July 4th, Again and Again

We celebrated the 4th three times this year: it seems to be an entrenched tradition with our family now. 

Celebration #1 - A picnic and fireworks on the university green, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performing good, old-time American music. This year the thermometer hit 108* before night fell and cooler temps returned, down to something like 90* by 11:00 pm. 

There was a mister available for those who needed cooling; it was very refreshing. 

This was a good time to learn how to show respect for our national anthem.

And as the concert began, Luke and Patrick loved our front row seats, because they had easy access to the wide grassy buffer between the audience and the stage. 

The two of them kicked up some fun and put on a show for the audience as they performed a few ad lib dances to the music.

Celebration #2 - A picnic and fireworks at a mega church nearby. Sitting on the grass (or parking lot, your preference) as the hot afternoon turns to evening, listening to the concert piped outdoors.

A brief rain shower soon after we arrived didn't dampen our fun. We just put up the "brolly" and snuggled together!

Patrick and Luke wore very special hats for the occasion - and so did Jared.

Celebration #3 - A picnic and fireworks on the highway in Roswell, the next town over. We stake out our favorite berm in front of Burger King every year. There are a few trees and lots of grass, so it's a comfortable place to play and wait.

It rained as we waited this afternoon too, but we had the car just a few feet away, so we snuggled in the back hatch. 

David even joined us this evening. 

Sometimes it's hard to be patient for the fireworks to begin...

So a boy just might have to lie down and accidentally fall asleep. 

For our picnics we all contributed elements each night and our food seemed to feature fresh-picked tomatoes and cucumbers. We had other yummies too and they varied from shrimp and wraps, to burgers and watermelon, to guacamole and potato salad.

 

There were a few patriotic goodies thrown in too.

Those fireworks sure are pretty! And loud!

Happy Mother's Day!

Our house was party-central to celebrate Mother's Day yesterday. The men all got together and made lunch for the moms: grilled burgers and dogs and assorted sides. 

Jared stood in the pouring rain to grill, while Luke and Patrick couldn't resist a perfectly good rainstorm to get soggy-wet and do a little puddle splashing. After all, they did wear their wellies to church in the morning.

I enjoyed having my family with me on this special day. I also enjoyed the greens and whites of the gardenias gracing the center of the table. I'm so glad that gardenias bloom in May!

A few days after Mother's Day I got a special Mother's Day card from Luke and Patrick. They had given their answers to the following fill-in-the-blank statements:
My Nana is 22 years old.
My Nana weighs 2,000 pounds.
My Nana's favorite color is green (P); orange (L).
My Nana's favorite food is cake.
My Nana always says "Do a project".
My Nana cooks the best cake.
My Nana's job is to unload the dishwasher and work at church.
My Nana and I like to ride in Nana's car (P); play hide in secret (L).
I LOVE my Nana because she does fun stuff. 

And I LOVE my two grandsons because they are the sweetest, best boys in the world! 

Easter

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

We enjoyed a beautiful spring day outside on the patio: dinner with the extended family....

...followed by an egg hunt in the shrubbery for the littles...

...followed by an egg hunt all over the back yard for the ADULTS! This is now officially a tradition since this is the second year in a row that we've had an adult egg hunt. It is wildly popular.

Missions Banquet

Three days before the event: "Um, I don't have time to make centerpieces for the Missions Banquet; can any of you come up with something? It needs to fit our banquet theme of 'The Dating Game' AND tie in with missions. Oh, and there's no budget for this."

A few ideas were tossed out, and suddenly Heather and I were "in charge". Again. This is becoming a habit.

Someone sent us a link to the old Dating Game stage set and we were off. Sticks cut from our shrubs. Construction paper that Heather wanted to use up. Old maps. Glue.


We kept in mind the glass vases that we knew were at church, cut the sticks down to an appropriate length, and freehand cut flowers and hearts (God's love for all people). Glued two shapes back-to-back to each stick, and popped five in each vase. There. Centerpieces for 24 tables.

Missions Month

Heather is on the Missions Team at church now, and March is Missions Month. She ended up being in charge of one of the main events, the Street Fair. This was a new idea at our church and some old-timers considered it cutting edge to plan such an ambitious event. But not to worry: Heather and her team did a fabulous job and the fair was deemed a great success.

