I Knew Her When

So I reconnected with an old theater friend, who was kinda sorta a student first - when I did choreography for my High School Alma Mater's production of A Chorus Line. Her married name is Wendy Jans and you should buy her CD. It's available on her website:

http://www.wendyjans.com/

Don't believe me? Check out her music video:

Thinking of Ben

Benjamin Alden Shaffer. His middle name comes from the town where Mom and her sisters grew up; where Opa and his father before him farmed the land and raised livestock. It wasn't an easy living. Nana told me there were times when, at the end of the year, Opa said they'd have been just as well off to vacation all year, rather than toil day in and out with never a day off, to grow crops that didn't yield enough to even cover the cost of planting them. But through perseverence, dedication and hard work, he built an estate that is still providing for his family, nearly 30 years after his passing.

Ben couldn't have been more aptly named, unless he'd been directly named for our grandfather. I've often heard it said that God doesn't give you any challenges you can't handle. I strongly believe in that, and I think Ben is proof. Practically since birth, Ben has been overcoming health challenges which most humans would not have survived. He has grown into a handsome young man, a wonderful singer and dancer, and a gentleman wise beyond his years.

I often tell people that Ben is one of the strongest people I have ever known. So many times if I'm not feeling well, or things aren't going my way, I'm inclined to just quit - but then I think about Ben and the way he meets each new challenge head on, even if he's nervous or worried about what might happen. He doesn't let anything get in his way - no matter how hard it seems, no matter how frustrating it is, he keeps working toward his goals. It's hard to believe so much strength and wisdom can be contained in a six-year-old little boy.

Ben is having surgery tomorrow, to help make his leg work a little bit better. It is another in a long list of procedures this young man has endured, and I know that he will make the best of his wheelchair-bound recovery time, as usual. He is my hero, and I'm so proud to be his aunt. He is one of the shortest people I've ever looked up to so completely.

Celebrating Mr. & Mrs. Shaffer

Mommy & Daddy
Mom & Dad
Mother! & Oh Daaad
Grammy & G-Boy

My parents have been married 43 years as of today. They were one of the most uncool sets of parents when I was 13, because almost everybody else had cool divorced parents, which meant they had two rooms in two different houses and got to celebrate birthdays and holidays at least twice each. Not us, though...

Nope, our parents stuck together through job changes, moving across the country and back, ministering to a critically ill child, continuing construction to expand their house to accommodate their growing offspring, even through family vacations involving driving to Wisconsin or California or the Black Hills and back again.

It's their fault it took me such a long time to get married myself. They set an immeasurably high standard for what a marriage partnership should be. (Ironically, they got married in movie fashion - just a few months after they met - and not long after Mom had called off her original engagement to a different man.)

We had a huge party to celebrate their 40th anniversary; we rented an entire historic village, invited hundreds of friends and family members to join us for a cookout and vow renewal. We're not throwing such a big shindig this year, but it is no less an amazing milestone, and one my brothers and I (not to mention our families) are all very grateful to be celebrating.

I have yet to reach the first anniversary of my marriage, and will have to live a good long life to even see my 40th. But I believe their example has helped set the stage for my brothers and me to realize the sacrifice and commitment it takes to make a marriage work.

Congratulations Mom & Dad - and thank you for the beautiful wedding you helped make happen in April! We love you!

Learning about CIC #31

Hey mister - care for a sandwich & soda?

We finally had a field trip yesterday (now that we're in our last week of summer!) Julio took the day off and helped me take 8 of the daycare kids to West Branch, Iowa - home of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. Turns out admission is free for daycare groups (kids under 14 are free anyway, but it still saved me $12 on the adult admissions) and it is one of my all-time favorite field trip destinations.

This year the kids were particularly attentive and entertained by all the field trip had to offer - probably because we haven't been able to have the weekly field trips we usually have in the summer (silver lining to those floods, I guess!)

Anybody from Iowa who has not been to this library should make a point to get there - especially if you have kids (8-12 years old, they get more out of it). They have a very well put together permanent display which is incredibly informative about the Hoover legacy - beyond the stock market debacle of 1929. Kids learn about how lives here and abroad were affected by WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII.

