So many pictures, so little time to blog. These posts will be frightfully out of order, I’m afraid. Ah, we do the best we can.

Thursday we drove to Lake Michigan, picking up the groom on the way.

What is Phil thinking? Deep groom-like thoughts?

It was an unexpected gift to have some uninterrupted time with Philip. Okay, there were 5 children in the van so it was hardly a quiet drive. We managed to get a smile out of Phil.

Just mention Emily and Phil lights up.

That evening Aunt Kate (my mom’s twin sister), Uncle Jerry (Kate’s dh), and Aunt Stephanie (my mom’s older sister) all flew in. We also met up with my brother Thom and Doug, a good friend of the family. We all went out to dinner. “Thank you, Aunt Stephanie, for a delicious meal!!!”

Phil and Doug

The next day we played in the sand and enjoyed our new digs. It’s certainly different being the family of the groom (ie sit around and relax all day, show up at the appointed time) versus the bride (decorate the reception hall, teach breathing techniques to the bride and bridesmaids, tie up little bundles of sweets for the reception tables, panic over last minute details, etc). I certainly don’t remember any time to relax on the weekend of my wedding. Maybe that’s just because I was the bride. I’m sure my brothers weren’t fretting and stressing during that time. Now that I think about it, they were probably sitting around relaxing and waiting until it was time to show up for the wedding. Hmmm.

Far be it for me to imply that the activities surrounding the wedding are boring but look at these little guys.

I think the playing and relaxing at the beach wore David and Chaseton out.

The rehearsal dinner was delicious. We filled up three long tables with family and friends. I met Emily’s mother and aunt. She has a lovely family. The kids are so excited to have a new aunt. They adore Jenn (Thom’s wife) and figure Emily will surely be as wonderful.

The girls - Kathy, Emily, Rachel, Tahlia, Sarah and Aydia - pose for a picture.

Phil was a gracious host and went around, speaking to all of the well-wishers. We, of course, snagged him for a picture.

Chase grabs Phil for a hug while Mom and Dan smile pretty.

More details to follow. It has been a lovely, lovely vacation and the wedding was perfect!

Kathy
Project 365 - Days 172 & 173

This week of April is full of birthdays in our family. My mother-in-law’s birthday was on Wednesday, my brother’s birthday was on Friday and Daniel’s birthday was today! Wow! That’s a lot of birthday cake.

I have some great black and white pictures of my brother Dan from the batch Joshua digitized for me a while back. I just had to post them in honor of Dan’s birthday.

I love you, Dan! Happy Birthday!! Is it 35???

Okay, I do NOT know the history of this picture. My dad looks absolutely dead/exhausted. If this was Dan’s 4th birthday, then I was turning 6 in July, Thom was turning 2 in July, and my mom was 4 months pregnant with Phil. Ouch! No wonder Dad looks a wee bit tired.:)

Dan lives in Michigan, but occasionally finds himself up late at night. Being a bit of a night owl, very social and a great phone conversationalist, Dan has been known to call friends and family across the US (following the time zones). Since we are all the way over on the west coast, Dan has diiscovered he can always call and chat with us, no matter what the hour because, with the time difference, it’s never too late for us. We have great conversations, chatting about everything from movies to Starbucks (a mutual passion). Dan has an amazing way of making people feel comfortable. He is easy to talk to, funny, friendly and charming.

I have LOTS of pictures of Dan but these OLD ones are some of the few actually scanned in to the computer.

Time for a little pool action at Nana and Grandaddy’s indoor pool in MN.

Look at that face! Is he planning some mischief or what?

Being close in age and different in our academic and social interests, Dan and I had just a wee bit of conflict negotiating those teenage years. Okay, I might have been the typical bossy older sister. Who knew we would grow to enjoy each other with some age, wisdom and distance (helped when I went off to college-lol).

Every girl needs a “big brother” and eventually all three of my YOUNGER brothers grew to become my big, tall brothers.

I still remember the first time Tim met my family and the “looking over” he received from my brothers. And people wonder why I laugh so hard at the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when the main character’s brother talks to his sister’s fiancé.

Nick: I’ve never seen my sister this happy, Ian.
If you hurt her, I’ll kill you and make it look like an accident.

I can’t be sure, but I think some sort of similar exchange may have passed between Tim and Dan, Thom and Phil. Thankfully Tim survived the brother test and was permitted to join the family.

