Boys in a Box

So Paul and I were cleaning out a closet upstairs today when I discovered a box of letters and mementos from various people.  Boys, mostly.  I had no idea I had kept them.  But since I did, let me share them with you.  Because it's sweet.  And Kate and Will were just married and my anniversary is in a few days and I'm feeling romantic and sentimental.

 Tony Dobson.

Our parents were friends when we lived in Wisconsin.

When I was age 2-4.

That's the last time I saw him.

But for some reason we wrote letters and sent pictures through my senior year of high school.

I had a huge crush on him and

so hoped to marry him one day.

On one of his envelopes I wrote,

"I love this envelope."

Then on his letter I had circled his closing, "Love, Tony."

Ha.  I wonder if he still has my letters.

He's married now.

He should really throw them out.

 Ted McCrummen.

My first kiss, I'll just tell you.

On the front steps of my house.

This is the rose corsage he gave me.

It looked better eighteen years ago.

Can it be eighteen years ago already?

He surfed and wanted to be a marine biologist.

I think.

I haven't seen him since 1994.

 Bret Taylor.

I was totally surprised to find these letters from Bret.

Sorry, Bret, but I have no recollection of corresponding through mail with you.

He was a college friend who was going to ask me to the formal Spring Banquet,

but guess who asked me first?

Mr. Love of My Life Paul.

We were not lost in love at this point though.

Maybe he was.

A bold freshman asking out a senior.

We had a lovely time.

Paul's mom has a framed picture from that night on her bookshelf.

Anyway, apparently Bret and I wrote the summer

I lived with Aunt Phyllis - 1998.

The summer Paul and I were beginning our romantic relationship through letters.

Phyllis used to prop up my letters from Paul against a vase of flowers on the dining table, waiting for me to find them.

I don't know how she gave me Bret's letters.

I don't remember getting them.

The last letter I have from Bret is dated October 10, 1998.

A month and 4 days before Paul and I became

"Paul and I."

Nice guy.

He's happily married.

To not me.

 David and Carly.

My dear younger siblings wrote to me in college.

I found a few letters from them.

Here's a birthday card when I turned 22.

David wrote, "Get your foot gooder!"

Carly said, "I hope your foot gets better because pain is painful.  He he."

I guess I had just had surgery.

Thanks for the love.

 My Mom.

Did you wear these hair clips in the 80s?

I remember my mom making these.

I loved how the ribbons dangled in my feathered hair.

These were the school colors of

San Mateo Christian Academy.

I went there in Kindergarten and first grade.

I prayed with Miss Brian, my kindergarten teacher,

to become a Christian.

The little Bible she gave me is also in this box.

 Bye bye boys.

So, I shared these letters and stories with Paul.

Then told him how lucky he was to have me.

Then I put the boys' letters in the recycle box

and the flowers in the trash.

 Paul Tyler.

This hat box

(as if I have a hat)

contains gushing words of affection from my betrothed.

We became a couple five weeks before I graduated college and headed to graduate school.

For a year he lived in So. Cal. and I lived eleven hours north.

We wrote letters.

Lots of letters.

I barely used email in 1999

and I'm so glad because now I have this collection

of precious words.

When we hit a rough spot in our marriage

I come to this box and remember the foundation of our relationship.

We were so cute.

"...and thereto I give thee my troth."

In the Ministry!

He's in the Ministry!  Aha!

Which means that the Ministry of SomethingImportant in Korea now has Jae-min's paperwork in front of them.  They hold the power of granting him an Emigration Permit - permission to leave Korea.

For Reuben, this was processed in six days.  I don't know how long it will take for Jae-min.

Once he gets his EP then he needs to have a physical and get a visa.

Then they call us!

And we come.

What a surprise.  It looks like we are on the early side of this 4-8 month wait.  We have waited two months so far.

We'll keep you posted!

Want to see his picture again?  I do...

Shot in the Leg

The boys got shots yesterday.  Six between them.  And I am exhausted.

Paul held a screaming, terrified Reuben down while I wiped his tears and circled the room.  The nurse said his legs were so tense and therefore would hurt for a few days.  He is.

Peter woke up with a 101 fever last night and moaned and tossed in our bed, on my pillow, for a couple hours.  Still has a fever today.  School canceled.  Which is a bummer because we are three days away from being done.

I am exhausted.  And my legs hurt as a result of my tenseness in reaction to Reuben's agony yesterday.

Seriously, I told him, "The Odles didn't cry when they got their shots.  Relax and it won't hurt as much.  And we'll go to McDonald's afterwards."

He heard none of it.  He was screaming too loudly.  "McDONALD'S, REUBEN.  WE'LL GO TO McDONALD'S!"  We never go to McDonald's.  Yet he loves it.  It wasn't working as I had hoped.

