A tribute to a man of honor

I've been composing and editing this post in my head all week but am still not sure I've got anything that says what I want to, what I'm feeling. Mostly, I think I'm not even the right person to write this, but since I'm the one with the blog, I guess I'll have to do.

As pretty much anyone who reads this blog knows, Dan's dad passed away last weekend. It wasn't completely unexpected, but it was still a surprise because he'd been doing so much better lately. We've had an intense week since that phone call came in late Saturday night (maybe Sunday morning?). Dan flew down to Florida on the first flight we could get him Sunday morning, my mom drove down on Monday to stay with the kids, I flew out Tuesday morning, and both of us came home Friday evening. Last night we were saying we couldn't believe it had only been a week - it feels partly like a month went by and partly like it never happened. For me, a part of the strangeness is that I was on spring break and ended up in Florida in sunny 80 degree weather, even going to the beach one day. It's hard to enjoy the amenities while grieving, and it's hard to grieve in that kind of climate.

But what I really wanted to do was thank my father-in-law for being the man he was. He was the rock of the family, always steady and reliable and considerate and there. He survived a difficult childhood, World War II, emigration to Canada and then the US, a plethora of odd jobs, and no one ever heard him complain. He looked so much younger than his age that he was able to say he was 10 years younger than he actually was. He never wanted a fuss made about him, but because he was such a good guy, everyone wanted to celebrate that. He and Dan's mom welcomed me into the family and from day one (21 years ago) made me feel like I was one of their children. He showed his children how to be a great parent and spouse, and I am particularly thankful that he showed Dan that there is no such thing as "women's work". 

While I am jealous that Dan and his siblings got so much time with their dad, when I had so little with mine, I am also so glad that they did have that time and that I was able to share in a large chunk of it. It doesn't matter that he was 85 and had a bad heart - we all would have been happy to have had him around for so much longer. Have a good rest, Larry/Dad/Pop Pop. You deserve it.

Too much Sunday school?

Reece brought home the following piece of paper yesterday from school:

My initial reaction was, "Are we comparing our body parts to people who follow Christ, now?" Then I remembered there's a boy in his class named Christian. Heh.

Does it really take that much time to check things out before forwarding them??

I just received one of those forwarded-a-million-times emails about something supposedly horrific (this time an Amber alert) from a friend. It took me all of 20 seconds to find it on snopes.com and determine that it is (shock!) a hoax/urban legend. I know they don't really harm people, although in this case the Missing and Exploited Children hotline gets inundated with calls every time it gets sent out in a new wave of emails, but I'm just so tired of them! We've all been on email long enough to be able to spot these a mile away, or at least to check up on them before forwarding. So, while I used to just reply to the sender with the link to the refutation, now I Reply All. Just my little contribution to making the world a better place.

In other news, the boys still sleep in the same bed sometimes, and invariably we find them zonked in some kind of crazy position. Case in point from a few weeks ago:

Also, last week I turned the corner and saw this:

I fear this blog is just going to fall apart when the crazy leaves that boy in a few years. That or it will change to a police blotter log dedicated to him.

Mother Nature's kicking my...

So, I usually try to stay very far away from posting about the weather. Because really, everyone has it, it's always changing, and it just shouldn't warrant discussion in a semi-permanent place such as a blog unless farm animals flew or something equally amazing.

However.

Last week we had an ice storm, lost power for at least 12 hours, had two gorgeous days of iced-over everything and brilliant sun, then random non-weather, then a foot of snow in 10 hours, a snow day, Dan's car stuck in our driveway TWICE (Greyson and me alternating pushing and shoveling), and then a thunderstorm Sunday night that kept me up for an extra hour or so. So now I'm cold, wet, tired, and sore in muscles I forgot even existed. I'm just saying, could we have maybe a short break in between? I have to schedule a week-long massage to recover.

The pictures, as always, do not do it justice: