Happy 13th Birthday!!

HAPPY 13TH BIRTHDAY, NOLAN! 

Oh!  Where does the time go?  It seems that I blinked and you just suddenly grew up overnight.  You are a very smart young man who is wise well beyond your years and you definitely keep us laughing.  But you are also very kind and you care so well for others.  I love watching you grow up and become more and more responsible as you also grow in your love for Jesus and for your family.  I cannot wait to see what the future holds for you.  Dream big and always chase after Jesus.  I love you!!

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Since Noel and I were in Michigan on Saturday and wouldn't get home until 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning on Nolan's birthday, I had asked Morgan and Melayna to help me by decorating the house before they went to bed so that Nolan could wake up to the traditional balloons and decorations on Sunday morning.  Morgan said that everything was going alright until Nolan surprised them both by getting out of bed and coming back upstairs.  He just smiled and asked them what they were doing and then he turned around and went back to bed.

When we woke up on Sunday morning, the house was decorated and Nolan was already 13!!

As soon as Melayna came back home from church, we ate Nolan's requested dinner of chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese and then he would open his presents early in the day so that Morgan could head back to her college campus before it got too late.   (Her classes started on Monday morning and she wanted to have a chance to get settled back in).

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Nolan  joked that now that he's an "angsty teen", he had a few birthday requests. 

1.  No singing the Happy Birthday song because it's boring and repetitive

2.  No candles dripping wax on his cake - although we could put them other places around the kitchen

3.  No pictures taken of him during the day.  We already know what he looks like.  :-)

I really tried to abide by his wishes and just be present in the moment, so that means that I don't have any pictures of him opening his gifts or of him eating his ice cream cake.  We did eat Oreo ice cream cake together and then for his gifts, he received some money and gift cards from his grandparents, and then several books, some more supplies for his 3D printer, and this LED wolf light that he wanted.  

I did sneak this picture later on in the evening when he was playing Mario Kart with Melayna and he was busy trying to teach her how to drift better so that she could score higher points when they play together.

Since the day was busy with church and Morgan heading back to school in the afternoon, I told Nolan that we would just spend his actual birthday as a family but he can invite a couple of his friends over to hang out next weekend.  I think he was more than happy to enjoy one last quiet day at home before school starts back up on Tuesday.

Happy Birthday Nolan!  We hope that you had a great day!!

Adventures of a Wedding Reception

 A couple of months ago, we received an invite to attend the wedding reception for one of Noel's former track runners.  The couple had actually gotten married back in May of 2025 but since he's in the Coast Guard and the wedding was only for family, they hosted a wedding reception up north in Dearborn, MI this past weekend.  All that we knew about the reception was that cocktail hour would begin at 6:00, so we left our house around 1:00.

Doesn't Noel look so cute (and hip)?

Thankfully our trip north was uneventful and we arrived at the Henry Ford Museum about 40 minutes early.  There weren't a lot of cars in the parking lot yet so we sat in our car for quite a while and then around 5:50, we headed inside to see if we could find anyone else that we knew.  Neither Noel nor I have ever been to the Henry Ford Museum, but it was really a nice place with over 16 acres of exhibits under one roof.  

When cocktail hour was over and we had eaten plenty of hors d'oeuvres, we were invited into the main area for dinner.  Noel and I were seated at table #9 with a couple of other couples from our town, but we didn't really know anyone.  Thankfully Noel is good at making small talk so he chatted with the two other couples while we ate dinner.  Then the father of the bride stood up to give a toast and a couple of announcements and that is when we discovered that each table had a "top secret" envelope on it holding clues to a scavenger hunt.    We would all have about 90 minutes after dinner to walk through the exhibits inside the museum and to look for clues.  At 10:00 p.m., the answers to the clues would be given and the person(s) with the most correct answers would win a pretty nice gift basket.

The scavenger hunt led us through every area of the museum.  One of the sections housed the automobiles that have escorted all of the Presidents over the years.  One of the limos was the actual car that JFK was riding in on the day that he was assassinated.

There was also a section in the museum with a variety of planes.  We had to find a clue about the explorers who have tried to fly over the Arctic Circle over the years.

Noel and I both took this hunt very seriously and we ended up making it through every area of the museum and finding answers for each question.  But did we find the correct answers?  

One area in the museum was full of keepsake ornaments from Hallmark stores.  (We would later find out that most of the ornaments actually came from the Hallmark store in our town.  When the store closed their doors about 10 years ago, the museum offered to buy the entire collection and it was put on display in this museum).