So today.  Peter requested watching Anne of Green Gables.  And now they're on to How to Train Your Dragon.

And severe storms are coming in this afternoon.  After my man leaves for a road trip.  Alone.  Without us.  We'll be in the basement.  He'll be at McGurk's with his college buddy.

Lucky.


Have fun, dear.  I love you.

Love that John Denver

So it's a good thing I didn't give into myself and buy those plane tickets I really wanted to buy to get myself to sunny, warm California.

Because, I just bought tickets to Colorado.  Which is also a nice place to visit.  Just minus the beach and the family and the friends.

We were invited to fly out to a company's head quarters to wrap up the application process of joining their organization.  This org will help us move to and thrive in T.

The boys are not required to attend this event, so that means an extended date for Paul and I.  Yahoo!

And whenever I go to Colorado, or talk about it, really, I think of John Denver and the great music he made.  So wish he was still alive.

Take me home, country roads, to the place I belong...

You fill up my senses like a night in the forest...

I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again...

 Such a romantic song.

Click here to see the whole screen at YouTube.
Then go dance with the one you love.

So Close

These are the papers we've been waiting for...

The I-171H and his cousin the I-171.

Ahhhh!!

The American side is done!!!

My fingerprints were accepted!!!

And I was found to be free from whatever the FBI was looking for!!!  (and Paul too)

And the United States has approved us worthy to adopt Jae-min!!!

This is it.  We're almost done.

NOW...

it's all on the Korean government.

Which could still take two to six months.

But, let's just celebrate!

Oh, so many things could have gone wrong with the stacks of paperwork we submitted to the United States Immigration and Homeland Security people.

But nothing did!

Come on Korea!

These Days

Our new Amish alarm clock...

Every morning at 7:00am.

They are replacing the church's sidewalks and steps.

In an early morning noisy jackhammer fashion.

Reuben had a fabulous idea of popping corn,

melting chocolate and mixing them together.

 

It was a rare afternoon when it was just us at home.

 

 It turned into chocolate therapy for my sad fingerprints.

 Um, Monday.  I was upstairs cleaning out a closet

when I heard Paul yelling for me.

 I ran down the stairs and found him at the back door

leaning over with blood dripping off his head.

Reuben and a friend were playing King of the Castle in the treehouse and trying to keep Paul from coming up the trap door.  Reuben wacked him on the head with one of his favorite sticks.  (They are all his favorite stick.)

See the evidence?

 Thus causing a generous one inch gash

in the center of Paul's head.

I was very nurse-like and cleaned him and offered to call a nurse friend we know to get her opinion about stitches.

And then I went all weak and light-headed.

That's all I could give him.

I'm so lame once the emergency is stabilized.

Paul and Reuben made up.

Paul deemed himself King of the Compost Pile

and they tilled some golden compost into our garden plot.

Last night we spent a couple hours in the church basement

protecting ourselves from

'rain-wrapped tornadoes'

as the radio man described them.

I'm tired today.

The boys are currently throwing African spears at each other.

They've been making them as I've been writing here.

 They're peaceful African warriors.

For the most part.

Turkey Day

It's Pray for Turkey Day.

Four years ago today, three Christian workers were murdered in Turkey.

To remember them and to pray for this Muslim nation, the Christian world stops today...

...to pray.

This video shows a few Turkish pastors and the widow of one of the martyrs.



You can read more about it here.

My Fingers

This very morning I had the pads of my fingers massaged
with corn husker's lotion
and then scraped with my driver's license
(it surprised me too).

They're still a bit tender.

It seems this is the newest fingerprinting technique
performed by the Dept. of Homeland Security.


For our love of Jae-min,
we drove an hour to The City for this ten minute
torture appointment
and then drove back home again.


And because my fingers were not printing as the attendant
thought they should,
even after the lotioning and scraping bit,
the FBI may reject them and I will get to repeat this event.


She said I had dry skin.
I should "drink more water and use an alcohol-free hand cream."


Fingerprints are shaped like a rainbow
and my dry skin was causing little vertical lines and marks across the rainbows.
The FBI doesn't like that.


Who knew one's dry skin could slow down, interfere, and
completely halt one's adoption?
(They're not even that bad.
Nothing visible that states, "She has dry skin!")

Alas, until my prints are satisfactory, Jae-min does not come home.

I shall drink and I shall lotion.

For my love of Jae-min.

Any hand cream recommendations?

Apples

We are now apple tree farmers!

Our friends, the Duncans, have given us eight of their mature apple trees.  "Given us" meaning we can come to their house and prune them and love them and then pick the apples.  They have too many other trees and plants to tend to that these trees have been ignored.  Hooray for us.  We love a good family project.

So Paul and I have been up in apples trees snipping and sawing limbs.  They needed to be pruned in a big way.  The boys then drag the branches to a burn pile.

