If these walls could talk

As we prepare to leave this house, the walls are talking to me, reminding me of all that has happened over the eight years that we have lived here. This is the house where O learned to ride a bike, swing a bat, and kick a goal. From here we went to Gymboree, Kindermusik, library story time, soccer, baseball, Tae Kwon Do, swimming lessons, Cub Scouts, choir, Chess Club, auditions, rehearsals, and plays. We spent our summers at the FOHA pool, VBS, Camp Invention, baseball games, Cub Scout Day Camp, and in backyard sprinklers. In this yard, we enjoyed toasting marshmallows on our firepit, slip & sliding, playing ghost in the graveyard, and planting watermelon seeds. It was here that we laughed so hard when Uncle Chris hit Baba with the waffle ball on Gumpa’s 60th birthday. And it was in this house that we cried together when Gumpa was diagnosed with cancer.

In this house, we all grew up. O celebrated eight birthdays here, with friends & family, magicians, water balloon fights, Blue, Thomas, the Rescue Heroes, and Star Wars. Here he had his last bottle, ate his first Oreo, and eventually learned to pack his own lunch. I don’t dare estimate the number of boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese I’ve cooked in this house! O lost his first tooth here, and he also grew old enough to know there was no Tooth Fairy. Or Santa. P & I became thirty-somethings. P went through the adult right-of-passage of losing a job, and after three months of “free agency” took the leap of faith that has now grown into an amazing career. I ran a creative business that I enjoyed at the time, only to later find my true calling working with preschoolers. We joined an amazing church, where we grew in our faith and learned the true meaning of the phrase “church family.”

In this house we celebrated nine Christmases, our 10th wedding anniversary, the birth of our niece, and the promise of our nephew. We dyed Easter eggs, Trick or Treated, and made Valentines. We hosted gatherings of PEOs, Butterflies, KDs, the McIntosh Clan, MOPS, playgroups, and many dear friends. We mourned the loss of beloved relatives, friends’ pregnancies, and a few marriages. In this house we have laughed, cried, eaten, drank, and played with some of the best friends we’ve ever had. And we have faith that those friendships, firmly planted here, will continue to bloom no matter where life takes us.

This has been our house, but SPandOLand is wherever we are together. And as I say goodbye to this house, I will look forward to hearing what the walls of our new house will have to say to me.

Something(s) Beautiful

Until I logged on this morning, I had no idea how long it had been since I’d blogged. Halloween? Wow... so much has happened since then that was certainly blog-worthy, but lately I struggle to be quippy and light when many days I cannot shake off the lead boots of life-as-it-is-now. And who wants to read downer blog posts? I don’t want to write them, so I can’t imagine anyone wants to read them!
But this morning’s after-run cool-down playlist offered a burst of inspiration. The Killers “Smile Like You Mean It” was my anthem through the holidays, reminding me to try to find the sweet in the overwhelming bitter-sweet. This morning as I listened to the song again, I thought that maybe I could reenter the blogosphere with some of those sweet things. So, here is my list of some of the many beautiful things I was blessed to encounter since Halloween…

• Fighting my way back after bronchitis to be a stronger, faster runner than I was before I got sick. The old me would have given up.
• An Indian Summer day’s hike in the Cleveland Metroparks with very good friends
• A visit with my dad’s sisters, who I don’t see nearly enough, and listening to the three siblings reminisce over a giant stack of old pictures
• Drinking champagne in a limo as we rode downtown to see Wicked for my dear friend Jill's 40th birthday
• The Christmas Eve services at church and being keenly aware of the love of that church family for my family
• Having Jill’s husband, who is a pilot, so calmly arrange for P to fly home the weekend of O’s school play, when I-90 was closed. I completely lost it, but Doug was the calm in my storm.
• Watching O in that play, so confident and comfortable, so happy on stage
• My friend Sue's Split-Pea Soup, which is deliciously seasoned with love
• My sister-in-law’s baby bump…. And my mom’s reaction to learning the gender of that bambino
• Being the respite & refuge for my brother-in-law, his wife, and my sweet niece while they mourned the loss of Erika’s grandmother the week after Christmas

But nothing topped the beauty of my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. My brother & I contacted as many friends & family as we could find, asking them to send anniversary greetings. It was a gift just to see the love pour in from near & far, past & present. But to be there with mom & dad on their anniversary while they opened the box-of-love that we had assembled, well, that was one of the most beautiful things ever.

Signs of Summer

Memorial Day Weekend is the official start of summer around here. We managed to pack in lots of our favorite people, places and events this weekend, and I'm going to save several thousand words by using pictures to tell the story....

First baseball game of 2009

Here's O with Orbit at the FCC outing to the Aeros game on Friday night.

P enjoying the game and the company!

First Buehler's $1.00 cone/cup of 2009... but certainly not the last!

First cookout of 2009!
We had friends over after going to see Night at the Museum II,
which got 30 thumbs up from our crowd of 15.


Marching in the Memorial Day parade

Spectating at the Memorial Day parade. Did I mention I love parades?

Celebrating Gumpa's birthday with Blizzards at DQ.

Hooray for SUMMER!

Agent Double-O Heaven

Last weekend, O rocked the part of Agent Double-O Heaven (get it?) in the annual church Christmas pageant. This year "Operation Baby King" was pre-recorded, so no lines to memorize. Yeah :) O was still a little nervous because his role required him to be the only character on the stage for the first few minutes of the show. But come showtime, he was fearless and brilliant! Yes, I'm biased; but as mine is the only review you'll ever read, you'll just have to trust me. Here he is as his mission assignment self-destructs.... And hanging out pre-show with his on-stage partner "Gabe," a jazzy horn-playing secret agent angel (are you sensing the theme?)...

