs in our p.j.s to wake up the birthday boy, singing our entire birthday repetoire off-key in English, German and Dutch. Usually our birthday person opens his presents right there, but since Timothy left for work at 6 a.m., we thought it would be cruel and unusual punishment to celebrate at 5. So we all went into David's room on Timothy's break, so he could be there too (sniff, sniff, thinking of next year . . .). That's Timothy on the phone--can you see him? I, in my pajamas, was having a very bad hair day and so I am taking the picture. Notice Michi and Heiko (not in p.j.s, shame, shame) in the picture--they were with us for a few days. We like to think we were the reason they flew over from Germany. Having them there was David's (and ours) "best birthday gift." The volume pedal for his synthesizer was a distant second.

Here's David in his "Hup, Holland, Hup!" Dutch soccer shirt (brought by Michi and Heiko). He's ready for the World Cup! They remembered that last time he cheered for Holland while his brother Timothy cheered for Germany. Now if Tim cheers for America, we are sure to make someone happy!


For you Yankees, Piggly Wiggly is a grocery store. I special-ordered this shirt for our own Piggly Wiggly (just look at his room!) from my sister Rosie. Rosie is the sister who pretends she is a southerner by greeting absolutely everyone in the Piggly Wiggly when we shop there in Mississippi, and introducing me to half the town(a fine custom, but doing errands does take a bit longer!). At which point, we are usually asked if we are twins (I like that--she's beautiful, but I do tend to emphasize that she IS five years older). She generally replies that, yes, we are as alike as two drops of water (that's two peas in a pod transliterated from Dutch). Of course she is a much nicer drop of water, but we won't get into that.

David at Districts!

With an official time of 10:59.48, David placed third in his heat for the 3200 meter (two-mile). He led the pack the entire race until the sprint, when he didn't have enough power to keep it, and placed third in his heat. That's David out in front. His personal goal was to break 11 minutes, and we were proud that he did it!! You could hear me screaming for him all the way back in Montrose . . .

Family moments--With Jon at Graduation

I love my life!! This is why we love coming home--we get to have special moments with our families, and we are crazy about BOTH sides of the family--this is a special moment on Tim's side. Jon is Bill (Tim's brother) and Nancy's 4th child and is a proud graduate of William and Mary. Behind that cute smile is a brilliant mind and a humble heart. Bill and Nancy are moving to Afghanistan, so it was our final reunion before their move. We saw all but one of their kids. Tim's sister Bonnie and brother-in-law Tom joined us, too. Becca and I went to Jamestown with them--fun!

Now check out my sister Jan's blog for the graduation we missed--Tim graduated yesterday from Taylor, and is planning to go to the Middle East. He wants to eventually counsel missionaries--maybe I'll be his first client . . .



Here's our Timothy, practicing for his big day coming up on June 8!

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, Al style

We've not been using the back door lately. A Robin has nested above the porch light, which has conveniently blown out, and she flies to a nearby branch and scolds us terribly whenever we open the door. So today when Al, my next door neighbor drove by on the way to his house, I peeled out the front door to catch him. I dashed up the drive and caught him just as he was going into his back door.

I needed a ladder, and Al has everything. Now we have always known that Al and Joann are the best neighbors on the planet, but this year we are discovering just how "best" they really are. Our property is surrounded on three sides by myrtle, not grass, because of our being gone. The rear of our house is trees, trees, and more trees, which, while beautiful, do tend to make fall leaf raking somewhat of a challenge. Tim bought a blower for the leaves, and diligently blew them into piles all fall. But getting rid of leaves from several acres of trees whose leaves blow onto the yard is like moving the Sahara a teaspoon at a time, if you catch my drift (excuse the pun). One day I commented to Al, "Oh well, we can't seem to keep up. I guess all these years when we were in Berlin and the leaves just got left, they didn't hurt the myrtle any." "Uh, well," Al said quietly. "Um, I just kind-of took care of the leaves."

Winter came, and Al took care of the snow, too. We would be out shoveling our porch, feeling quite noble at working up a sweat, when Al would come by with his little plow, taking care of our driveway in addition to his. He uses our driveway, but he doesn't use our parking area, and of course Al plowed that, too.

