da' kids 2011

In honor

Our new little niece, Jaycie has arrived, born to Kathryn, John's youngest sister, and her husband Justin.

She is a cutie and we are so excited to have her in the family.  But as all know who have kids, life changes and one does things one said one would never do (say things your mother said), and one buys things one vowed to never buy (the minivan).  So in honor of Jaycie, John posted this for Kathryn and Justin.  And since I just saw on her blog, that my friend Lindsey received an awesome Mother's Day gift from her twin boys, it goes out to her too.

Missing Mike

Grief is a weird thing.  Just when you think you have a handle on it, it slaps you upside the head again.  I guess it will always be that way.

Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of my brother's death.  And I have really been feeling my grief the past couple of weeks.   Some of it because I am far from home again, some of it because his death coincides with another death that has been difficult for people I love very much - and I am far from them as well.  So the far-ness, I guess has exasperated my grief this year - no surprise.

But to be honest, while I wish there was no such thing as grief, no reason to know it or feel it - that our loved ones who are not with us anymore, were with us once again -I am glad to have known it - if there has to be such a thing.  And this is why.

Grief opens my eyes to the fact that this world is broken and is not how it is supposed to be.  That ache in the heart that I feel at the depth of my grief is telling me the world is supposed to be different - better, righter.  Grief opens up the possibility of "What if life didn't have to be this way? What if it could be different, not broken?" These types of wrestlings open me up to the deepest longings of my heart.  A desire for something more, a desire that takes me outside of myself in search of the One who made me, and this world. 

So if my grief draws me closer to God, and stirs in me a longing for Heaven, and a desire to bring Heaven to earth as much as is possible this side of it, then I'll take my grief and miss my brother and know that we were created for so much more.

Just another night at home

I took this picture because I could get everyone in the shot doing their thing, except the dog - she was at my side, where she always is, out of range.

So the game is, find the cat in the picture.

It's easy - he's the only one looking at the camera.

This next picture was taken by Justin.  Yes, I put the book over my face, but that's ok - it's how my family sees me much of the time anyway.

There's no game here - if you can't find the cat, I would head to the eye doctor immediately.

My brother's marker

The marker was laid on my brother's grave last week. John and I went by there after a meeting in Houston. It looks good. The guitar with wings was designed by my nephew, Michael, Mike's son. I think he did a great job. Mike would have thought it was cool.

Another catch-up post

I am feeling time slipping away and I really do have lots of pictures to post from all of our travels, so I guess I better get cranking.A few days after we landed back in the States, after we spent a couple of days with my Mom and Marion and did a few things like get cell phones and purchase a van, we headed up to College Station, took a look at our new house we are renting (pictures forthcoming in another post), said hello to everyone at church, and then headed to Austin to meet up with Granpa and Gigi, who were going to treat us to a couple of days at Schlitterbahn, America's #1 waterpark, according to the Travel Channel. We had a great time.
After that, we headed on to Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina to see Granma, Aunt Julie, Auntie Kate and Uncle Justin. North Carolina was beautiful, full of trees, which at that point in time were awe-inspiring, having spent the past couple of years in the desert. We had a ton of fun, with LOTS of cooking involved, which of course then precipitated the need to do LOTS of eating. Granma and Julie are fantastic cooks. I am so glad my sweet husband understands that God gifts some, but not all. There is no way I could EVER live up to their talent, and I have never tried. It's just something we appreciate about them, and look forward to enjoying the fruits of their labors when we get the chance.
The kids had fun going between Granma's and Julie's and Kate and Justin's, especially enjoying staying up past midnight and acting like college students with Kate and Justin. There were things at both places they didn't want to miss out on. Granma and Julie had the pool. Kate and Justin had the X-box. Kids will be kids.

We saw a lot of the area, including the Duke University Chapel (I took a ton of pictures which I will share in another post), the campus of UNC Chapel Hill, where Uncle Justin has just started his PhD work, the North Carolina Natural history Museum, and a pretty cool putt-putt/Laser tag, game type of place of which I can't remember the name, but it was very huge and the kids had lots of fun...as did Daddy and Uncle Justin.
We had a great time visiting and catching up and look forward to the next time. But next time, I am going to go on a fast for about a week before we head out there. Gotta make some room for what will be coming.

Visiting Nina & Granpa Marion

Back to catching up.

We landed in Houston and headed straight-away to Nina and Grandpa Marion's house . None of the grandparents had seen the kids for two years, so this was the beginnings of making the "grandparent circuit" so the grandbabies could finally recieve all that spoiling that had been building up among the grandmas and grandpas for those two looonnng years.

Let the fun begin.







The final result - pretty nice, I thought...and tasty too. You can trust me on that one.

