Celebrating our 15th Wedding Anniversary

We started celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary seven days early with a trip to the Outer Banks for a weekend getaway without the kids and then concluded our celebration with a fun date the evening after our anniversary.  After a trip to Israel in January, we could justify an extravagant trip again in June, but we made the celebration last.

I spent most of my dating years trying to be cynical about romance. I avoided romance novels like the plague, knowing that would set me up for unrealistic expectations, and I teased my roommate for watching fairy tale style movies and dreaming of her prince charming.  I am a realist.  I have studied the differences between men and women and have listen to enough Focus on the Family and Family Life Today radio broadcasts to know that all our needs must be met in Christ alone and that it is unfair and harmful to a marriage to expect a man to complete you, fulfill you, or act like Prince Charming.  I had high standards for my future spouse, but romance was not a priority.

When our anniversary rolls around each year, however, I get ridiculously sentimental.  Our real life love story is just like a fairy tale, you see.  Our love story would make a great movie, with all the twists and turns, highs and lows, and the happy ending, but what makes our story so wonderful isn't anything romantic, for it really has none of that. Our story is beautiful because it clearly reveals God's hand orchestrating events, prompting hearts, and directing our paths along a journey neither of us would have chosen on our own but which was the perfect journey for each of us looking back, for all the trials and periods of waiting served an eternal purpose and have made our marriage strong, happy, and Christ centered.  We can't possibly reflect on our love story and doubt God's matchless love and grace for us and His deep concern over every detail of our lives.  The God of the universe cares about the minutia of our lives!  That is so mind boggling to me.

As I looked through old pictures, I came across this grainy picture (how I wish we had high resolution digital photography back then), and remembered one of my favorite parts of our wedding.  It does seem very romantic, but you should know that put him up to it. But even so, he was willing to do something few (and certainly not I) would ever do - sing a solo at his own wedding.

As I stood at the altar, dressed in white,
My courageous knight grabbed the mic.
On this blessed day 15 years past,
He sang of a love that was meant to last.

I blushed and cried and smiled so wide
As this handsome tenor, crooned and sighed.
The weight of the words he sang that day
Have been tested and tried every which way.

The lyrics were not empty words to sing.
With Christ as our Lord, Savior, and King,
He's kept his promises with a love so pure.
God's grace and light are what make vows endure.

A sampling of the lyrics from the song he sang, "If You Could See What I See" by Geoff Moore and the Distance:

"I know there are days
When you feel
So much less than ideal
Wondering what I see in you

It's all of the light
And the grace
Your belief in me drives me to say
That I promise you
A faithful love, forever true

If you could see
Then you'd understand
Why I fall down to my knees
And I pray my love
Will be worthy of
The one who gave his life
So our love could be"

Given our love story involved a lot of waiting, in more ways than one, I had to caption this wedding picture, "Good things come to those who wait!".

Our wedding reception was held at a golf course across town.  My husband's Irish twin brother just got married on a golf course in Oklahoma. Here's a comparison of us then and now.

 Last Friday, we packed our bags, handed the kids off to my parents (God bless them!) and headed toward Nags Head. For the first time in my life, I've suddenly developed an interest in landscaping. (I've never been able to grow anything but weeds, but I guess becoming more interested in  flowers, landscaping, birds, and the weather proves that I'm getting old!) So I suggested that we drop by the Elizabethan gardens on our way to the coast for some landscaping ideas.

We just planted several crepe myrtle.  Can we prune them like these?

Reminder to  add some of these to our yard

 

Plant these in front of the wood pile for the fire pit.

Pretty, but not as pretty as the ones Mom gives me

This old oak tree was supposedly here when the first settlers arrived on Roanoke.

I would love to add some Hosta like these to our natural area!

How those limbs beckoned me to come climb!

"I do not want a husband who honors me as a queen if he does not love me as a woman." - Queen Elizabeth I

The day was cloudy and rainy, and my hair was quite frizzy, so after checking into our overpriced hotel resort, we went for a walk along the beach at sunset. The sand was soft all over the beach and the shells were sharp and rough, so walking barefoot was painful and strenuous as our feet sank with each step.  Even so, I still got to enjoy a few of my favorites during that walk (ocean, beach, sunset, and that guy!)

Someone must collect shells and enjoy using them to build things on the beach given all the  shell lined pathways and camps we passed during our walk.

We slept in and enjoyed a relaxing morning on Saturday.  I tried to run on the beach, but even when it was closer to low tide, the beach had no compact areas, so it was difficult running.  I would normally love the workout as they say running in sand increases workout intensity by 60%, but my old ankles and joints can't handle such uneven terrain, so I took my run to the roads when I reached the pier.