 Look at them work together.

That's all the work Reuben could handle.

Off to sword fight with sticks.

And aggrevatingly chase Peter around.

Peter is fully motivated to help us with the manual labor.

Because he has plans with these apples.

Business plans.

His snow removal job has inspired him.

He likes working for money.

And Lego likes trading their products

for his hard-earned money.

I think he plans to sell the apples in various forms.

Like cider and pies and such.

Sounds like I'll be helping.

Firsts

Today was Reuben's first gymnastics class.  His first of anything class.  I tried to sign him up for this class in the fall, but he was severely opposed to it.  Because he's four and he has to oppose everything, even if he likes it.  Maybe you've had a four-year-old.

Well, after watching Peter do his gymnastics class this winter at a real gymnastics gym - with a huge foam pit that the kids get to jump in at the end of each class - Reuben really wants to do gymnastics now.  We told him he has to start out at the local Rec Center like Peter did.  Then he can take a class at the real gym.

Reuben loved the class.  One of his friends who lives just down the street is also taking the class so that's fun for them.  And the mom and I are taking turns with the driving.  No pictures though.  It's one of those places where parents are not permitted to watch.  I give that a big *LAME*.

For another first...

Peter was welcomed into the world of baseball tonight with his first practice.  Within the first five minutes he got a ball to the face which caused bleeding, swelling, and tears.  No picture of that either because I wasn't there.  And no picture now because I didn't want to give him a complex about it.  But he said the rest of practice was fun.  So that's good.

We are going to be terrible sports parents, to which Paul replied, "Good."  He's so not a sports guy, which you probably already knew.  Out of the next six practices Peter can only attend three.  He has a piano recital, a church service, and a trip to St. Louis.  I can't put eight-year-old baseball practice over any of those, especially when they were already scheduled.

So what else is a first?

Oh!  We received a well baby check for Jae-min this week and he has a tooth!  One.  On the bottom.  And he's pulling up to standing.  And I got all internally teary as I read these little milestones that I'm missing.  He's growing and doing well.  Fabulous.  He is nine months old.  And we are two months into our 4-8 month wait to travel to meet him.

Let's see if I have any pictures to share...

 This is what we call the

Ooh-la-la Sandwich.

It's from the Super Sandwiches book.

Peter chose it for our dinner last night.

He also chose the side of Bar-b-que Lays chips.

I put in the strawberries.

So the sandwich is turkey and brie melted under the broiler,

with lettuce and raspberry mayo

on a croissant.

More fat than anyone needs,

but very delightful.

 I think that's it.  Off to do yoga.

Tests

I am going to write you a lovely little blog post and then I must get to conquering this Bible Knowledge Test.  We have started the months long application process with an organization that will help us move to T.  Paul and I have already completed six tests (temperment, psychological, learning styles, etc.).  This Bible test is sadly very humbling as I am sure to fail it. 

Questions like...

• Which Bible passage bests supports immutability?  Um, am I allowed to use a dictionary to look up 'immutability'?

• Who said, “If I perish, I perish."  You probably know this.

• Where, geographically, did a hand write on the wall?  I can see the picture from some illustration I've seen in the past of this story.  But I don't know where it happened.

Questions I did know the answer to...

•  Where did Abraham's father die?  Thank you to The Story of the World, our history curriculum, I know this.

• In which book is Mary's song of praise?   Yes!  I just read this.

  

• What is the main topic of 1 Corinthians 13?  An oldie.

Did I mention the test is ten pages?  So I've just skimmed over it and answered the easy ones.  Oo, it's 'closed Bible', so that's nice.  But I just checked and the last four pages are open Bible.  But they're also deep thinker questions that I anticipate giving hours of my life to.

Cheers to this org. that wants to make sure their workers know their stuff.  I just wish I retained more of this stuff.  I mean, I did go to Bible college.  Which makes this even more humiliating.  I should know this stuff.  And apparently some people do.  A great motivation to keep reading and studying, yes?

And now for the random portion of this post...

Remember WooSeok, our exchange student from a few years back?  Well he graduated from high school last year and we bought him a nice track jacket from his future college, Stony Brook University in New York as a graduation gift - a year ago.  We have called him and called him and emailed galore with no response from him.  So we have taken the hint that he has moved on from his relationship with us and I cut the tag off his jacket and wore it.

Sad.  But it fits me great and makes me feel all sporty and young, like I run track in college.  In New York.  Like I'm not halfway to seventy with three kids and graying hair and an alcohol-free fridge with this week's menu plan stuck to it.

Blue Burgers

We ate Blue Burgers for dinner tonight.  Why?  Because when I was making my grocery list a few days ago and I asked Peter if there were any meals he would like me to make, he ran off to get a library book called Super Sandwiches and turned to one of the Post-it marked pages and requested Blue Burgers.  Okay, I can do that.