The team planned four "continents", one in each corner of the gym. Each area was centered around a large shade canopy, with decor, displays, food, and activities at each. I helped out with set up and decor; Greta helped out with henna hand painting in the Asian corner, and David took care of sound and technology. Heather was everywhere, having her first experience with bossing people around.

Some very clever ideas I gleaned from the fair:

1. In Africa/India, they made a Bedoin tent with lots of floaty fabrics draped off the canopy. Inside, a flat table was set for a meal and tons of pillows filled the matted floor. Cute lanterns dangled from the canopy supports. An Indian congregation served curry and other Indian delicacies.

2. In Asia, the canopy was hung with a lot of Chinese lanterns leftover from last years' VBS. An area was set aside for children to learn origami, and some origami also dangled from the canopy. One lady had borrowed assorted Chinese porcelains from a local thrift store. All they required was that she return them in one piece! We tasted pot stickers, chicken lo mein, and candy bugs-on-a-stick.

3. In Europe, they had borrowed several bistro tables and those were scattered about with a market umbrella in the center of the cluster. At the base of the umbrella were numerous tins and pails, overflowing with paper-wrapped silk flowers. It really did look like a European outdoor market. The flowers were raided from the church decorations closet; none were purchased for the event. The food in this area was Belgian waffles and brats with mustard.
4. South America was filled with costumes and toys from South and Central America, since we currently have three families in our church who have served in those areas. They simply brought bins and boxes of their own stuff, and decorated away. They served carne asada and sopapillas.

5. Heather had made very clever chalk board menus for each continent. She used scrap lumber that was sitting around the church, had our property manager trim it to size, and then she painted it with a quart of free paint that she turned to chalkboard paint by mixing in grout. She decorated them with designs cut from a Silhouette machine. All this=FREE! So clever.

Happy 60th Karen!

Last week, while The Professor was off work, we went to SC for a surprise birthday party for sister Karen's 60th birthday. Her daughters-in-law planned the whole event and did a wonderful job. They kept saying, "She knows. She won't be surprised. No one can ever surprise her, she already knows something's up."

But they were wrong - she really was surprised. Bill was clued in just a few days before, and he helped with the logistics of getting her to their church that evening. He told her some story about needing to sign a check or something. When she saw cars in the parking lot, she was very worried that they had forgotten about some church event. As they walked up to the building she could see in the windows and commented that it was a reception that they had missed. Then she saw someone "who didn't belong there" and she realized what was going on. So she was surprised until the very last moment.

Meantime, I made sure I wasn't visible through the windows, and The Professor was hidden too. She sheepishly walked in the door and looked around, acknowledging the guests. I watched as her eyes passed by me, and then she did a double-take as she realized it was me. That was lots of fun.

The family had put together a memory/tribute album for her with contributions from family and friends far and wide. I got a chance to look through it briefly, but not as much as I would have liked. I'm sure she will treasure it.

We enjoyed helping with the surprise, but even more, having the chance to visit with extended family that we hadn't seen in quite some time. Although we were given an invite to stay the night, we needed to head back home that same evening since The Professor hadn't brought along his very important RX meds.

Beethoven's 9th and Christmas Tree Lights

We targeted today, December 28th, as the day to dispose of our Christmas tree. Taking off the lights is the most tedious part. As I take off each string of lights from the tree, I inspect the string for burned out light bulbs. I do this by plugging the lights into an extension cord and checking each bulb. I replace the burned out bulbs with a good one from a stash of bulbs collected from a dead string with a few good bulbs. I then wrap the lights up in a compact way that protects them.

While doing this, I was listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Beethoven's Ninth is rich for me, not only because I love the music, which is skillfully crafted, each segment building on the previous that washes over me unlike any other symphony -- but also because I have many memories associated with the Ninth.

