Catching Up

Time to update this blog!

After a week in Canada with my niece Chelsea, I made a trip to Kansas City to help my youngest get settled in his new home. Yes, he's a real grownup now with a home of his own. My oldest, on the other hand, is moving home. Actually, he and his wife are building a new home and will temporarily be living here until it's finished. As though there wasn't enough going on in my life with surgery scheduled for Aug. 30, I allowed our youth minister to coerce me into going on a weekend trip with the youth. We left on Friday, Aug. 25 for a weekend at Burnt Cabin. He had mentioned in an email that he assumed I didn't have a problem driving one of the passenger vans, and I half-way thought he was kidding. Wrong. This became the first of many adventures of the weekend. I thought the gas pedal felt wierd and was feeling rather awkward with it, and my foot kept slipping off the break pedal whenever I had to slow down or stop. But we made it there safely, despite some tense muscles in the neck and shoulders. When we left Sunday morning to come back, we found that the gas pedal was laying on the floor board and the rubber cover for the break pedal was under the seat!!

One of the highlights for the kids was Saturday's trip to the cliffs. I'm a little like my dad and am not fond of heights. These cliffs were at the edge of Lake Tenkiller and the objective, it seemed, was to jump off the cliff into the lake. As our YM was giving safety instructions to the kids, I felt compelled to interrupt and make it clear that, as the oldest one there, I must tell them that this was against my better judgement and that I advised against it. Just wanted that on the record. As I look back on this experience I can't help but remember words from my dad as I was growing up and wanting to do something that "everyone else" was doing..."if 'everyone else' jumped off a cliff would you jump too?" Well now I know the answer to that question, "yes, I would." And I have bruises to show for it. Just goes to show, even at 50, peer pressure is still a very strong force.