In the early morning dark, when you shouldn’t really be awake, I reach over and feel Dave’s temporarily-bald head.
“You feel like GI Joe,” I tell him, referring to those really great GI Joe dolls of the 1960s that looked like Rock Hudson and had this short, fuzzy hair. Dave has 2 days’ growth.
“You can be my Barbie,” he replies, referencing the fact that when I played Barbies with my friends as a young girl, I let the others have Ken and opted to use my bothers’ GI Joe as my particular love interest.
In totally unrelated news: And, by the way, I got to see the colorful, bright and delightful Carol Channing star in “Hello, Dolly” in the 90’s. It was soooooo cool!
Dave with hair, in the kitchen; Dave without hair for his performance in Annie, onstage.
NOTE: He is rumored to have been advised to start growing his hair long, really long – which he is able to do easily, for a possible starring-pirate kind of role next year. People, I implore you! Did Carol Channing ever have to change her hair this much?
Longmont is a beautiful city with an amazing view of the Rocky Mountains. We have been in a most incredible location and it has been “home” (on the Northern Hills Church property www.northernhills.cc). What a blessing that has been. The drawback has been the 2-lane highway which makes for crazy long car lanes in every direction. Traffic flowed very smoothly…just very slowly this past year when we had 22,800 people there all at once!
This new property is a beautiful park and reservoir with lots of farmland, which is going to allow for “raw” camping. It is just west of I-25 on the north side of the 4-lane highway 119. 70+ bands on 7 stages, interactive worship, a Petra reunion…come on. Start making plans! WE GOT OUR PERMIT TODAY!
A partial look at what you’ll see.
Remember 2008 – our first year? We did this the day we got our Adams County Permit LESS THAN A MONTH out from the festival!
We’re still together. Still going strong and doing the happy dance. Still love each other! The GREATEST miracle of all!
5 pounds of MM Fondant (I am such a novice and not a sculptor, but people like fondant), over almond-bouquet buttercream over dark fudge chocolate cake (2-layer), filled with Oreo/chocolate-chip/milk-chocolate mousse. Created the baby’s bum and chunky legs from Rice Krispie treats because the thought of wrapping cake pieces made me hyperventilate. Averi’s feet were my inspiration.
Did it for Jovan, with love, as we anticipate new Baby Rhoades, to-be-born in 2 weeks.
Ruth 4. 15 For [my] daughter-in-law, who loves [me] and who is better to [me] than seven sons….
Neither Tredessa nor Averi could resist tickling the feet. The main cake, for size reference, is a 12″ cake, about 4″ high. So the baby is sort of a month or so old maybe, but with big feet? I don’t know…ever-so-slightly life-like in size…?
Due June 30, Stephanie surprised us by arriving mid-May, before we’d exhausted the baby-name books searching for the perfect description. But the official hospital person arrived to record the legal information and we named her. Her middle name is for the beautiful, delightful spring month in which this bassinet-full-of-joy came to us, turning life upside down in happiness. {Perfect.}
Stormie Dae
Stormie in Taiwan
Very long story, the shortened version of which is, “Stormie” was a done-deal, but Stormie also happened to arrive during a freak ice-storm/snow- blizzard in Iowa following such sunny and lovely days, her siblings had already been splashing in their wading pool. Dae seemed a natural variation to the stormie day she was born. A {Dae} to remember.
They now blog.
Stephanie and Stormie are known for being very creative, intuitive, resourceful and savvy. Today they have the launched MayDae the blog, with more exciting pursuits to follow. You will L O V E it!!!! Happiness.
Candi is this graceful, elegant, highly intellectual, runs-marathons kind-of-woman She is an extremely organized, highly-respected and amazing early-thirty-something woman. She can crunch numbers and run a business, plus has 2 totally cute and caring children. I mean she is grace. She is poised and thoughtful and admirable on so many levels I can’t even tell you. But she is also a major prankster who gets away with it because it is so unexpected of her. And really, when a camera comes out? She is never straight. She is always being silly.