There is also an area for temporary exhibits - this year it is "Children in the White House", which features several of Caroline Kennedy's dolls, and a lot of video footage, photos and artifacts of the children who lived in the White House over the years.

The Library and Museum are also part of a National Park, which has a small historic village including the birthplace of Herbert Hoover. They have a free program for children called "Junior Rangers". Each child receives an activity booklet with quizzes and puzzles related to the displays in the park, and if they complete the requirements for their age group, they receive a badge and certificate and are "sworn in" as Junior Rangers.

We try to get there around 11am, which gives us time to see the permanent and temporary exhibits and watch a movie in the library, then we have a picnic lunch followed by a movie in the park visitors center, which kicks off our Junior Ranger project. It is a full day but we are still able to get back into town in time to swim a little before the kids get picked up by their folks.

We were going to have a cookout at the pool last night, but somebody had a party and took over all the tables. So we had family game night and a walk around the neighborhood after having a cookout on our deck. Harrison was disappointed to miss out on extra swimming, but I have to confess I enjoyed being more secluded (as opposed to cooking out at the pool), because I have been wrestling a migraine for the last couple days. The walk also gave Harrison and me some more opportunities to take photos. Harrison got some great ones of a family of rabbits that came out at dusk to have their picture taken.

Shhh! Be vewy quiet - I'm hunting wabbit!

Mission Accomplished

It's the Plumber

I was just telling Harrison about one of the all-time classic cartoons from The Electric Company. Then we found it online! It had a link to embed it, so we HAD to add it to my blog!

Pictures from the Great Fishing Excursion of 8/18

HD=pictures by Harrison

GB=pictures by G-Boy

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Golfin' and Fishin'

The weather has been cooler lately, so I thought it would be fun to take the daycare kids frisbee golfing. Unfortunately by the time I got everything done for the morning and got our "picnic lunches", it was high noon when we got to the park. Not to be dissuaded, the troops and I filled our water bottles and set out to conquer the course! We were doing great for the first three "holes", spending only slightly more time retrieving our frisbees from the woods and weeds than we were spending tossing them.

The thing is, I only go frisbee golfing about once every year or two, and I think the heavy rains that caused our flooding earlier this summer washed away many of the landmarks I might have found familiar (it's hard to tell, as I am navigationally impaired on the best of days). At any rate, we ended up losing track of all signs of a frisbee golf course when we got to the top of the hill and reached our third four-pronged fork in the path. So we cut through to a hole we could find (skipped from 4 to 11) and suddenly found ourselves working backwards from 11 until we got to the bottom of the hill. The targets are much closer to the launch pads when you go backwards* (*I'm making up terminology, as I am not an avid frisbee golfer and purchase our golfing discs from the dollar store).

We finally gave up on golfing all together when we realized we'd reached the bottom of the hill - on the opposite side of the hill from where we'd begun our golfing. At that point, we all had to use the restroom, so the quickstepping hike to the other side of the hill was a little more purposeful than our earlier meanderings. We made it to the other side in time, and the kids were really great sports, so overall we had a great time.

Hot and tired when we got home, the kids retired to the basement to watch "Meet the Robinsons" in the playroom, and I tried to catch up on some email and get my legs and feet feeling back to normal.

Meanwhile, at Camp G-Boy, the men-folk decided to do some fishin'. Dad took Harrison to get a rod, reel, lures and fishing license, then they went to a not-too-far-away lake and spent the afternoon taking photos and casting their new lures into the water. They got home about 9pm - I know, because Harrison called and invited Julio and me to come for "parent's night at camp" and he regaled us with tales of their adventures at the lake. I snapped a couple photos of our returning fishermen, but I'll have to wait to get Harrison's shots for photos of their actual adventure.

G-boy loaned Harrison his old camera, so Harrison has joined John's picture a day challenge, too... we have got to get Julio a camera and draw him over to the "dark side" of obsessed photographers. Otherwise we may just drive him over the edge!

Sunday Inspirations

Didn't get much sleep last night, in spite of leaving the party early - ah well! We made it to church shortly after 8am - actually, Julio dropped me off, then went to get me some breakfast at a drive-thru.

Lucky thing he was there early, because they were having trouble with the projection screen. He is one of the resident "computer gurus", and was able to solve the problem and get it running in time for the service.

