Birthday Dilemma

9/1/2014

I tried to get Sally to write a section on this blog. She is pretty talented and does a lot of things that are interesting. She said no, she had written quite enough and said she would rather make things.

Ok, I guess I would rather write than do a lot of things. Especially in August with the weather so hot. One advantage to writing is that you can say pretty much anything you want. The writing is going to be fairly short but there are a lot of good pictures.

When Sally and I met we were very young (compared to now anyway). Just 53 years old. I was looking at cars at Spring Auto Brokers and she was running the place. She gave me a big smile. I was a goner. It didn’t take a really long time to get married but it was longer than we wanted. I knew she was special but didn’t know just how much so. I am still learning. I brought one 17 year old to the family and she brought six with the youngest being 21. I think we have done a real good job of blending. I don't mean that to sound like it was all or mostly us because it obviously was not. They're a great bunch.

This is what came out of the blending process and the picture isn’t nearly complete. We had a problem in that there were so many grandchildren we couldn't spend enough quality time with them. Trying at a family party is like trying to drink from a firehose.

There wasn't much difficulty with the adults but what do you do for birthdays with what turned into over two dozen grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Lord knows we tried having special times with them and they seemed to have fun. These two beauties are Karlie and Amie who were visiting. That is a very young Indy and a not so young Eeyore in the back. Indie is now 65 pounds and Sally's personal bodyguard. We sent Eeyore to a home with a young boy as he was obviously smarter than any fence.

Seems as though there were never any difficulties filling the time with things that seemed to be enjoyable to them. Riding Blue was something all the kids liked and Blue liked the attention. What we really wanted was to host our kids as individuals. No sharing with siblings. How could we go about that. Some did not have any siblings (yet) so it was easy. An isolated case but, for instance......

When Briana got to pick up the baby chicks at the post officeI think it was an experience she will remember for a long time. There were 24 babies in that box and I think she had them all named by the time we got home.

We decided that we lived out in the country (on purpose) and in a very copernican discovery - our farm was not the center of the world. Our family was growing (quite well) with or without us.

Well then, what to do. We decided that there were a lot of places that were very interesting to youngsters and we would take them there. With this strapping young man (Daniel) it was only necessary to bring food with the canoe. Our routine was to pick up a youngsters near to his birthday and do something special on a weekend.

We took trips with granddaughters, Amie and Jessica, (one at a time), to Safari-land near San Antonio and I don’t know which time this was.

Doesn't matter. Might be a different car but the zebras were probably the same both times. One of these times we also took the painted church tour.

We took another to see the nutcracker and really the only limits were our imagination and the age of the child.

One of Trent's birthdays we took a trip to the state park at Rusk and spent the night in a tent. Then we took the steam train.

The train was a genuine antique that was converted to make steam from burning diesel instead of coal. But it still makes steam. It was a good trip and a lot of fun. We hardly took any trips not related to Sally's duties for the newspaper that did not involve a grandchild with a birthday. The trouble, looking back,is to try to remember them all. We may not but the kids do.

This is Longhorn Cavern. One good thing about it is that in the summer it's really cool down there and in the winter it's fairly warm. Shane and I made the trip from one end to the other. We showed the state parks no mercy until one day we looked around and something had happened.

This time was special and it was also the last birthday trip. Jessica and Shane both had birthdays but Shane had joined the Navy. He was in San Antonio learning how to be a Hospital Corpsman. We took her to see him.

Now if you just look at these two and the old guy setting with them you will get a hint of the new problem we faced. What had happened was that the grandkids were getting older and so were we. We weren't just taking out grandkids, we were taking out adults.

Sometimes they were old enough to serve their country. The great grandkids weren’t really old enough to take away from their parents. Again, while they are getting older, so are we. We had to shift gears.

Well Sally has always been handy and she (re)learned how to crochet not long ago. She began to make things for them. Now if you want a welded compressor or some butchered wood the chances are I can help. If you want something nice...that isn’t so likely.

My job here is to keep the home fires burning while Sally produces. And produce she does. I think that's fair as most of the grandkids are her fault anyway. Mostly it’s for birthdays but christmas and a couple wedding presents will find their way into the pictures below. This is the Lego-man she made for our great grandson Preston.

This doll is the latest. Sunday Ezrah had her third birthday party and Sally had to take requests. I know that there are at least two more of these coming but they are scheduled to be mermaids. I'm having trouble with the slide show so will just load captioned pictures.

Packard and Sally with birthday present.

What an artsy crafty kitchen looks like

Crocheted Lego backpack

Next in line after the grandkids. Baby Indy.

Also high on the list. Beau, Jack, and friends.

Multi colored coasters for Anita. When you don't know what to match.

Taylor with Feathers. Belongs above but didn't fit the story line. She wanted a white donkey with brown spots.

No. This also is not a crocheted toy but it's one of her favorite pictures not involving a grandkid. It's from New Brunswick at the bird preserve. You can find more pictures of this under our Canadian trip. Thanks Dave and Anita.