We toured the Wright Brothers National Memorial, walked past each of the first few landing sites, walked up the monument, and around the replicas, but we had to postpone the museum tour until Sunday, since we had an appointment to go hang gliding at 2pm.  Here are some photos from both visits to the memorial

After the hurricane made us evacuate the dunes right as we were preparing to hang glide two years ago, we could not ask for better winds that day.  It was perfect weather for hang gliding.  I managed to go the highest and the furthest (even past the landing limits), but my landings were ugly.  The first time, I didn't want to put my feet down because I didn't want the fun to end. :-)  The next few times I brought my feet down too far forward and crashed, scraping up my legs.  I liked it better when I landed on my belly.   Just when I thought I had the hang of it (it's like learning to ride a bike), our session was over.  My husband landed on his feet like a natural.

My husband went first!

 

Perfect landing!

 My Turn

Hang Check

Running into the wind

Fly!

After only five flights each, we had to hike back to the park station to clean up, receive our completion certificates and prepare for the nice Italian dinner my husband had been salivating over all weekend.  What a fun and relaxing day we had together.

The next morning, I woke up at 5am.  It is far more likely for me to not fall asleep until AFTER the sun rises, so that was a miracle.  I much prefer sunsets, but if I wanted to see the sun on the horizon behind the ocean on the east coast, sunrise was my only option, so I took my early wake-up as God's way of giving me a rare opportunity to watch the sunrise at the beach.  I raced out to the beach a few minutes too late, I thought, but clouds covered the sky.  I still enjoyed the view, however, because just like walking in faith, clouds and dark skies may come, but you can still see His glory and know He is there with you. It was awesome to watch the sky hues morph from cool blues to warm oranges.  I sang "This is the day that the Lord has made" as I walked along the beach littered with sharp shells and deep, sinking sand.  

We finished our trip by driving down to Hatteras Island.  I remember doing a history report and project on Hatteras Lighthouse in grammar school, so I wanted to see it for myself.  The lighthouse had been moved since I wrote about it to keep it from washing away with the beach erosion. The engineer in me enjoyed learning about the process used to move it.  Some of the foundation stones from the original location which were not needed at the new location were set up in an amphitheater pattern with the names of  lighthouse workers engraved on each stone as memorial to their faithful service.

The island was flooded in many parts, so I was longing for my old Blue Bessie (our previous ride, an AWD CRV) as we drove along the wet roads.

It's windy up there with nice views.  The picture at lower right shows where the lighthouse was previously located  (behind the parking lot) with the foundation stones serving as a memorial at the entrance.

 We celebrated again the following week with an anniversary dinner out, compliments of a family member who sent us a gift card.  The food was fabulous, and the time alone with my man was priceless.

Our daughter photographed us out on the porch before we left.

When we returned home from our date, we found made-from-scratch gourmet peach cupcakes waiting for us on the "You are special" plate with a sweet note from the kids wishing us a happy anniversary. We are so blessed to have such thoughtful kids!

The traditional wedding gift for the 15th anniversary is supposed to be crystal. Instead, we got something better, a handcrafted mother-of-pearl and mirror mosaic that reflects and multiplies the rainbow sparkles from our crystal chandelier all around the room.  My midlife crisis, which consists of changing my practical, function over form, neutral home decor to something that looks more like a disco ball and a box from Tiffany & Co., continues...

Our 15th anniversary present

I first saw this wall art at the orthodontist's office (orthodontists are rough on the budget in more ways than one!), but after scouring the internet and finally finding it, the price was out of reach.  Then it went on sale, and I found a gift card for the store selling it at a 26.7% discount for additional savings. Then we received a cash gift from my parents for our anniversary, so by the time I applied all those discounts, ordered through Ebates for another 6% off, and used the cash gift, we actually paid less than 10% of the original price.  It looks like it was made for our dining room, and I couldn't love it more.  It's quite large (20" x 30") and heavy (requiring special mounting brackets) and hand crafted in Indonesia.  I lost my patience just trying to clean it before we mounted it, so imagine the patience it took to set each piece by hand!

When we returned home, I got the feeling that our bunny had missed me.  She waited for me out on the front porch in anticipation of doing Bible study together, and then she rested her chin on my leg while I read my Bible and scratched her head.  Silly bunny.

