Flashback Friday

Happy Friday!!

 

Bailey joins the family - 2003

Town Green Concert

We spent a wonderful evening at the Maple Grove Town Green last week watching Delanie's band concert.  The Town Green is an outdoor concert facility in downtown Maple Grove.  It is gorgeous!! 

 

The weather could not have been more perfect........75 degrees, sunny with a slight breeze.  I love Minnesota summers! :)

The Maple Grove Marching Crimson made a grand entrance as the drumline counted off their march. 

For part of the performance, Delanie's band shared the stage with the Saint Louis Park Community Band.  They were awesome!  The oldest member of the community band was a 91-year-old trombone player.  What a wonderful example for the high schoolers to never give up on music.  :)

My favorite part was a melody of our armed forces' anthems.  Before the band started the melody, the composer asked all the veterans in the crowd to stand when they heard their miliary branch's anthem.  The music in itself was incredibly moving but to see the veterans stand and remove their hats was overwhelming.  Each veteran received a big round of applause.  It was enough to bring you to tears. 

I always get a kick out of how serious Delanie is when she's playing.  There's no crying in marching band!!  When I can capture a photo like the one below, I count it as a win.  :)

 

Here are some candids of practice before the performance. 

 

Ready..........

 

Set.........

 

Go...........

 

 All in all...........it was a wonderful evening!! :)

 

Flashback Friday

Happy Friday!!

 

 

Garrett teaches Delanie to skate - 2003

 

 

 

Shorty

OK.......I've had all I can stand of this hair!! 

I decided about a year ago that I would grow it out just to see what it would look like.  Plus, I really thought Jim would like it longer!  The longer it got, the more I pulled it up into a ponytail.  Not exactly the fashion forward hairstyle I pictured in my mind.  :)

 

Several weeks ago, I started making remarks to Jim about cutting it off.  Try as I might, I could not get him to tell me if he preferred it long or short.  Like the wonderful husband he is, he would always say, "I like it both ways" and "You look beautiful either way".

If you know anything at all about me, you know that I'm a spur of the moment kind of gal.  Once I've decided to do something, it has to be done right away......no turning back.  Well, that time came last week.   

So here we are.......back to the pixie cut.  I absolutely love it!! :)  It feels like I'm back to my old self again. 

Extraordinary love

I recently came across the wonderful world of podcasts.  Whenever I find myself in the car for a few minutes - driving to work, shuttling kids around town, etc. - I pop in my iPod, sit back and listen.  I love love love Joel Osteen (he's incredibly motivating) and Pete Briscoe, the pastor of Bent Tree Bible Church in Carrollton, TX. 

Sometimes it feels like the message was written especially for me.  Today's podcast was an archived marriage series at Bent Tree.  The crux of the message was "what is love?".  Pastor Pete spoke about how love is in the demonstration.........show it instead of say it.   

During the sermon, Pastor Pete shared this teenager's Facebook declaration:

"My love life will never be satisfactory until someone runs through

an airport to stop me from getting on a flight."

As a response to that sentiment, he shared this post from Lisa-Jo Baker's blog:

He’s never run through an airport for me. 

 

But I’ve never drowned holding onto his hand.

 

There is a rumor, an urban myth, a fiction, a fantasy, a black and white screen cliché that love looks like the mad, romantic dash through airports for a last chance at a flailing kiss. And then the credits roll. And the lights come on. And we must go back to our real lives where we forget that love really lives.

 

He’s never run through an airport for me.

 

He’s gone out for milk at 10pm, he’s held our children through bouts of stomach viruses and told me there is nothing about his kids that disgusts him. He’s carried us on his shoulders when we were too tired or too sad or too done to keep doing the every day ins and outs that make up a life. He’s unloaded a hundred loads of laundry and put the dishes away. He lays down his life and it looks like so many ordinary moments stitched together into the testimony of a good man who comes home to his family in the old minivan, the one with the broken air conditioning. It undoes me every time to look around and find him there, having my back in the day to day and the late night into late night and then next year again. He’s run a thousand times around the sun with me and we hold hands and touch feet at night between the covers even when we’re wretched and fighting we’re always fighting our way back to each other.

