Family?

How do you define “Family”? Maybe it’s just you and your spouse. Perhaps you have a couple of kids and parents included. I was thinking about this the other day and realized it’s really a pretty hard thing to define sometimes. Of course when I’m asked how my families doing, the first ones I think of are my wife and kids, who wouldn’t? But really I think more and more it’s about the people that you chose to allow yourself to let in.

The last few years have made me have to re-think how I look at it. I’m forced to get a little more personal here than I usually do, but I think it’s with good reason. My wife and I have three boys that live with us. They’ve been with me since the youngest was just 18 months old. You see, I’m not their biological father, although I did adopt them about 6 years ago. Their biological father was A~’s ex (Heretofore referred to as X~) and there was a time that we had a hard time dealing with some of the issues that naturally come about in such a situation. We wanted things one way, he wanted them another and of course that left three little boys in the middle. There came a point when he and we came to decide that it was best just to let me adopt them. We would have the control over their future that we were so worried about, and he wouldn’t have to be so caught trying to fill a position that he seemed to be having a hard time coming to grips with. It was a blessing, I think, for all of us and is something that although it took a couple of years to fully digest, has benefited all of us greatly.

I can’t speak for X~, nor would I want to, but I assume that he’s had problems with me in the past just as I have had with him; that, I’m sure, was unavoidable. Here’s the thing though, over the last couple of years we seem to have found some oddly peaceful way of all coexisting that I never could have imagined, but am so immensely grateful for. It’s not even just he and I that have found some commonality but rather that all of us, in our hopes for what would be best for our boys, have.

So why am I talking about this? Because we just had a Thanksgiving evening that was unlike any other that I ever thought I would have, and you know what? It was good. A~ and I had family over for the evening. But to define it as such takes a little bit of creativity. You see, it wasn’t just her and I and the boys with her dad and his girlfriend, but also X~ and his mom and her husband who is not X~’s father. Two distinctly different family components came together, hers with her father and his with his mother. And each of them came with someone that wasn’t related to A~ or X~. Then there was me, not in anyway related, biologically anyway, with anyone at the table. What were the commonalities? We all wanted to be together with people we loved. Did we all love each other? No. Hey I’m just being honest here; this isn’t pie in the sky stuff. But I know we all love either the boys, or at the very least the people who love the boys. So we have a choice don’t we? Do we shuttle kids around to each others homes, schedule parcels of time when we all get to be with loved ones, and waste half a day in the process, or do we accept that we have some differences, but that really what matters most is we all care deeply for our families and want to foster that without boundaries?

As it were, we chose the latter and I think we were all better for it. We prayed together, ate together and laughed together. Our children/grandchildren were happy and felt loved. They got to visit, play with and be loved by not only one family or the other, but by both. For our part, A~, X and I that is, we didn’t have to worry about squeezing in a good holiday with the boys in time to get them over to the other house. We got to slow down, enjoy the company and be thankful for the season and for all of our gifts and blessings.

So I ask again, how do you define “Family”? Who do you chose to let in to your fold? Sometimes it really might not be entirely up to us who they are, but rather whether we chose to accept them and be happy with what we have. I do.

I hope all of your Thanksgivings were wonderful and look forward to hearing from you all soon.
P~

Big Congratulations to K~

K~ won first place for his entry in the 5th grade science fair!!

I cannot tell you how proud I am. K~ came up with this project on his own, decided how he wanted to test it, and really had a passion for it all the way through.

The best I can figure, the seed for this project was planted last year when we accidently found an earth sheltered home a couple of towns over; he was fascinated with the idea of why people would build homes covered earth. He wanted to find out in this experiment which home might use less energy and would "Protect the earth better." I helped him to build two identicle homes out of hardboard and MDF, and then he covered one of them in a way similar to a typical earth sheltered home.

After the homes were built, we tested them by taking a base temperature and then putting them under a heat lamp and taking measurements at 1 and 2 hours both inside and outside the homes. We found that the earth sheltered home inside increased to 53% of what the outside temperature was, but the standard house increased to 61% of what the outside temperature was. In other words, even though the earth sheltered home's temperature had a greater gain, the inside maintained a more even temperature throughout the test. This is one of the reasons that this type of home is considered to be one of the most eneergy efficient types of homes that can be built.

Anyway, all details to the side, K~ did an awesome job, and made me very proud. I like to hope that I had a bit of influence in his interests, but I certainly had a great time helping him with the project either way. He's already thinking about improving the project for next year; one teacher that was over the fair singled K~ out to tell him that with a little bit of effort, next year he could easily take this project to the regional competition.

