Sixty Years

My parents will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary later this summer.

Sixty years!

Sixty years ago, Father Knows Best was a popular TV show and Elvis Presley had just cut his first record. Gas cost 29 cents. Period. Not preceded by four dollars. You could get a house for about ten grand and a car for roughly $1700. The words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance, the Tonight Show first aired on NBC, and White Christmas was a hit movie. John Travolta was born and Swanson introduced TV dinners.

And my parents were married.

Last week, my whole family got together for the first time ever...for a family vacation. My sister from Kansas drove out with her husband and their daughter. My sister from Indianapolis headed north with her husband. And of course, Ryan and I packed far more luggage than two people need for a long weekend, and we all met up in Shipshewana, along with my parents, to celebrate this milestone.

We did a lot of eating...

{That was from our dinner at the Blue Gate Restaurant in Shipshewana}

We did a lot of shopping...

Some of us went on a bike ride...

...and got soaked in a downpour...

..and I fell in love with a little guy...

...we recreated pictures from 1986:

...OH!! And we photobombed my mom's new phone and waited to see how long it would take her to find the pictures...

It was a priceless moment when she found them.

It really was the best weekend. We had fun, and I decided family vacations are a good thing.

Thankful today to be in this line of heritage:

It all began 60 years ago with these two:

Thankful for these girls I've shared life with {even if from a distance because I showed up late to the party}:

Thankful for the world's best niece and the grown-up friendship we now share:

And I'm thankful for the way my parents prepared me to be part of this thing called marriage:

And I'll take sixty-plus years of my own with Ryan!

Bowling for Brittany

Have you ever experienced a movie moment in your own life? It happened to me last Saturday.

My 29-year-old niece, Brittany, is squaring off with a bully named Hodgkin's lymphoma. Making the fight even more challenging was the large deductible that needed to be met before her insurance would kick in. I say was because Brittany now has more than enough money to cover the deductible, thanks to her boyfriend, A.J., and a crew of friends, family, and strangers.

How did we help her? We bowled!

For weeks, A.J. registered teams, solicited raffle prizes, and took care of countless details like buying green wrist bands and Bowl for Brittany tee-shirts...

God bless A.J.!

His efforts were rewarded when Brit arrived at the bowling alley. Did I mention it was a surprise? The girl had no idea! The look on her face - or rather looks on her face, quickly morphed from It's not my birthday. Why are all of these people, who just happen to be bowling on a Saturday afternoon, yelling, surprise? to Hey, I recognize him...and her...and them to Why are my friends and family bowling on a picture-perfect SATURDAY? to Everyone is here for ME!

Everyone included...

My dad and Josh Gaines, who played defensive end for Penn State, the only bowler who could actually palm the ball.

A gaggle of nieces...

nephews...

and other munchkins who taxed the capacity of every video game, while their parents bowled.

Then came the Movie Moment. The live band did a cover version of Journey's Don't Stop Believin'. As soon as the crowd heard the familiar opening chords, you could feel a surge of happy recognition. Then, as if on cue, everyone started singing, and then dancing...at their tables, on the lanes, wherever they were standing!

It was loud and unrestrained and spontaneous. Sheer happiness . As good as any movie moment. No, even better, because it was absolutely authentic.

:

And I was part of it, living out yet another expression of love: bowling.

Rest

A few days ago, I wrote about rest on my own blog, and based on the response, I thought I might revisit it today...here.

As you might imagine, Ryan and I don't get a lot of rest. And we can't even blame it on the kids because we don't have any. {So we give much credit to those of you who keep our kind of schedule AND have kids in the mix.}

We commute. We are still trying to sell a house, which means we are currently maintaining two. Both of us work weekends sometimes {often for him} with our jobs. As my mother is fond of saying, we burn the candle at both ends...and I think we've just about reached the dwindling middle of that candle.

I don't say these things in a hunt for sympathy. It's just a season of life and we know it.

But I do say it for this reason: we are not alone in the raggedness of life, and maybe you're feeling it too - in your own way, with your own details.

Over this past Memorial Day weekend, Ryan had to work...both Saturday and Memorial Day. I had both days off and I scheduled nothing. I stayed home, worked on things around the house, did some scrapbooking, and drank extraordinary amounts of coffee.