 

He’s never run through an airport for me.

 

He is patient and kind. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. And we come running to him. When the battered white minivan pulls into the driveway his children trip over themselves, their abandoned Crocs and the pool bag to be the first to open the door and spill out their day into the hands of the man who can catch them.

 

He’s never run through an airport for me.

 

This ordinary unremarkable love walks slowly every day alongside. One step, one day, one T-ball practice at a time. One permission slip signed, one Lunchable, one school play, one art project, one Lego box, one more night time cup of water delivered at a time. This ordinary love that wakes up with crease marks on its cheeks and is the daily bread that sustains across time zones and countries and cultures and the exhaustion of trying to figure out how to be a parent and a grown up and somebody’s forever. And this is a love life – to live life each small, sometimes unbearably tedious moment – together. To trip over old jokes and misunderstandings. To catch our runaway tongues and tempers and gift them into the hands of the person who was gifted to us. He lets me warm my ice cold feet between his legs and the covers at night.

 

He has never run through an airport for me.

 

This is love with the lights on and eyes wide open. This is the brave love, the scared love, the sacred boring, the holy ordinary over sinks of dirty dishes and that one cupboard in the kitchen with the broken hinge.

As Pastor Pete read from Lisa-Jo Baker's blog, I found myself sitting at a red light with tears running down my cheeks and the driver in the lane next to me looking at me like I had three heads. :) 

This post describes my sweet husband to perfection.  I'm reminded daily that there is nothing ordinary about our love.  It defies the odds and I am so lucky that it does.  This man came into our lives at the perfect time and provided such unconditional love that I'm truly humbled.  Although he says "I love you" daily, he shows his love a thousand times a day. 

Jim:  I love you more than words can say. 

I can only pray my actions do the job instead. 

Flashback Friday

Happy Friday!!

 

This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Garrett & Delanie.  Every day was such a funny adventure with these two.......and it still is!

Delanie has always adored her big brother. There have been times that only Garrett could console her if she was upset. I remember strapping her into her bouncer as I was doing chores.  Garrett would walk by and put his foot on her belly...........then jiggle it.   She would die laughing!!  The sound of her gut-busting laughter would throw Garrett into his own fit of giggling.  :)

Band camp

 

Delanie just spent a few days away at Band Camp 2014 and had an absolute blast!! :)

Sunday afternoon, about forty members of the high school band traveled two hours via school bus to the camp grounds in Deerwood, MN.  She got home yesterday and was completely exhausted!  Forty eight straight hours of practicing, bonding and horsing around definitely took it's toll. 

 

I'm always amazed at the photos Delanie takes.  The kid has such an artistic eye........I'm jealous! :) 

 

Delanie said every meal was cooked over an open fire.  She even tried - and loved! - veggie burgers. 

This is such a fun, tight-knit group of kids.  They practice two nights per week and are totally committed to their music.  It's such an exciting time in her life.  High school starts soon and, thankfully, she has a wonderful group of friends to share memories with.  :)

 

 

 

Flashback Friday

Happy Friday!!

 

Proof positive that these two are definitely my kids!! :)

 

 

Goofing around at Outback Steak House - 2006

Big reveal

 

This little cutie got braces this week!  Well......not really.  She qualified for the Invisalign program so no metal mouth for her.  (Poor Garrett thinks he was totally ripped off!!)  The new "aligners" are plastic trays that fit over your top and bottom teeth that are changed every two weeks.  She is supposed to wear them 22 hours each day......only taking them off to eat, drink & brush.  To make sure she follows this rule, there is a blue dot on each of the pieces that slowly washes off the longer you wear them.  Why couldn't they have this when I was in high school?  This generation gets all the cool stuff. :)

 

As the dentist completed the fitting process, I was steadily taking pictures.  When Delanie noticed the camera, I got blocked.  One of these days, my family will get used to the fact that I must take pictures.  It's a mother's responsibility......right?

Here is the "after" photo.  You can't see a big difference but you can definitely tell when she starts talking.  Isn't she cute??  :)