Memorial Day Week and Creative Entertainment Ideas by the First Born

For Memorial Day this year, we invited some very special friends we met at church when we were engaged and have stayed in contact with all these years even when they moved to Maryland for a few years.  Their oldest two daughters are very good friends of our daughter, and we've been through major highs and terrible lows together.  This couple has gained a great deal of wisdom through recent struggles, and we were eager to learn from them as they counsel others with the hope of helping other friends who are going through something similar right now.

But before I prepared dinner for them, I wanted to get in my annual Memorial Day Murph workout.  This workout is very simple to remember, but not simple to do the first time.

1. 1 mile run to start
2. 100 pull-ups
3. 200 push-ups
4. 300 squats
5. 1 mile run to finish

It wasn't as hard this year, but I also skipped the mile run to start and mile run to stop (substituted biking for 45 minutes instead) due to a knee injury.  Now I try to do the workout (modified with the bike) every1-2 weeks. It's a fun way to remember the sacrifices our servicemen make for our freedoms.  It's a great workout too.  Hard core "murphers" wear weighted vests during the workout.  I tried holding dumbbells during the squats and a light pack on my back during the push-ups (I used push up handles this time for a deeper push-up), but I'm not ready for weighted pull-ups yet, especially given that 99% of women can't do a pull-up at all without an assist.  I'm content with my 20-30 unassisted pull-ups without weights.

One advantage of having a right brained girl is that I have never, not even once, had to come up with something for her to do when she feels bored because she always makes up something interesting to do. On Memorial Day,  she planned a full scale memorial service for our fallen veterans and Cody Moses (our late rabbit who died two years ago on Memorial Day) complete with songs, programs, speeches, flag, and umbrella covered processional to the grave site where we all laid flowers she picked earlier this afternoon out of our yard.

Each night this summer, she and her brother will be debating a different topic. Topics are determined the day before, with straws drawn to determine which side each person gets to take on the debate, so they have a full day to prepare their arguments). Their first debate was on the topic I chose, "Should parents' make their kids go to church?". 

When her brother signed up for Pop Warner football, she appointed herself his trainer.  She began designing workout programs for him and even developed a diet plan for him to help him build muscle.  Some of her ideas she got from me, and others are just confused in her mind. She really tells on me when she describes dinner as being whatever Mom puts in front of him and that if he could get me to actually do this (make dinner), that would be great.

Since she recommends fish (which no one likes), I made lots of fish for dinner that week, but in addition to wrapping the fish in parmesan cheese and bread crumbs, I also wrapped the fillets in bacon.  It was a eureka moment.  Delicious!

Cooking has been another creative outlet for our entertainment specialist.  She has taken over cooking dinner when she's here and not too busy.

Her first stir fry which she calls American SensAsian

She may be old enough to cook, but she still makes ugly faces for her brother.

Taco Salad

Her best entree' so far has been white chicken enchiladas, but I didn't get a photo of them fresh, and leftovers aren't very pretty but very tasty indeed.

She is so much fun that the two younger boys who typically come over to shoot hoops with her younger brother are now asking if she is available to play when he isn't here.  Water balloon fights are always fun, and as basketball player, she has really good aim.

Maybe I should write down all her activity ideas over the past 12 years and publish a book!

Last Few Weeks of School 2016

The month of May was overflowing with fun school activities.

STEM
I finished up the STEM semester with a field trip to a new trampoline jumping zone to reinforce free fall and rebounding principles from the previous lesson.  That unit held one of my favorite life applications, but these kids were too young to appreciate the life lessons given that the only "free fall" they've ever experienced this far in life is not getting the sugar cereal they wanted for breakfast. Ugh!  My lessons are obviously geared toward older students.  But while there we did at least get to practice free fall and rebounding.  One important demonstration I wanted them to try came from the experiment we did in class in which you place two or three balls on top of each other in this order from bottom to top, basketball, bouncy ball (optional), tennis ball.  If you drop the tennis ball by itself, it will only bounce back less than half as high as the height from which it was dropped due to energy losses from gravity, air resistance, heat, etc.  But if you put a bouncy ball or both a bouncy ball and a basketball ball underneath it, the combined potential energy is much greater. Then if all three land at the same time together (a smidge of glue helps keep them together), then the tennis ball will bounce up 40-80 times higher than the original drop height as the potential energy from the other two balls is transferred to the ball on top.  Similarly, if we go through life on our own, without relying on anyone or on God, our free falls (hardships) will never bounce us back to where we started.  But if we cling to Jesus (the basketball) who goes with us, catching us when we fall, His power will loft us up higher than we ever were before. That's the process of sanctification.  A similar effect can be experienced on trampolines if one person sets the trampoline by lifting off right before another person lands.  The preset will cause the second jumper to jump higher than he would go jumping alone. I bounced all over the place presetting the trampoline for my students.  If only getting students to soar high in life could be that easy!