That is why I am giggling nervously here and my tongue is hanging out. Because I am expecting Candi to do something outrageous any second and make me look ridiculous. {TRICKED AGAIN!} She didn’t. But I am always wary around her – that sly Candi!
See? Here is proof. She can be ornery!
Pictured: Mexi-can or Mexi-can’t? Mexi-CAN! Candi’s {first} plate of food at the HF Leadership Mexican Food Extravaganza Sunday night! This is what you are missing if you are not joining the Heaven Fest leadership team. You know resistance is futile, don’t you?
We hug and eat and laugh and eat and pray and hear what God is doing and eat some more and visit and get caught up and our vision is renewed and we get ready to run with the plans and the Heaven Fest people? This is family! Wanna join?? Let me know!
The Martin Luther quote? Yikes. This could not be worse news.
Hair cut this week. Actually left the shop pretty OK with it. Unusual… Ready to color, early before meetings. Reeeeeally didn’t feel like going to Sally’s to buy the dye. Look under the sink and find a red I hadn’t used in some time. What a happy surprise. I don’t even remember having this! L’Oreal’s Mega-Reds, Intense Copper Red. It is almost, but not quite full.
Bingo! There’s enough. I’ll use it. No muss, no fuss.
While mixing with the developer, it seems odd. But I proceed. I plaster, cover, go about my business.
Time to rinse. The water runs off looking reddish enough, but not all that intense. I pay no attention. I wrap my head in a towel and gather things I’ll need for the office.
Time to blow dry. Hmmm…does look intense, after all…dark. I am humming, not bothering to look into a mirror as I dry, until the end. Suddenly, my very own Brady-bunch-type-hair-dye-crazy-disaster-sit-com-moment.
What the…?? It is reddish brown in spots, grayish brown in others, dark brown in some and almost black in parts. It is NOT. what. I. was. expecting. Not at all.
Should have looked like this, all over:
Instead:
It really is worse than you can tell here. Hard-to-believe, but true.
As I shrieked, “What on earth?!?” Guini assurred me: “It’s OK, Nonna. It’s gonna be alright.” And it will…unless I am seen in broad daylight. In a dark room, sure. Fine.
Dave says he likes it, shrugs it off and tells me this is what happens with so many daughters running a hair chemistry lab around here all the time (and they all claim total innocence and say it was probably expired and my own fault).
{sigh} I will have to find a way to fix it so all of my ”richest ornament” does not fall out. Or I can become very nocturnal.
Sandy-the-family-dog will soon make her stage debut as Sandy-the-Mutt (her actual namesake) in the local stage production of Annie (while Dave plays Daddy Warbucks).
We rescued Sandy years ago from the landfill where she’d been abandoned and was running wild eating trash and afraid of her own shadow, yet, she has never quit looking like a junkyard dog. Even our love could not transform her into a beautiful show dog. And though I fully believed a good grooming would be necessary for her to be a star: NO! We are to leave her in this sad, overgrown condition for her role onstage. She is untrained and undisciplined.
You can’t take her on a walk without getting your shoulder pulled out of socket.
She insists on laying right on your feet and constantly touching you, staring at you and basically loving the stuffing out of you.
She gets throroughly head-over-heels excited when you come in the door.
When you are eating anything, even though she is never allowed people food, Sandy sits very closely and tries to disguise the fact that she is lusting after your food. But she isn’t allowed to beg. So she sits there, acting all nonchalent and doesn’t actually look at you (because she knows that will get her in trouble), but she moves her eyes one way and then the next and then tilts her head so she can clearly watch you eating from the corner of her eye. “Look away,” we tell her and she does, but then…yes, there it is: the corner of the eye thing again. She is fooling no one. I am amused by her persistance for lo these many years. Hope must rise eternal in her heart that we will just one day give her all of our food.
She rolls around on the floor like a maniac when being petted.
If you give her a dryer sheet, she rubs her body all over it, because smelling fresh is her one true desire, though smelling fresh is pretty much impossible for Sandy. She hates baths and thinks she is being punished and after years of hearing b-a-t-h spelled out, she is not fooled by our code.
