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.