A dream

Last night, actually early morning, I had a dream. I dreamed that I was sitting on a bed, looking over various pictures of my brother, Mike. Some of them were of us when we were young, some of him and his family, vacations together, celebrations - very vivid pictures - and I began to cry. Then, he walked into the room, sat in a desk chair next to the bed, and asked, "What's wrong?"

"You died," I said.

"Well come here," he said with his arms outstretched ready to hug me. And as I rose to go to him, I woke up.

And then I really started crying.

With the business of getting back and traveling and unpacking, I had not even begun to touch the part of my heart that is missing seeing my brother along with everyone else.

Until today.

Thank you Lord.

I miss...

...my brother.

I hate the thought that the next time I go home he won't be coming to my mother's house to see me like he always did.

I regret that I didn't have regular communication with him.

I regret that I did not encourage him more.

I regret that he did not know that I had just begun praying regularly for him and that I was FOR him.

I hate that we have to get through this year of "firsts" without him - first birthday since his death, first Christmas...etc.

I hate that I can't tell him about Machu Picchu and show him my pictures. He would have thought it was cool.

I hate that I can't ask him what he thought about the Speed Racer movie (he used to make me watch the cartoon with him before I could watch my show), or Indiana Jones, or Prince Caspian.

I wish that I had more time with him.

Isn't that always the way it is.

Processing...

(from right, Mike, me, and cousin David)

We are home. We returned Saturday and I have been seriously sleeping until now, having laid awake since 4am. Why is that?

My brother's funeral was Wednesday, April 30. I did the eulogy. It was hard, but I did enjoy writing it and thinking, "How would Mike want his story told?" I actually loved what I wrote because I feel like I was able to capture him without embellishing or stretching the truth in any way - what I wrote was him. I thank the Lord for that.

John preached the funeral. How hard is that? It was hard, but he did a great job. He preached from John 11, where Jesus is met with the death of Lazerus, whom he will raise within moments, but that doesn't stop Jesus from feeling the pain of death and it effects. He weeps with us in our grief, and he rages against death, because it is not the way things are supposed to be. Death is a result of living in this broken world this side of Heaven and Jesus rages against it while he walks with us tenderly in our sorrow over our loss.

It was good. Mike would have been moved.

So for now I am processing - we are all processing. But I am not processing without hope. I am confident I will see my brother again. But this will be a difficult year as we walk through all the "firsts" and as my sweet family figures out what life will look like now.

Uggghhhh. I hate this.

But this is not all there is.

Thanks be to God, and his Son Jesus who weeps not just for us, but with us and gives us hope.
Mike and Justin

So surreal.

We leave Monday. We will be in Lima all day and catch the red-eye to Houston, arriving around 6:30 or 7:00 am Tues.

I dreamed about Mike all last night (my mother did as well it seems) and I awoke this morning asking myself, "Is this real?"

I have heard this expressed before, but now I feel it personally - I can't believe I won't ever be with him again in this life.

My brother. My only brother that I have ever known. The guy who used to tickle me until I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe and would finally have to kick him to get him to stop. The brother who upon being asked to clean the kitchen by mom would meet me as I came downstairs and say, "Heather, Mom wants you to clean the kitchen today." The brother who would take me to the pool during summers and scare me with stories of aliens when our parents were out. The brother who, when we would take our family vacations to the beach, wouldn't let anyone help on his sandcastle - engineered especially by him and built meticulously with his own two hands. The brother who when mom took us to Disney world when I was 12 and he was 20, begged and begged and begged her to buy him a musical Micky Mouse watch. He just had to have it. The brother who always reminded me of how much he had always wanted a little sister and during his eighth year, I bounced into his life. And he never wished it to be otherwise. Amazing.

I never once felt like I was a pain to him, although I know I was. He would get frustrated with me - having an 8 year age difference aided in some interesting encounters. But I probably spent more time being frustrated with him. The tickle torture will do that to you. But Mike was patient with people. He longed to love and to be loved.

And he struggled. Tremendously. But who doesn't struggle. I have been encouraged as I have been hearing more of what was going on with him in recent days. He had actually led someone to the Lord in his apartment complex. I remember being with him in the neuro-intensive care unit ten years ago waiting for word on my mother who had fallen and suffered a severe head injury. Mike was talking to the other people in the waiting room, finding out their stories and after a day or so together, he was telling them about Jesus.

My kids loved Uncle Mike. Maybe because he could play with them on their level - maybe because they knew he had no expectations for them. He was just fun.

So even though we only saw each other, maybe once or twice a year, and we never talked on the phone, I miss him. Though our times together were infrequent, we could pick right up with one another when we came together. I loved him and, I knew he loved me.