And the minute Ryan got home from work each day, he did nothing too...which is very out of character for him. He's always got a project. But together we sat in lawn chairs in our backyard, took naps in our hammock, curled up in front of the TV for a movie, and, of course, drank extraordinary amounts of coffee.

It was a lovely, lovely weekend. And not just because we were blessed with sunshine and warm breezes. It was lovely because we rested. What a treasure!

We've also made a commitment to wildly protect our Sundays as a day of rest. We go to church, but when we get home...we rest. Unless it just simply cannot be avoided, we don't ever schedule get-togethers or chores on Sunday. It's our day to take naps, to be still, to do whatever we want...and to not feel one iota guilty over it.

It takes some creativity on our part to make our Sundays work. We sometimes pull later nights than we want to earlier in the weekend making sure laundry is caught up...grocery shopping is done...yards are mowed. But OH how thankful we are, come Sunday, that we did those things.

I don't know what your life looks like. I don't know your challenges and obstacles. And for you, I don't know if this is a season or a life. But I do know that God brings up the subject of rest in His Word. He offers it to the weary and burdened.

What if He's offering it and we're not taking it?

Just something to think about. No idea how it might look when applied to your life, but I encourage you with much love, to think about it at least. In the busyness...can you make time to rest?

To take what He offers?

Please Grow Old with Me

Sunday my husband had a heart attack.

In church.

No one else knew. Doug would say he didn't know for sure either, but the avalanche of weakness, coupled with clammy skin, was quite the flashing sign. He slipped out of the pew and escaped to the car, where I quickly joined him. He was adamant about not going to the hospital, so I drove him home where he took a two-hour nap. Hear me say I will never give into the I don't need to go to the hospital line again. Never. Ever. Not long after Doug woke up from his nap, the chest pains and numbness in his arms began.

And I wasn't there.

I was at the grocery store. He tried to call me, but my phone was buried under a pile of tissues, a hefty make-up bag, and other essentials, at the bottom of my purse. Even if my ring tone was Stars and Stripes Forever, I wouldn't have heard it. (Do I sound defensive?)

 When I returned home and saw that Doug's car was gone, my first thought wasn't hospital but golf course. After digging out my phone, I saw three messages from our son and one from Doug, who answered my call on the first ring. He'd had a heart attack and was in the emergency room at the hospital near our house.

At least that's what I thought.

Tailgating every driver out for a leisurely Sunday drive, I Cruella de Vil'd my way to the hospital, spilled my story to the emergency room parking lot attendant (Husband! Heart attack!), abandoned my car in what I think was a parking space, and sprinted to the Information Desk. They had no record of a Doug Ford being admitted. I insisted he was there. He told me so. Oh, wait. Could he have gone to the hospital's other location, the woman asked? A couple of taps on her computer keyboard provided the answer: Yes, that's where he was.

Why Doug chose this hospital's second location -- which is TWICE as far from our home -- I didn't know, but I couldn't tell him that I'd gone to the wrong hospital because in my rush to get to him,  I'd locked my purse, phone, and house keys IN THE HOUSE.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm at the second hospital, repeating the park, rush in, and ask routine. They don't have a Doug Ford in their emergency room either! I insist he's there. They insist he's not. I tell them their sister hospital sent me there. They tell me that I'm not at their second location, but a different hospital franchise altogether.

Are you kidding me?

By now I've played out the the situation to its worst end, and am pondering which of Doug's friends will be his pall bearers, whether or not to sell his car, and how lonely retirement will be without him. Please God, don't let him die before I get to the hospital, I pray.

Ten minutes later Doug and I are reunited. He's alive, stable and waiting on a visit from the cardiologist. We find out later that, yes, he did have a heart attack, but that his heart wasn't damaged. His is a best-case scenario.

Doug came home from the hospital on Tuesday. After dinner, we relaxed in our normal locations: Doug in his La-Z-boy, me on the couch. Just like every other night. And yet, it felt like a special occasion. Which is was. A reprieve and a new beginning.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in His hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!" 

Our selfie taken this morning!