To a pound of ground beef add a cup of blue cheese crumbles, half an onion grated, a teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.  The book says to smoosh it all around with your hands.  I used a spoon.  But really I could have just used my hands because they ended up getting all meaty when I formed the moosh into patties.

They were tasty.  But I was a little sad as I watched some of the blue cheese melt out of the burgers and burn onto the bottom of my skillet.

Paul had two.  And added a slice of cheese to the second one.  Thus spurring on Peter and Reuben to do the same.  Did they forget there was already cheese in the burger?  Peter thought these would be so great because you don't have to put a slice of cheese on top.  It's already built in.  He called them the Invisible Cheese Burger.

But it seems that burgers are just better with a slice of cheese on top.

The Homeschool Convention

Have you ever cried at a homeschool convention?

I know, I should be asking, "Have you ever been to a homeschool convention?"  But let's just assume that you have.

The first seminar I went to I had tears pushing the capacity of my eyelids.  I was so happy.  So relieved.  So thankful for the presenters' encouragement.

The title of this first seminar?  Ballistic Homeschooling:  Teaching and Appreciating Boys.

Someone else understands boys.  Falling out of your chair, or knocking the chair over and sitting on the table is not unusual.

This husband and wife team who spoke have six boys and the room was filled with hundreds of other parents of boys.   Teaching boys is different than teaching girls.  And this is so hard for me because I am a former girl trying to understand and love and teach a boy.

"Why can't you just do the worksheet?  Just keep your pencil right there next to the paper.  Don't lift your head.  Don't randomly tell me about the missiles on your latest Lego creation.  Don't absent-mindedly draw on your pants.  Don't get lost in outer space.  Just write the answers on your worksheet!  Oh please, just write the answers on your worksheet."

So I cried.  Just a little.  Because it felt so good to be surrounded by other parents who are begging God praying for patience and wisdom every minute of the day.

Other seminars I went to (choosing from 380 topics)...

Preparing Sons For Life...The Mom's Part  (I went to several about boys.  So thankful that we can acknowledge that boys are different from girls and we need to parent and teach them differently.)

Charlotte Mason:  Excellence Without Sacrifice  (Pretty much what we're doing.)

Sequential Spelling (The spelling program we use)

She Senses the Worth of Her Work - Finding Value and Beauty in This Crazy Homeschooling Life (Paul suggested this one.  The speaker is married to a former MLB player and had us laughing a lot.)

Help!  How Do I Teach This Highly Distractible Child?  (She must know Peter.  This was fabulous.)

Writing With Ease:  K-6 Writing  (Another one that I cried in.  Seriously - tears of thanksgiving that this woman wrote a writing philosophy that so works for Peter.  I love it and want to spread it to others as if it held the power of the gospel.  This was by Susan Wise Bauer who I want to send a love letter to, along with a bouquet of flowers.)

Teaching a Foreign Language  (So-so)

Homeschooling the Real (Distractible, Impatient, Argumentative, Unenthusiastic, Non-Book-Loving, Inattentive, Poky, Vague) Child  (Another by Susan Wise Bauer.  We all laughed in response because everything she said was sadly true.  Anna and I are this picture that Susan Bauer took.  This was half the room.) 

From One Homeschooling Mom to Another  (Michelle Duggar of the famous Duggar Family spoke about dealing with our parental anger and teaching character traits to our children.  Insightful and convicting.)

Rebuilding a Culture of Courageous Boyhood:  Biblical Wisdom and Timely Tips for Transitioning Our Sons Into Noble Manhood  (Basically, buy your boys swords and encourage them to be manly.)

The Grand Finale was a performance and talk by the Duggar Family.  They were cute.  Talented kids.  Lovey mom and dad.

And now I'm back.  I feel like I was gone for months.  Nice day off today, together with the family.  And tomorrow starts anew.  I can do this!  I can educate my boys.

Oo, but we have a field trip in the morning.  So I won't have to actually implement what I learned until after lunch.

Feeding Owen

Because of this picture...

And this picture...

...the thing the boys are most looking forward to about Jae-min's arrival is reinacting these pictures with him.  They can't wait to feed him with a bottle as Peter did with Reuben four years ago.

Thank you to Owen for being a baby and requiring bottle feeding.  The boys were keeping track whose turn it was to feed him.  Reuben to me, "But Mom, you've already had a turn!"  Yes, thank you.

These were shots from yesterday.  Today, Paul is in charge of The Three as I am in Cincinnati for a couple days with hundreds of homeschoolers going crazy-go-nuts at the Duke Convention Center.  Curricula galore, speakers aplenty, and controversy astir.  AND, I get to share a bed with another woman.  A woman I've never met.  Sounds like a cheesy novel.  This is my life.