So thank you thus far for the thoughts and prayers. I am grateful to be able to go home and grateful that John can go with me. In fact, he has been asked to do the funeral. Please continue to pray, especially for my mother and my niece and nephew.

I wish this wasn't real.

But it is.

My God, be our comfort and be glorified.

The unpredictableness of life

This week I have been getting ready for a trip John and I have had planned for Santiago de Chile. We were to leave Monday morning and return Saturday.

But life is unpredictable and you never know what is around the bend.

We are still taking a trip, but now it will be to Houston for my brother, Mike's funeral. I received word this morning from my mother that he passed away in his sleep last night.

Please be in prayer for my family - my mother and stepfather, my nephew and niece, my brother's girlfriend, everyone who loved him, myself very much included.

I am sad...very sad. This is not the way things are supposed to be, is it. And everytime we are faced with death, we feel that truth deep in our hearts.

Thanks be to God who through his Son has conquered the power of death. But for now we are still this side of Heaven, and so we still suffer it's affects. But someday we won't anymore. Someday.

Life is indeed unpredictable. But my God is not. And his steadfast love will carry us through this season of suffering and sadness. In this knowledge I will find rest.

An afternoon at the beach

Yesterday afternoon we lathered on the sunscreen and headed out to Huanchaco, the beach town located about 20 minutes outside of Trujillo, to squeeze in our first and most likely last beach trip for the season. It was nice and quiet and the kids had a blast getting pummeled by the gigantic waves - well, gigantic by our standards, breaking high right at the shore. We also collected some cool rocks and even found a crab shell in tact and a really cool sea urchin shell still spiky. We opted to leave the crab, but did bring the sea urchin home. But alas, it didn't make it through the night. It was found shattered into pieces on the back porch this morning. My theory is that Aly the cat was on the prowl, again, and mistook my favorite prize from the day for a mouse. It could happen...I guess.

Here are a few of my favorite pics from the day. Notice the kids compared to the waves, especially the pic of Jason just about to get it bad.Miranda took the way of tranquility and didn't brave the waves that much. She did spend a lot of time digging holes and throwing the sand into the sea. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was just going to come right back up. Here is a sweet pic of her and her daddy gazing out upon the open sea. I am sure she seeking from him some deep and profound answer to the mysteries of life. Or she's just letting him know that she likes the beach.Much to John's consternation, I did manage a few of him. I love these.On this black and white, you can count six people out in the surf. I don't know who that other kid is, but he's definitely not a Fergie. I still like the pic though. I'm thinking about changing my header picture to this. Should I do it? Or would the color one above be better?And finally we met the end of the day. I snapped this as John was helping people get the sand off their bodies before we transported the entire beach into Santos's taxi. I would use this as the new header, but we are missing Kevin in the shot. He had already moved out of the range.

We had a great time. One final pic, just because I have to do honor to this little guy who I saw scrambling across the sand into a refuge of rocks up by our taxi. He was bigger than a lizard, but smaller than an iguana. I asked Santos, our taxi driver what he was and he told me a "iguana pequeña: - a little iguana.


He didn't know know any better than I did. Made me feel better:)

Artisan Marshmallow anyone?

Of our Christmas gifts sent from the states, the yummiest hands-down were the homemade marshmallows sent by Aunt Julie.(THANKS AUNT JULIE!)

They can be found at her website Dolcezza, Etc. She has some really fun flavors like Pumpkin Pie and Cinnamon Bun.

I really liked the Spiked Eggnog. The kids were crazy over the Strawberry and the Kahlua marshmallows were scrumptious in our hot chocolate. Each package has wonderful serving suggestions and the website has some great recipes. Is your mouth watering yet? Check it out!

In conversation

Well, we finally have John back as of Yesterday and the lost suitcase as of today. I know - nothing has been said about that, but it happens so often, it just didn't seem blog-worthy.

So today at lunch the kids were wanting a play-by-play of all of John's activities while in the states. Afterwards,, he asked them what they would want to do on a visit back. Most of them said something about seeing friends and eating at their favorite restaurant. But Colton of course had something different to say.

Daddy: Colton, what would you want to do if you got to go back to the states for a visit?

Colton: Shoot a reindeer.

I kid you not, that is exactly what he said. So Santa Claus, Rudolf, watch out.

Putting up the tree-A story told in pictures

Pulling it all out.

Where should I put this?

Oooo - Look at this one!

Hey, can y'all do this?

Guys - stop messing around and get to work.

Come on, guys.

I seem to be the only one workin' here.

Not you too, Miranda!

You look lovely - now put it on the tree.

Daddy, you're not helping.

Now we're getting somewhere.

The final touches.

And there we go - Beautiful work, kids!