When praise band was done rehearsing, I went in search of a "picture of the day" opportunity, and was struck by the evidence of volunteers who are here to help with flood recovery. They are bunking in the choir room and bell choir room, and we have a section of our family life center (where we have our contemporary service on Sunday mornings) set aside with internet access & printer, and a television.

There are clean-up buckets waiting in the choir room, stacks of clean towels on a table in the bell choir room, and the two shower stalls in the lower level restroom (usually used as storage areas) are set up and show obvious signs of active use. It was a heart-warming tour, to think of people traveling from other cities and states and spending two weeks "roughing it" and helping clean up our city.

choir room clean up buckets - the bunks
are around the corner; I didn't want
to invade our volunteers' privacy
by snapping a more invasive photo


TV and computer room - this is the
area where we usually spread a
comforter with books and toys for
kids to play with during church

When I got upstairs, I was even more moved when I saw the small parlor filled with backpacks - each backpack is filled with school supplies and labeled what grade the school supplies are intended for. There were more backpacks scattered throughout the sanctuary. These were brought to our church by a Christian Rock group, "Legacy", that performed a flood-relief benefit concert there last night.

The topper to the morning was seeing Harrison at church (with his vacation hosts, Grammy and G-boy, of course). After the service we all had brunch and then made a quick stop at the half-price bookstore, and Harrison bargained for a vacation extension, so he won't be "home" until Tuesday morning. To soften the blow, he invited Julio and me to join him swimming this evening, so we at least got to have a "Harrison fix"! (Have I mentioned I miss my son!)

We put the "special" in Olympics

Our neighborhood Adult Pool Party was tonight. Predictably, the theme was "the Olympics", which actually worked out pretty well. They had a great variety of international foods, and just enough campy activities to make it fun without being tiresome.

Somebody brought a kayak, and a couple of our braver men took a turn around the pool in it (by that time it was so cold, very few people were bold enough to get near the water).

Julio and I were more lucky than usual in the door prize drawings; 5 of the 12 tickets we purchased were drawn, and we won over $100 worth of gift certificates - all for things we actually use.

The strangest part of the evening was the "worm race": you bought a worm for $1, put it on a plate under a cup, then when the race began, removed the cup and "encouraged" the worm off the plate. First worm entirely off the plate won. Trouble was, it got very cold the minute the sun went down tonight, so the worms went into "hibernate" mode the minute the cold air hit them when the cups were removed. The worm that won was the only one that moved - after its "owner" lit a lighter behind it (I have a feeling it was writhing in agony). There were quite a few protestations at the method used, so it was not repeated.

We left a little early - 8am call to sing at church tomorrow, so we need to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I was actually a little glad for the excuse to bow out when we did; it was just getting to the point when people had begun to drink to excess and over half the attendees had started smoking just outside the gates, so it was shifting into an event less my style.

Separation Anxiety

I MISS MY SON! Sure, I see him every day since he's been "on vacation" at Grammy & G-boys. But it is just not the same as having him here. He seems to be adjusting just fine to being "away". I had to coax him to come down the hill and swim this afternoon, but I'm glad he relented.

There were only two other kids here when he came down, and a few more joined them later. He had a super time swimming, then beat it out of there the minute Abbie got picked up (I only had Abbie as a student today - all the other kids are part-timers. She and I had a fun "girls day" of shopping, but I was glad she had neighborhood kids to swim with. There's only so much fun an 8-year-old girl can have with a grown up, you know!)

My hand is a perch...and other summertime fun

We have made some real progress with Arora - the other night, he actually perched on my finger (heretofore he has only been willing to get that close to Julio). I must have something tasty on my hands, because the next day at the pool (yesterday) I befriended a butterfly, who was accommodating enough to wait for me to properly adjust my camera, and also switched hands so I could try to get a better shot.

In other news, I have assembled a series of photos from recent summertime fun - these are random pictures that don't warrant a separate post on their own, but I think Harrison would enjoy having them recorded on this blog. Here they are:

the girls play with "littlest pet shop" toys
while the boys have a water battle

Harrison didn't make it

Zombie Farmer playing PSP at the
movies (dress-up day at the theater)

swimming acrobats

an exciting sight:
Grampa's Coming Swimming!