As I was driving a van full of boys (and one quiet girl) to the field trip, I discovered that if you want to know which girl each 3rd grade boy likes at school, what each kid (or his family) thinks about current events & politics and how much 9-year-olds can comprehend about tax reform, the economy, gun control, and foreign policy, all you have to do is volunteer to drive for a field trip. It was like I was never there. I expected them to talk about Poke'mon or Legos, but wow, they are articulate and insightful about the world.

I also discovered while there that teachers develop super human hovering powers by the last month of school. It is a handy superpower to have because supervising energetic kids on a field trip the week before summer break leaves no time for a teacher's feet to touch the ground. ‪#‎STEM‬

Last Week of Middle School
The middle school year ended a day before grammar school finished for the year, so I'll start with our daughter.  I could not be more proud of her.  She took on a lot of extra responsibilities this year at home.  She cooked breakfast and packed her lunch every single day of school.  During over half of the year, she was involved in both school sports and the school's competitive middle school drama team, so she arrived at school before 7am several days a week and stayed after school for several hours after school every day of the week for sports practice, games, or to wait on me to finish teaching/tutoring/working.  She had more chores than most (or all) of her peers, spent the year reaching out to new students or less popular students to make sure every student had a friend, completed the final year of our mother/daughter coming of age Bible study, served in special needs ministry at church, sought the Lord through personal quiet times and Bible study, learned how to win and lose with integrity, faced giants on the basketball court (girls over 16" taller than she is at AAU basketball tournaments) without fear while busting limbs and joints in the process, loved her family and her friends well, and received top grades at school.  She was one of only a few students who made straight A's all year long, and she received the second highest score in the entire school on the national Latin exam, Level 2.  She only missed two questions, with the one student who scored higher missing one question.  Her Latin teacher this year does not believe in standardized testing and did not prep the students for the exam at all. They mainly just read books in Latin and learned Latin history. So, I we all expected her to bomb the exam.  That score was a huge surprise.


I can remember lamenting on this blog over how challenging she is to parent because she is strong-willed, high-energy, and independent like her mom but extraordinarily creative and right-brained unlike me.  But now, I am reaping so many benefits of those characteristics that once seemed difficult.  Now they are such a blessing.  This summer she has started cooking dinner, which is a good thing given how slack I had become with meals.  I think what I love best about this transition phase she is in is our talks.  She can now understand why I make the decisions I do for her and empathizes with the complexity and sheer exhaustion of parenting in this deceptive, digital, immoral, and entitlement minded culture.  She has spiritual wisdom and insight that challenges me, and she is becoming a very good friend. What a gift she is, and we love her with all our heart!

She hasn't done any gymnastics in over a year, but when I let her skip school (her retiring teacher skipped too and the subs did not care) to attend her brother's pool party, I could still see hints of gymnast lingering in her as she flipped off the diving board.

This afternoon, my girl played hooky.
Soon she'll no longer be a rookie.

Sixth grade ends in two more days.
Then on to the next adolescent phase.

Her teacher also decided to skip,
So into the pool our daughter did flip.

She flew like a bird with such finesse.
Soon I'll get to sleep in and get some rest.

I loved the lake and golf course view from this pool where both of our kids' end-of-year parties were held. I'm thankful that the homeowner's share their facilities with us.

At her 6th grade class pool party (same beautiful venue overlooking the lake in a gorgeous golf course community), she reminded me of myself at her age, preferring to hang out with the guys so as to avoid all the girl drama and playing games against the guys to increase her competitiveness and athleticism.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
No sunbathing at the pool for her or me.
We're not prissy or flashy, but we like to move.
We compete against guys, so our game will improve.

Grandparents' Day
Our son's 3rd grade class enjoyed lots of fun activities during the last quarter.  My parents came up for Grandparents' Day and took him out to eat lunch. He even let his sister join them for lunch.  I attended his recorder concert without them since it took place before my parents could get there through rush hour traffic, but the kids got to enjoy Nana and Pops over lunch all by themselves, for I was not invited. 

Bird Watching
The 3rd graders went on a field trip to a bird sanctuary to do some bird watching, but they never saw any birds.  Crazy! 

At least our boy gets to watch plenty of birds at home on the smallest parcel of land we've ever owned.  Orwell is a great bird watching guide who is always staring them down from the porch window.  The most annoying loud bird around here built a nest in the gigantic holly we just planted next to my fitness room window, so I get to watch the birds, too.