• In second grade, I saw The Bell Telephone Science series "Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays" where Dr. Research (in real life, Dr. Frank Baxter, an English professor at the University of Southern California) introduced me to the mysteries of cosmic rays (as known when the film was made in 1957). In that program, part of the choral music of Beethoven's Ninth was at a pivotal point pondering the mysteries of the cosmos -- and that music burned into my conscious fabric about the universe. I didn't know then where the music came from, but I wanted to find it.
• One day, a couple of years later, while listening to my favorite music station in Los Angeles, 92.3 KFAC FM, I heard Beethoven's Ninth for the first time. I heard the NBC Nightly News music in the second movement -- and then the hauntingly beautiful music of the "Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays" revealed itself in the choral section of the last movement. I had loved Beethoven's other symphonies and his ninth was instantly my favorite.
• Soon I wanted to buy all of Beethoven's nine symphonies and finally did it when I about 10 years old. I saved up my allowances and gift money and purchased a collection of vinyl LPs. I treasured that set.
• Growing up in church, on occasion we'd sing the hymn, "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee", or I'd hear it in a performance, all along knowing the music came from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth, with the words substituted in place of Friedrich Schiller's Ode to Joy that Beethoven used. I love that hymn.
• In high school, in German class, the German teacher wanted a class devoted to listening to German cultural music and asked if anyone had any music. I volunteered Beethoven's Ninth symphony. The teacher played the last movement in class; I regretted it for two reasons. First, the teacher played my LP on a school record player, and I cringed at what it must be doing to my precious album. Secondly, a cute girl who sat next to me (who never talked to me before) leaned over and said, "This must take a special temperament to listen to this." I looked around the class and saw boredom in everyone's expressions. Big mistake.
• I attended my first live concert of Beethoven's Ninth when I was in college. The Riverside Symphony Orchestra played the symphony. I loved it.
• The love of my life loves "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee" and she wanted to come down the aisle to it in our wedding. So Beethoven's Ninth showed up at our wedding.
• We transitioned from vinyl LPs to CDs. I decided to give up my Beethoven vinyl collection - a difficult thing for me to do, but we weren't going to keep a turntable just to play them. I no longer have a complete collection of Beethoven symphonies. Someday I'd like to have all nine symphonies again. I do have two different CDs of Beethoven's Ninth.
• On Christmas Day in 1989, we watched on PBS as Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven's Ninth in Berlin. The Berlin wall had just come down weeks before. I was a child of the Cold War and this performance put a capstone on that Cold War period.
• On rare occasions, very rare now, I will humorously pontificate in song my fractured edition of the opening chorus words of Beethoven's Ninth, humming out the orchestral part between the words -- all in German (well, my ridiculous attempt at German). It has become part of our family lore and tradition, one that our new sons-in-law had to endure at least once.

So, if I ever appear distracted when Beethoven's Ninth is being played, the beautiful music and the memories it evokes are the cause...

Oh yes, I need to finish those Christmas lights.

Bithdays Celebrated at IKEA?

We celebrated the August birthdays in the IKEA restaurant this year. Isn't that an odd thing to do?

As it turns out, it wasn't really an odd thing: IKEA was having their annual all-you-can-eat Crayfish Festival last Friday. After consulting all the birthday people, we bought tickets all around and headed downtown. Greta and I went a bit early so I could snag a long table and set it up to look more festive than standard formica.

IKEA had kindly installed a row of artificial trees for the event, and our table was adjacent to them. It gave a nice backdrop for all the birthday photos.

Patrick entertains us with peek-a-boo while we wait for everyone to arrive.

Besides HEAPS of crayfish, the menu consisted of shrimp, smoked salmon, meatballs and gravy, boiled potatoes, lingonberries, mashed potatoes, salads, cheeses, breads, and assorted mini pastries.
HEAPS of crayfish, although I preferred the shrimp and meatballs.

Greta cozies up to a crayfish.

Patrick is tickled with a crayfish.

We created a tower of birthday treats in lieu of birthday cake. Since flames are not allowed in IKEA, I bought flameless tea lights to stand in for birthday candles.

Luke couldn't figure out how they "blew out" the birthday candles; he tried and tried to get the light to turn off!

Jared is trying to open a birthday gift.

Greta was thrilled to fianally get the white comforter on their wedding registry.

Heather actually knew ahead of time what this gift was: vintage dessert sets in "her" pattern.

Three wonderful kids whom we love VERY much!