As always, the FCC kids brought down the house. Our Christian Ed Director did an amazing job casting the show, putting each kid in a role that complemented their personality. This is a talented group that really enjoys performing, and as they have gotten older they have started to take it pretty seriously. It's been fun to watch them all move up the cast ladder from year to year. O has progressed from donkey to angel to wise camel to leading role! Next up is a play about Joseph that the kids have written themselves, which I'm sure will be another hit.

I love a parade--the Christmas version

We have a tradition that spans back a few years of participating in the Parade of Lights with our buddies who own a local tractor & yard equipment sales business. It is one of the highlights of our fall, and we all look forward to it with great anticipation. It is the start of the Christmas season for us. A mile marker to our fall turning to winter. A great, fun, bonding time with these beautiful friends we have here. And it's just plain fun.

But this year, I have a sinus/ear infection of historic proportions, and I know there's no way I can march in our new-this-year Power Equipment Drill Team. I am severely bummed. P is driving the tractor this year, O is a sign-barer, and I really, really, really want to march and chant and twirl with my chainsaw. What more could a parade-loving girl ask for?? But alas, I am drawn to the couch by a force more powerful than my love of parades. Eventually, my sweet husband gives me a little nudge, reminding me that this is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world, and maybe I could just come watch...

So I arrange to meet up with the Hursts to do just that, and it is so beautiful... standing with great friends, watching people who I love have an absolute ball, strolling around the square with their tractors and chainsaws and leaf blowers and snow blowers, dancing and marching and singing. It was pure JOY!!

In the process, I learned that it is difficult to take pictures of a fast-moving parade in the dark, but Jill helped me out, and we got a few decent shots. Next year, we're planning to add a Scooter Gang to the line-up, and I am so there!

Hope, in tents and otherwise

Hope has been all around us lately. It hit a zenith at about 11:01 pm on November 4th, and we're still riding that wave. As my dear friend Jill said, "Hope.... now I have some!" And I believe the text from Patty was, "Wooooooooo Hooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!" So, that about sums it up!!

Then last weekend we delivered our church's Tent of Hope to the National Mall where we set it up with other tents from all over the country. And I gotta say, it's easy to be hopeful when it's 75 and sunny in November! As always, DC brings out the presidential hopes of a certain eight year old boy, and with the excitement over the recent election this was no exception. So there were a lot of "When I'm President..." declarations while we strolled the city. In addition to the Tents of Hope festivities, on this trip we... took in the Pompeii exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, toured the Captial Building (so cool), picked John Jay's nose in the Supreme Court (family tradition), marveled at the Jefferson Memorial, browsed Thomas Jefferson's book collection at the Library of Congress, picniced on the mall, walked the dog, pushed Sophie's stroller all over Pennsylvania Avenue, hung out with our awesome brothers and their fabulous wives, ate too much, slept too little, played Wii, played with Sophie, and had yet another awesome DC weekend. It never disappoints!!

Oh, and we took 587 pictures. Gotta love digital! So P put together a video story with pics from the Gathering of the Tents. Turn up your volume and enjoy!

All-Time Greats

Last night was one of those all-time great nights... we wrapped up a fabulous rainless week of VBS with a church-family campout in God's Big Backyard. About 55 people spent the night in our little FCC tent city. Some others stuck around for a special showing of "Good Boy" on the home-made Jumbotron (which I forgot to take a picture of, but boy was that a contraption to behold!!) and then went home to their own beds. The kids ran amok, full of hotdogs & s'mores, the grown-ups hung out 'round the fire, and a great time was had by all. It was one of those nights full of moments when you just know you're right where you're supposed to be.



There's our cozy little tent, which had serious tent envy of the big, giant multi-room tents that the serious campers brought, but for now we fit in it quite fine. Believe it or not, it was P's first-ever night in a tent. The verdict is that there will be more tent nights to come! In fact, this morning over donuts a plan was hatched for a church-family weekend camping trip in the fall. Can't wait for that!

VBS Day 2

Here we are... ketchup & mustard!

You may be wondering, "Why???" Best answer is that we're freaks for VBS. But I'll try to explain... The day's overall theme was "Serve Friends." We extrapolated that to "Friends, like condiments, spice up your life. Serve them often!" Yes, it's a stretch, but it's FUN!!!

Oh, and we may be in the local paper in our ketchup & mustard costumes!!! A reporter was out taking pictures of the kids painting our Tent of Hope, and the tent happened to be set up next to our games area. The reporter decided that the games looked like so much fun that he took some pics of kids playing Squirt Tag and chatted with us awhile, too.

FYI, Tents of Hope is a very cool program that our Missions Coordiator is heading up with a few other local churches. Check it out: http://www.tentsofhope.org/index.html

VBS = Very Busy Schedule

We are having fun in God's Big Backyard every night this week at Vacation Bible School. My friend Jill & I are in charge of games again and having a ball as usual. We know from experience that we will be brain-fried by mid-week and that we will accomplish nothing but VBS this week, but it is so worth it. On the left here is Jill-Bug giving game instructions last night. She was a ladybug & I was a bee. On the right are some kids playing "Exterminator" and trying to get plastic bugs out of the pool using their monkey-toes. FUN!!

VBS Spoiler Alert: tonight we are going to be ketchup & mustard :) I'll try to remember to get someone to take our picture, as I was disappointed that I forgot to get one last night.