Father's Day Thought

Dads

Have a kind of language all their own. I know this because I've been listening. SURPRISE!
For example, when dad's say, "Be careful." or " Make sure you call me," it really means, "I'm never going to stop worrying about you."
When they say, "You look pretty," or “You’re growing up too fast,” they’re really saying, “I wish I could hang onto you just a little longer.”
And when they say, Who’s that guy again?” what they really mean is, “Noone will ever be good enough for my little Girl.”
Well don’t worry Dad because I love that you care about me enough to say all those things and I just want you to know that no matter where I go or whoever comes into my life, a big part of my heart will belong to you.
Happy Father’s Day!

Love,
Rosie

Father's Day -- Epiphanies

I was watching TV, if you can call a long ad for 60s music TV, late last night with Rosie and one of the songs triggered a well-timed Dad memory that I instantly thought would be great for Kendra's book for Everett.
It happened when James Dean sang one of his famous story ballads 'Big Bad John' and I figured it should be shared. It was another one of those moments Dad probably didn't even realize he was leaving an indelible impression on one of his kids.
It was at a church basketball game (you know this has to get good :)) and as always I was tagging along because I just knew if they came up short they would ask me to play with them even though I was only 10 or 11 at the time. I was sitting on the bench next to Gary Palmer and they were at our end of the court when a shot went up. I guess dad was one of the taller guys on the team at 6' 2" and he and someone from the other team went up for the rebound. All I remember of the next few moments was that it got pretty physical (I don't think that they actually got in a fight) and Dad came away with the ball that he then powered back up with a shot under the basket. It happened quickly and probably wouldn't have been a huge moment had it not been for Gary singing "BIG BAD JOHN" as he was going up for a the shot and getting hammered by the guy he took the ball from as well as another guy.
It was one of those moments for me when I realized something about my Dad that I guess I kind of knew but when this happened I remember thinking, "My Dad is really really cool!"

Then there was the time while he was the time while he was serving as a counselor on the 3rd Ward Bishopric with Bishop Mike O'Loughlin at a MIA activity. Dad was dressed up with a curtain in front of him and shoes on his hands with Mom behind him acting out with his hands and shoving loads of food into his mouth. He kept telling her to wait and the more he tried to keep her from loading more in, the more she tried to put in. Everyone was laughing as the hilarity continued to unfold and April Mleynek made the comment, "He's such a great sport." I remember at the time thinking that it was something for me to learn from because I didn't like to be laughed at and would never put myself in a position for such ridicule. From then on I decided that I would allow myself to be a little more vulnerable.

The last story I thought of while thinking of Dad was another MIA activity (He was very good about magnifying his callings). There was a competition where people were divided into teams and one person had to run to the other end of the Cultural Hall, Stand a bat up on end, put there forehead on the handle end, spin around several times, and then run back to the other end and tag the next person. Then they would run up and do the same until the last person was done. Dad was on my team and I was thinking our chances for winning this thing was probably really good. I was behind him with one person between us and he took off down the court like a banshee and made the spins before anyone else. Then it got a bit hairy (try running after spinning in circles with your head on a bat). He started on his way back and started leaning to his right. I knew instantly that this was not going to go well. The more he tried to run and catch himself the more he leaned. He went crashing down in a heap and slid head first in the cabinets under the stage where the tables and chairs were kept.
Needles to say it scared the crap out of me and I didn't care about winning anymore. To everyone else it was understandably hilarious, but I found no humor in it. At that exact moment I realized just how much I loved and worshipped my Dad and seeing him out of control, even for a stupid kids game, was not a good moment for me. Not that we always had the best of moments since I at the time was an all-knowing teenager, but my Dad was, well, DAD. The greatest human being on earth. He ended up getting his composure well enough to get back to tag the next person and the entire time he too was laughing. I don't remember the outcome of the race or even fulfilling my leg of the race, but that moment was left a clear mark on my memory of MY DAD.

I love and miss him. I miss not being able to ask him questions or calling him to tell him what new thing I've learned. Even after 2 years my heart aches a little. Oh the reunion though when we meet again! I look forward to that moment and that joy fills the ache every time!

Happy Birthday to Me!

What a perfect BIRTHDAY!  Rosie started off (in the spirit of her Birthday month lets say garbage that she seems to have gotten every woman in my family to buy into) making me breakfast before heading to work.  It was french toast with fresh berries.  She has actually been making a huge effort since June 1st to make me happy with breakfast and making my lunch for work that I'm usually to lazy to make on my own and so I would normally just go out to lunch.

Along side breakfast was a wonderful card from her and Buddy.  The picture above was of the envelope.  Who wouldn't feel special with a card titled like that?!

Then tonight after work we went to Mom's house for "Tommy's Birthday."  This turned out to be a huge surprise party for me with a Nacho bar that had all the fixings!  According to Rosie I have my sisters to thank for all this.  It was awesome and unfortunately we forgot our camera, but there were plenty of them there so hopefully we can get some copies and I will try to get some more posted.  I was very surprised and was impressed by the number of family members that showed up for the party.  I have a wonderful family and extended family and I thank them all for the cards and gifts!  It was much more than expected and I hope that there is a picture of the posters that Karli made for me.  They were well done.