Time for the big day, Sis! Are you sure you’re ready to marry “that guy?” May 1992 - Wedding!

Just a little Happy Birthday Blog for my brother Dan.

Kathy

I like to think of holidays (including birthdays) as sort of fluid. There’s no need to be bound by the actual date, is there? In our house, we open Christmas presents for a good week. It isn’t that we have so many gifts (although with five children there is certainly a respectable pile under the tree) but that we like to S…T…R…E…T…C…H out our Christmas celebrations. Once the last present is open, it means Christmas is over.

Although my primary Love Language is probably quality time, I have a strong love of gifts. It seems rather shallow in comparison to some of the other gifts. Although maybe you aren’t supposed rank the 5 love languages - I guess that kind of defeats the purpose of understanding people feel loved in different ways and in order to make them FEEL loved, you need to speak the language that communicates best to them.

Still, I feel a bit childish to admit that a present makes me happy. What am I, five? None the less, it’s true and I’ve come to accept it about myself. Thankfully I have a husband who LOVES to give presents almost as much as I enjoy receiving them. Aren’t we a wonderful team! One year my birthday lasted for several weeks with Tim bringing out a steady stream of presents. It was heavenly!!

I digress (it was all that talk of presents, got me a bit giddy). I was hoping a discussion on elaborate, stretched out celebrations would distract everyone from the fact that today’s pictures revolve around dying Easter eggs.

And Easter was several days ago. Sigh. I blame this terrible breech in egg dying protocol on my mother in law. I also blame my mother. My mother in law went and caught the flu this Easter. Now how are we supposed to dye Easter eggs and eat jelly beans and chocolate all day if Grandma is sick? Especially if I am on record as being generally opposed to candy and rely on the grandparents to provide my children with confections of all sorts. Some people have no respect for proper traditions.

Daniel, Joshua and Andrew wait patiently for Grandma to fire the starter pistol on the great Egg Dying Competition of 2000.

Rachel’s hogging the blue in 2000.

And my mother? She loves dying Easter eggs. She will work hard to gather some children (even if they are grown up, not a single one of them under the age of 10, or even 25) for an afternoon of Easter egg dying. She does, however, live in Michigan. Yes, Michigan. That is MUCH too far to go for an afternoon of egg dying. Some years our family has managed to combine our Michigan visit with Easter (truly a worthy feat).

Here my brother, Phil, and Daniel work hard at their eggs in 2004.

It’s 2004 and Sarah lets Aunt Jenn help her a little bit but eventually she wants to get her hands on that spoon and do some dipping herself.

Of course, this produces ONE yellow egg and some very messy fingers requiring serious cleaning up.

With all these mothers not cooperating a bit, it’s amazing we managed to dye Easter eggs at all. Thankfully we had an episode of Bonanza to console and buoy our spirits. Afterward, it was time for some serious egg work.

How can we possibly eat any of the children’s precious works of art? “No, don’t eat the [insert color here] one!” With five children (and parents who want to play with the pretty colors as well), how many eggs do you need to hard boil? How many egg salad sandwiches can one family eat? How long do hard boiled eggs last? These are significant questions. I remember talking to my mother last week.

“Are you ready for your company, Mom?
“Oh, yes. We’ll have an easy lunch, that’s all settled. I’m worried about something else, though.”
“Oh dear, what’s wrong?”
“How many eggs do I boil? How many will each person want to dye? 3? 4? More than that? I’m a bit concerned.”
Pause.
“Um, Mom, is Dan coming over with the kids?”
“No, it’ll just be the four of us. Thom and Jenn are coming for lunch. But you know your father, he always surprises me and wants to do his fair share of Easter egg dying.”
“I’m sure you’ll work it out, Mom.”

So, you see, some of the great questions in life must be puzzled out each year.

Happy Late Easter Egg Dying!!

Kathy

More thoughts on Costa Rica from Cindy:

One day we rode a canopy over the rain forest and saw gorgeous vegetation from above.

We were intrigued by all the secondary plants that are able to grow on the primary tree; each one seeking the sun while at the same time firing long, arrow-like roots to the distant ground.

Another time our bus stopped to observe a native banana-harvesting operation, as they readied the bananas for export. It was fascinating to see how each bunch was conveyed to the plant where they were washed, sorted and boxed for shipping.

We drove to the Pacific coast (across the continental divide). Bill was tickled to be able to jog along the beach on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in the same week.