Orwell, Expert Bird Watcher

Eager, Early Entrepreneurs
Well, I found out why my offer to pay the kids extra cash for each extra chore they complete outside of their weekly chores isn't motivating my boy to do any extra work at home. Apparently, our 3rd grader is earning far more money by transcribing, editing, and helping sell comic books his classmates have been designing and writing. One kid, the son of an extremely successful dental/orthodontic practice owner in our area with offices spanning several counties, started the first comic book business, and then another student founded his own comic book company, adding some competition to the market.

My son even resigned with his former employer to take a higher paying job offered by the competitor until the competitor realized his wages were too high. Then my son had to accept mandatory pay cuts across the company which were necessary to keep the business afloat and barely profitable. (My son now has a better understanding of the minimum wage debate). The kids ran this business enterprise  all year at school during their free time, and I did not learn about it until May. I'm not sure when the teachers realized what the kids were doing, but now these comic books are available in the class library. Kudos to these boys' parents for raising entrepreneurs who are giving their classmates hands-on business management learning opportunities. They are discovering so many key strategies and factors to consider when starting and operating a successful business. They are also learning about economics and capitalism without opening a textbook. To my knowledge, this enterprise has been entirely student initiated, organized, and operated. As strict and structured as our school is, I'm surprised they even allowed it, but I love it and see it as the best kind of learning.  That's why we agreed to let our kids blow all their allowance savings on a candy store business they set up in the neighborhood.  They submitted business plans and went through each of the process steps, but they failed to consider losses on products that would not sell and ended up eating their excess inventory at a loss. They learned a number of lessons through that business, although I feared the neighbors might hate me for tempting their kids to blow money on candy that rots their teeth, but my kids knew healthy snacks that could be found at home would not sell. (Supply & Demand) 


Field Day
We returned from our trip to Oklahoma really late on Monday the last week of school.  By the time we got home and I had unpacked, it was 5am, so I too tired to help with field day at 8am. Given how little sleep our son had gotten that night (more like morning) after all that travel and how tired he must be after a whirlwind weekend in OK and given how tough the competition was last year, I wasn't expecting our son to bring home ANY ribbons for field day. He surprised me by bringing home four!

• 1st place frisbee throw
• 1st place team overall
• 2nd place sack race
• 2nd place broad jump

 

I recovered enough by lunch time to take the kids to 3rd grade pool party after field day, however. I was too busy gabbing with other moms at the 3rd grade end-of-school-year pool party to get any pictures of him swimming in the pool. All I got were these pics of him playing ping pong and splashing in the kiddie pool during the lifeguard break.  Sorry, honey, but at least I captured pics of you dumping water on that cute little girl's head. ;-)

 

 

Our boy had all A's, mostly 99's and 100s the first two quarters, but after missing so much school during our trip to Israel, he lost his motivation and got 3 B's (a 94 is a B in the grammar schools), disqualifying him from any of the honor rolls.  He just doesn't care about grades like his sister does, although he will work for prizes.  At the IMACS math enrichment course, he is in a classroom of very gifted kids, and he ranks near the top of the class. They know how to motivate him with prizes, hands on learning, fun games, and no boring busy work. Despite our kids' differences in temperament and motivation toward academics, they have consistently scored the exact same overall battery percentile on the Stanford Achievement Test (the only standardized test our kids take each year, whether home-schooled or private schooled) year after year, and their scores on individual subjects are almost identical except their math/reading scores are reversed with our boy always scoring 100% on every math section and our daughter acing the literary portions. I don't care much for testing of any kind, or don't have much faith in them, but the similarities between their scores still amuse me.   When it comes to grades, we encourage our kids to give their very best for the glory of God (emphasis here for our boy), but not for the glory of self (emphasis here for our competitive girl).   Grades may or may not reflect that, but we see their effort and God knows their hearts/motives.

Socially, I think it was the best year yet for our boy.  He is overcoming his shyness, which was the primary goal motivating my husband to enroll him in school instead of being homeschooled.  At first he did not like to get up on stage at all and was reluctant to speak in front of groups of people.  This year, he was so thrilled to get the longest speaking part in the parent assembly (and all his lines were in Latin) that he insisted we all come watch him.  That's a big change.  The kids who have been there since kindergarten are now treating him like part of the gang, and he has a very close friend who lives nearby he sees all the time. Thankfully, these kids still get lots of recess, so he's getting tougher on the basketball court and plays hard with all his new friends....at least when the girls aren't chasing him too much.