Then I got home late and checked the voicemail messages.  I had a sweet Happy Birthday rendition from Mum (aka Houdini).  It was nice and greatly appreciated.  Then there were the Facebook birthday wished from family and friends and even a couple of emails.
It's not so bad getting older when you have family and friends that treat you like this on a special day.

Garden Follow Up

As noted previously, we have been blessed recently with a lot of fruit. If you want it come pick it or let John know you are coming and he may pick some for you. We have a lot of it. You will have to fight the birds for the Peaches. It would appear that they like those much more than the apricots because with the 2 right next to each other they have left the apricots alone for the most part.

Little did we realize just how blessed we are until John went out and started looking a little closer on Friday afternoon while Bella was visiting. He was trying to talk her into eating from the tree, but she wasn't having much to do with it for a while. She may still think if fruit doesn't come from the store it can't be very good. John plucks fruit every morning to eat on the way to work. You can see he will have choices for quite some time...
Above are the Peach and Apricot mentioned before.

Here are the Plum trees. The first one has put out fruit the last two years but it was never worth bragging about. Hopefully they get a bit bigger this year than years previous. This is the first year the other two have done anything and pretty much what you see is what you get with them, but we’re glad they’re putting fruit out because John was ready to pull them out of the ground if they didn’t give fruit.

Here is a picture of our Apple Tree. Rosie has volunteered her Mum to come and make some Crumble with the apples. Now just to get her here :). This tree is one of the youngest trees in the backyard and this is the first year for it to provide fruit and it’s already doing very well.

The Lemon tree is doing about what it does every year which is about as much as we really need. You can see some of last years growth as well as what will ripen for us later this year.

We’re please to see that the Navel Orange has some fruit on it that will mature through the year as well. John has planted a few of these and this is the first to grow and put on fruit. Hopefully they will make it that far. John’s Dad used to have a Navel Orange tree years ago that only put fruit on one year and they got plucked by a little boy that his Mom watched and it never put out fruit again. Funny story in retrospect, but it wasn’t at the time. Possible future blog.

Then we have the Pomegranate shrub. I think they are considered shrub and at least that is what this one is looking like.  It has a few fruit blooming and one has turned green and looks like fruit.  Trouble is Buddy likes to pluck them while they're red blossoms so we'll see what we get.  Should at least get the one green one he didn't get at.

We should mention the 2 sunflowers that sprung up from seeds dropped last year. John plans to plant some more this week. They are supposed to get about 6’ tall but these appear to have topped out at ~2’.

Lastly we have the grapevines. John has planted a few of these in the past and these are the first to actually grow and now are even putting out a few bunches.

John needs to spend a little time getting them back under control again, but we’re just happy to see fruit on them. We’re hoping some time in the near future to get some blackberry and raspberry bushes to grow but the times John has tried to get them to grow either the grub worms have gotten to them or they have died for other reasons. One time he got them to grow at his parent’s house but only got fruit off of the raspberries one year and never again after that.

If anybody knows someone who can help him we would really appreciate the help!

For the Love of Aunt Rosie

I think everyone understands on this Mother's Day what a wonderful mother Rosie would make based on the way she is around children and certainly the way children (especially nieces and nephews) are with Rosie. That said, I don't think any of her nieces, or nephews for that matter, feel about Aunt Rosie the way that Bella does.  Nobody comes between Bella and her Auntie Rosie.  And now we have a great example of not only that love, but Bella shows herself to be mature beyond her years and yet still 5 years old.  Listen to the 2 messages that wee Bella left for her Aunt Rosie:
http://sites.google.com/site/intheqc/our-music

Our Cup Runneth Over

If anyone wants peaches or apricots you won't have to buy them if you can beat the birds to them.
Both trees have decided to go nuts this year and the plum tree is giving out more fruit this year than we have ever seen.  Even the apple tree has decided to get into the act a bit this year.

John spent much of the day picking off excessive fruuit and cutting out bent limbs.

You can see all the fruit on the ground that he plucked from teh limbs as well as some of the limbs that had to be cut and still the tree has more fruit than we'll be able to keep up with.
And that is just the Peach tree.  The Apricot tree had on large limb that had to be lopped off because their was too much fruit and the limb was laying on the ground.

 

Today was a really warm day in the QC and John decided it was time to put out Buddy's pool again. after it appeared he was having trouble cooling down on his own while John was out mowing the lawn and Buddy was chasing flying bugs.

We didn't get a picture of Buddy in the pool but you can definitely tell he has been there and that he was badly in need of a bath.  He jumped in and lay down in the water as soon as John put the hose in the pool.

All the green grass is about dead and the Bermuda grass is just starting come up.  The transition is a bit frustrating until the grass is green again.

Our House

We like our house and neighborhood.  Could they both be improved?  Yes.  But all in all we've been pretty blessed.

Front Yard

Backyard