We stayed at Jaco Beach and spent the morning at the shore, surrounded by monkeys and beautiful birds.

On the way to the beach, we took a hike that included crossing a suspended bridge. It wasn’t as scary as some of us feared. It was 30 or so feet off the ground.

The entrance to the bridge.

We spotted many iguana during our trip to Costa Rica.

One of the highlights of our trip was eating meals and playing cards each evening with Bill’s brothers and their wives.

Along the trip we enjoyed the many beautiful plants and flowers.

All of the hotels had pools - some days we were too busy to enjoy swimming but when we had a free moment we went down to the water.

The highlight for shopping was in the town of Sarchi, home of the famous Costa Rican ox carts. Painting ox carts is their specialty and we saw many beautiful examples of their work.

You can buy one of their painted ox carts and have them disassembled and shipped home. Kate - wouldn’t one of these look beautiful in your Fort Clark sunroom!

Finally it was time to go home. We flew on the same plane with Steve and Debby to Charlotte, NC.

This was an amazing sunset that Bill captured with his camera.

When we left Costa Rica, the temperature was 85 degrees and the sun was shining brightly. When we arrived in Michigan it was 10 degrees. We left the next day for Seattle where it was 50 degrees with nary a sunbeam in sight. Isn’t this an amazing world God has created.

Cindy

I thought it would be fun to include some pictures from Mom and Dad’s trip to Costa Rica. They traveled with my father’s siblings and their wives. They joined 38 other people on Caravan Tours and had a wonderful time exploring the country (at a very reasonable
price). I’ll hand the computer over to Mom.

The best part about the trip was being together with Bill’s two brothers and their wives. We talked and laughed, played cards, shared childhood stories, and just generally enjoyed each other. This is our third time traveling together. Here we are on our last night. Standing–Steve and Debby; Sitting–Charlie and Debbie, Bill and Cindy.

Coffee is the main export of Costa Rica. We toured a coffee beanery, brought home bags of coffee beans, saw coffee plantations everywhere we drove, and drank many cups of locally grown coffee. Here is a statue of a coffee bean in the capital, San Jose.

Coffee anyone?

We took a hike to the rim of an active volcano, Poas, it was cloudy and foggy but still beautiful.

The vegetation and flowers were amazing throughout the entire country. Everything was lush and blooming.

Bill kept saying, “I know I have this plant in my office–it’s only 6 inches tall.” Something about the Costa Rica rain and warm weather must give them an advantage!

One afternoon our bus stopped at a butterfly farm. The beautiful Morfo butterfly is unique to Costa Rica. When its wings open the color is florescent blue.

The butterflies feed on plantains.

We left San Jose and drove to the east coast, the Caribbean/Atlantic Ocean. We boarded a boat - the only way to get to Tortuguero Rain Forest. It rained hard each night but cleared up in time for us to get on a small boat and cruise the canals, observing wildlife. “Keep your hands inside the boat” - we saw many caiman along the riverbanks.

Spectacled caimans are small relatives of alligators and crocodiles. The body length (not including tail) of a full-grown spectacled caiman is about three and a half feet.

We saw three types of monkeys. The howler monkeys travel in groups of 40 or 50 and make a loud howling call that is very distinctive. We could hear them at 5:30 am every morning - who needs an alarm clock! The white face monkey is smaller and are friendly. They told us to be careful not to leave things out as the monkeys will come up and snatch “treats” for themselves. The spider monkey is even smaller than the other two and harder to see. This reddish monkey is a distinct type of howler monkey whom our guide calls “Blondie.”

We were constantly amazed by the beautiful plant life.

All the plants reach for the sun, so many of them will attach themselves to a tree and climb high. This is an orchid that is growing on the side of a tree.

On our cruise we drove to the edge of the Costa Rican border and viewed Nicaragua from our boat. There is much turmoil between the two countries and we did not go any closer.

We had fun using my mother and daddy’s binoculars from Texas, looking at the many birds found in Costa Rica. They were avid bird watchers - we have a long way to go to catch up to Nana and Grandaddy. In Costa Rica, we wanted to see a scarlet Macaw, but didn’t. We did, however, manage to see toucans, rose spoonbills, anhingas, Pied-billed Grebes, many pelicans, Neotropical Cormorants, Tiger-Herons, and many other exotic birds. Beautiful. Costa Rica has something like 850 different species of birds.

More to follow.
Cindy