Family ~ Isn't it about...time

Our church has some commercials on television that say that, and honestly, church or not, it's a good idea. We don't do it enough, with projects and day to day stuff, but it's really what I think makes a strong family strong. It's these times when we get to talk, and laugh and sometimes get a little raucous. Oh yeah, and as you can tell from the pictures eat some really tasty, not so healthy treats.
We played Monopoly tonight, it's one of those games that we try to dissuade the boys from, since to date we have never managed to actually finish a game. That aside, we had a good weekend, got a lot done and ended with some quality time together.

Today was also my oldest sons birthday. D~ is not with us, he lives in Washington state with his mother. Today he was 15 and growing right up. It's hard to believe that I'm old enough to have a 15 yr old. I don't feel that old?! I miss him every day; but that, is a topic for a much longer post.

I hope you all had a great weekend. Check in tomorrow for a 100 ft diet update from this weekends meal.

P~

Mothers Day, garden update and relaxation

Being Mothers Day today, I first want to say Happy Mothers Day, I realize this is probably pandering to my audience, since for some reason it seems like the majority of comments come from the ladies that visit here. Guys you really need to speak up. Anthony, notice I said the majority of comments, not all. Since it was Mothers Day, we of course pandered to the most important mom in our house, my wife. What she wanted, and we were more than happy to accomodate, was to spend the day outside and enjoy all the work we've been doing lately. What a great idea! Today will no doubt go down as one of the best weather days of 2007 so far. Not too hot, probably in the low 80's, with just the right amount of a breeze to cool it off. While I was out there I thought it'd be a good idea to snap a couple of photos to update this years progress. First we got a picture from the house side of the garden with the really nice firepit we just put in. This was a steel manhole cover with great rustic, well, rust that we were able to get for nothing from a contractor that was going to junk it. Coincidentally an old bar-b-que grill fit perfectly on the inside. The next one is a picture from the other end of the length of beds facing the house. Those in the front are the peas, I finally
got a trellis thingie in place so they can climb. I noticed a couple of small pods forming this weekend. Speaking of which, I was shocked to already find a little cluster of yellow pear tomatoes shaping up. After the cold weather of last week, I guess I can safely say that the plastic sheeting pup tent method I used to keep them warm worked!
That next photo, is not too pretty, but is a lot better than the ugly pile that I had last year. This is the wood hutch that I mentioned a month ago that I had started. All the concrete work we've been doing took precedance so it hasn't been completely finished yet, but it is holding the firewood pretty well I'd say. Everything you see is salvage from all of the construction going on around us. We were lucky enough to find some roofing that matched ours, and siding that was close enough not to tell the difference. As soon as I find some decent corner peices or straight wood I'll finish it off.
The next two pics are in homage to Mothers Day. The first is obviously Dad cooking. Yes I do cook, but I have been banned for the most part from the kitchen (jeez, I misplace a pan or two, and they never forget.) but I do OK on the grill! This is my famous beer can chicken. Todays recipe was dubbed Tecate Chicken; Mmm Mmm good! Finally what Mothers day post during the National Bike Month would be complete without Mom and her "little" boys out on a ride. For that matter I can't think of a better way to end the day; we took a leisurely ride around the neighborhood, that way I could still breath (I'm trying to get over a cold so I can ride to work this week). All in all this was a great day. We spent the day together, played bocci and egyptian golf, shared a great dinner together and rode it off. I can only hope that you all were able to have as relaxing and happy a day and that you took the time to call your moms. Which reminds me, I love you Mom!! (don't worry, I called her this morning, but more than one shout out never hurt!)
P~