She lives for love and lives to love. The slightest kindness or gentle word from me and Sandy thumps a Morse-Code message of affection back to me with her ample tail.
Devotion.
Sandy and Dave have gotten closer during this shared theatrical experience, but she is my dog until Stormie shows up. We were very close, mutt and me, during the Taiwan trip, but the minute Stormie was back on US soil, I was cast aside. However, if Rocky is anywhere in a 2 mile radius-her heart belongs to him and him alone. Period. He knows her and understands her more than anyone else. And she pays him back with a fierce covenant commitment and over-the-top adoration. They are “a boy and his dog.” But Stephanie originally brought Sandy into the family, so she owns a part of Sandy, too.
She is a sweet dog. She hates cats and is terrified of birds, but otherwise does not like conflict. She loves people, seems to believe the best of everyone, and melts at a kind word and a pat on the head. That is really all takes to be loved by Sandy forever. She doesn’t really enjoy playing horsie with the grandkids, but is gentle and longsuffering with them anyway.
Sandy is a Phlegmatic-Sanguine. She loves people and she loves peacefulness and having everybody just get along. Just like my mom. No wonder I adore her: the dog, I mean, but my mom, too. Yes. They are both lovely and loveable. And they are very close friends, as well. They may even favor one another a little.
My mom and Sandy-the-Dog are probably my two most reliable and exuberant cheerleaders in life, my most trusted allies. Aren’t they adorable?
But he was for the Colts. So, come on ~ I HAD to do this to him.
And apparently Wrex had been saying how he thought he looked a lot like Peyton Manning all evening when I, totally unaware of this little tidbit, made the remark that Drew Brees was so much cuter than Peyton Manning. I DIDN’T KNOW!! Naturally, we ALL think Wrex is amazingly handsome and wonderful. I am sorry, Wrexster. Really really sorry. Pleeeeeeease forgive me??? (Not so sorry I didn’t make him pose for this picture, though…hehehehe…)
Who Dat? And all that~
I must admit I called my brother Joe when it looked like the Colts could do no wrong and had been leading for too long and I rambled on about him dragging me into this stressful, crazy, game and making me cheer for a team who was going to lose. Minutes later, things turned around and he called me telling me to stop the whining.
The kids played games and kept the noise at fever pitch. Gemma danced for halftime, which was way better than The Who. Seriously.
Stormie, it turns out, is deeply competitive and was really mean to people NOT rooting for the Saints. This was her {haughty} victory face.
The Dodge commercial was hilarious. All the females oohed and aawed over the Google commercial. It was interesting to note how many men in only their underwear we saw. Is this really what men like to watch during football? Doritos had some pretty fun ones (part of a contest they sponsored) and the Right-to-life/Focus-on-the-Family one was really well done, I thought: not preachy or offensive, but pretty cool, actually.
But hey, did you hear? THE SAINTS WON the Super Bowl!
Happy Birthday, sweet girl and totally terrific two-year-old toddler. Oh what a hilarious joy you are! Such a typical firstborn, ready to order your world, so prepared to be in charge of your new little sibling so soon. You have that head full of big, beautiful hair and are head strong and know how things should be. You have mastered the choleric-sanguine personality in your cheeky 34″ frame (with your 50 centimeter head circumference – though we suspect the doctor did not account for all the hair, or the unusually active, large and amazing brain-which runs in the family, ahem…).
Our current favorite activity, mine and Averi’s, is to watch babies laughing on Youtube together. Averi calls the shots. We have no more than laughed our heads off on one video when she has chosen her next choice from the suggested videos on the right column.
Averi: Nonna! I want that one! Do that one!
Me (seizing the opportunity for affection): Ok. You want that one? Gimme a kiss!
Averi: Ok. {smooch}
Then we watch the one she wanted. And we repeat the process. Over and over. Good times. She is my girl until Poppa walks in the door. Then I cease to exist, but it is good while it lasts!
Girl, you are princess-pink-and-polka-dots, rough-and-tumble-funny-girl and everything in between. I love you bunches!