Now spring is here, and I trotted over to Al to get a ladder. You see, now we have tent caterpillars in our crabapple tree, which mar the beauty of the vivid pink blossoms somewhat, and bugged me every time I looked out the window while writing this blog. I got rid of the lower ones with a broom, but there was one huge ugly mass high up in the tree. My broom didn't reach.

"What kind of ladder do you want?" Al asked. "Oh, a big one," I answered. "I want to lop off a branch of the crabapple tree to save it from the tent caterpillars. We tried climbing the tree, but it's too high up." Al grinned. I'm sure by now his Berlin citified neighbors are a source of great amusement at dinnertime. Now they are scaling trees to get rid of tent caterpillars. Al produced the perfect telescoping branch lopper-offer and tried to explain to me how to use it. I got bold. "Do you have a minute, Al, and could you just demonstrate that on that branch?" "Sure," Al said.

I watched Al at work. "They really like this tree," commented Al. "Oh, they've been here in the past?" I wondered. "Yea, but I usually get rid of them," said Al nonchalantly as he lopped off the offending branch and told me to burn the critters in the burn barrel. I took the chance to ask Al about some glop I needed to put on a couple of places on the tree where I'd had our other neighbor trim it with his chain saw. "Oh, I've got that," Al offered. He dropped it off on his way out to the golf course.

I stood there, burning caterpillars, thinking, how many other nice things is Al doing for me year after year, without me noticing, never wanting thanks or repayment (kind-of hard to thank someone when you don't even know about it and are halfway across the world). Next time I do something nice for someone and they don't know about it, I think I'll say to myself, "That's for Al."

A little cheese with my whine

Today Tim and I went to "The Green" where we sat by "The Gazebo" and took out a half an hour for the National Day of Prayer. Having just returned from Berlin, where the city government is busy restoring our statue to Baal, even though the folks passing their time as permanently unemployed sitting around it could care less, I appreciate public prayer. (With 20% unemployment, you'd rather have a job than a bull fountain dedicated to fertility.) Back to prayer. Of course most of my friends in Berlin don't have a clue about prayer. I realized the folly of saying "I'm praying for you" when my girlfriend compared my praying she would get a job with her new colleague going into the garden and communicating with a tree and collecting little stones to line up in a certain way. While we were in Berlin, another friend reminded me that I had prayed for her to have a baby 8 years ago. Amazing that something I did 8 years ago still sticks, even though the baby never happened.

Today I am praying earnestly for wisdom for ministry decisions in Berlin (and not just that each of you here will tithe to our ministry when your rich uncle leaves you his millions--that would be nice, too, particularly before August thank you very much). As I pray, I am struck by how many things need prayer--there are the "little" things, like Becca's rabbit needing a home, our leaving Timothy behind when we go back (sniff, sniff), patience for doing what needs doing today and wisdom for the little time I have left here--not little to me, but in the total scheme of things, not things that are monumental. Then there are the monumentals: my nephew in Iraq, my girlfriend who will die of cancer unless God intervenes, our friend in Holland who has just had a bone marrow transplant, another friend just diagnosed with Parkinson's, my brilliant brother-in-law who was rewarded for saving the company a cool million by losing his job. All in need of a miracle. Let me whine a while, please, God.

We had a miracle in Berlin. My friend who is widowed was being cheated out of buying a piece of property by a money-grubber who knew that the property is now only worth something because of all that she invested in it. He wanted 50,000 Euros instead of the assessed value of 22,000. We've been praying earnestly. "God loves widows and orphans," I had told her when her husband died in '99. "Watch and see how he takes care of you." Meanwhile, when we heard about the problem, we prayed in earnest, and put our God on the line by telling her so. When we were in Berlin, she told us the miracle. Another nearly identical piece of property became available--not for 50,000, not for 22,000, but for a cool 4,000 Euros--exactly what she had saved for the down payment. No monthly payments on a limited income. Wow. She too, remembered that statement I'd made about God caring for her, and realized God has performed a miracle for her. I guess when people don't talk about God at all, a statement here and there makes a huge impression.

Now for the other miracles for the other things I'm praying about. BTW, we can check off the rabbit. Becca's friend's mom said yes. But the other stuff? Another chunk of the cheese of God's provision maybe, with my whine, dear Lord?