9,10,12,14 going on 10,11,13,15

Well, todays my birthday. Not that it really makes a huge difference in the greater scope of things. Although now my kids feel the need for a few days to call me "Old Man" and my wife get's to giggle that I'm on the "downhill side of thirty" now. So what big plans do I have for the day? Not a whole lot to tell you the truth. We went out to dinner with my Dad who was out visiting last night, and I'll probably go out to lunch today witht the guys from the office, but that's really about it. (yeah, the ole' healthy eating things been put on hold for 24 hours.) I think about when I was a kid, or any of us were kids for that matter, and remember what birthdays were like. Remember how excited we would get? I know that for me I was counting days till the next one, telling everyone I was NOT 10 I was "10 and eight months", and I'll be driving before you know it... well you get the point. I can't remember when it stopped, the exceitment that is, can you? It wasn't sixteen, because your still in high school and can't vote or anything yet so you have eighteen to look forward to. It wasn't eighteen, because you still have twenty-one to look forward to. (Come on, really, everyone looks forward to 21 right?). And I can't even say the twenty-one was the age it stopped, because then you have really good birthday parties to look forward to. I guess for me the age was twenty-five. Why 25 you ask? What happened, you suddenly matured in the blink of an eye and all things childish and immature such as birthdays and parties and the like lost their fascination? I think any one that knew me at twenty-five will earnestly tell you I did not suddenly mature, or that I have yet for that matter. No, I think it was twenty-five because that's the age when my oldest son started realizing that he had birthdays, and that they were good, great even, and he was now not just three, but three going on four. At that time, my focus shifted, the important birthdays were not mine anymore, they were my childrens. After a few more years of reflection I can see that that's the reason why I looked forward to birthdays so much when I was a kid. Sure, presents were always great, but your parents and your family now focused on you. You were the star. You picked the dinner, you got the songs, and gifts. Whatever the tradition, you were at the center of it. Now that I am in "their shoes" I can see how much effort my parents put into my birthdays, and understand why. It was purely selfish; they got greater joy out of watching their kids birthdays than watching their own. Now so do I. So today I'm not just 36, I'm 9,10,12,14 going on 10,11,13,15.
Happy Birthday P~

Update

I've been slacking, in updating my blog that is. In reality I have actually been quite busy. The family and I caught a Grizzlies Hocky game the other night (Fri 30th). The boys do love the hockey games. I'm not sure if it's the free pucks they seem to get each time we go, or if it's the fights? Either way, we all had a good time even if the Grizz lost in overtime!
Sunday I finally got out into the yard and got a couple of more garden beds prepped for planting. I have to say I had a great time. The boys all came out and started spontaneously participating in the gardening with me. Even C~ (12) who generally won't want to work in the garden unless he gets to see green with presidents on it, came out and lent a hand. I was hoping to be able to pass on to them the love I have for getting into the dirt. Planting, growing and then enjoying the fruits of that labor later. Maybe the "seed" has been planted; last night we stopped by the local nursery for a scouting mission to see what's new this year and the youngest B~ (9) said that "the brothers" were talking and they want to have their own square foot garden beds this year to grow their own stuff in. (pause for silent internal YYEESSSS!) Of course they can! And as the fates were smiling on me, when we got home that night and took a walk around the block the cleanup crew was at the const. site behind our house and let me take whatever scraps of wood I wanted. This weekend the boys will be building their beds with the recycled wood.
Yep, life is good!
All for now.
P~

Inspiring

Tonight I had a good friend of mine call unexpectedly and invite me to a lecture being given by David McCullough. This friend of mine obviously gets me as much as I thought he did, one of the few that do.
The speaker is not someone that I am familiar with, but was speaking primarily on American History. He is a pulitzer prize winning author and historian and well worth the time to listen to.
He brought up a lot of things that really made sense to me. Talking about our founding fathers and the struggles that they went through to get us to the point where we are now really made me reflect. We have things so easy for us now that we take for granted all of the sacrifices that have been made for us. Not just by our founding fathers, but by others in our lives. My own father grew up very modestly. My Grandfather had only the basic education, but knew the keys to success and he gifted them to his children. My dad worked hard, continued his education and set goals for himself. He learned to love and to share through fights and truces with his six siblings. His sacrifice, and his lessons allowed my life to be substantially easier that his. I appreciate this enormously. However, as illustrated by poor choices early in my adult life I failed to receive the lessons that he had. This was not for any lack of trying on my dads part. God knows we still tease him about the lectures. I believe the lack of sacrifice had not given me the opportunity to build the desire to push farther. I'm lucky to have weathered my trials later in life and come out for the better.
The lecture tonight brought me to think about our nation and its history of advancement. Our founders suffered tyrants and won their freedom, their children fought with each other and with others to protect our freedoms. They lived through famine, disease and economic depression. Today we've reaped the benefit of our fathers lessons and hard work. Our lives are simple and clean. I fear sometimes that we are doomed to make similar mistakes as a country that I made as a young man. I'll continue to try to make myself better, and give my children a sense of where they come from. It is our duty to our nation and it's future to make sure that we have given a sense of perspective and duty to our children. They will need it for their future. If they forget, or worse yet never learn about the sacrifices before this time, they are destined to learn them the hard way.

That's all for tonight.
P~