Noel liked the section on bicycles but unfortunately, we were on a tight schedule in order to get through the entire museum before the deadline, so we took a couple of pictures (found the answer to the clue) and then kept going.

Noel was especially fascinated by the ten-man bike.

Anyone else remember these little gems?  My sister had the owl calculator and also the Merlin over on the far left.  We still have the Original Simon downstairs in our basement.

And then we took a picture of Noel's first video game console so Nolan could see what we had to play with compared to his Switch.

Noel got distracted again when we found the Mathematics display.  I think he could have stayed in there for the rest of the night.  

The actual chair where Abe Lincoln was sitting when he was assassinated.

And we had one of these Holiday Inn signs in our town until about 20 years ago.  

I stopped taking pictures about half-way through but there was just SO much to see.  After we finished the scavenger hunt, we went back to the main ballroom and Noel was able to talk to the groom for a few minutes.  Then at 10:00, the father of the bride took the mic and read out the answers aloud.  Unfortunately, we missed two of the questions - along with three other people - so Noel's name went into a drawing and his name was not chosen.  The prizes looked incredible so we were definitely sorry to miss out on those but it didn't really matter because we had so much fun just looking for each and every clue.  Dancing was just starting to pick up and I think the bride and groom were trying to mingle with every guest, so I really wish that we could have stayed a little longer but by this point, it was already 11:00 and we knew that we had a 3.5 hour drive back home so unfortunately, we needed to leave.  

What a truly great idea for a wedding reception though!  I have never attended a reception quite like it, but I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to do that.  It was so much fun and a great way to spend an evening celebrating the happy couple.  

Congratulations Ross and Bethany!  'May God give you many many many years of happiness as you honor and serve him together!!

Other Random Happenings // Over Christmas Vacation

 The older two girls were home for three weeks so a lot of other things happened during our much needed winter break.  Not all of them are worth their own post however, so I'll just add them all here.

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As I mentioned in a previous post, Marissa has been struggling with back pain and numbness in her legs since September.  The team physician from IWU feels like it's serious enough that she should have it looked at so he put in an order for her to have an X-ray over her winter break.  On december 16th, we drove up to Ft Wayne Orthopedics together so she could have the X-ray completed.  The results showed that she does have arthritis in her lower back but that isn't what is causing the pain and numbness.  Thankfully none of her bones are damaged or broken, so that was obviously good news, but she will still need to have an MRI completed.  (We made several phone calls back and forth between the medical facility and the insurance company and we were finally given approval for an MRI to be completed.  She will have that done on Tuesday, January 6th.

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Morgan will be in two weddings this coming May so she had a dress fitting over break.   One of the dresses fit almost perfectly and won't need any alterations but the second of the bridesmaid dresses will need to be shortened, per the bride's request.  A lady in our church is an amazing seamstress so she will make the alterations for us.  Morgan will go back during her spring break for the final fitting and to make sure that nothing else will need to be done.

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I took Nolan Christmas shopping the week before Christmas.  He went into walmart and bought his presents for everyone (except for me) and we were in and out of the store in about 15 minutes.  He is very efficient when it comes to shopping.  Actually, he did everything by himself,  I just followed along behind him so that I could pay at the end.  One of these days, I'll be able to send him in with my credit card and just sit in the car until he comes back out.  LOL

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Before Marissa came home from college, she had a couple of her friends order lizard keychains from Nolan's bead business.  (He was especially excited that they ordered their keychains by using the order form on his website).  She was able to take all of the finished lizards back with her when she went back this past week.

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Noel and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary on the 23rd of December.  He bought me flowers - one for each year of marriage.  We also went out to dinner at the same restaurant where we went for our first date.  After dinner was over, we spent time visiting several other memorable spots... like where we got engaged, the place where we first met, and then the church where we were married (and still attend).  Noel capped off the evening by giving me a new ring that he had picked out.  (We will continue to celebrate our 25 years in February with a much anticipated trip to Hawaii).

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The kids played in a Christmas Eve service at our church on the 24th, so they spent a little time practicing together a day or two before.  Nolan played his cello, Melayna was playing the clarinet, Marissa the saxophone, and Morgan was on the flute.  The four of them sounded pretty good, but it was even better when they were joined by others at the church.

Nolan started practicing a little before his sisters were ready so I recorded him on his first try.  He doesn't like this video because he has a couple of mistakes but I was blown away at how easily he sight-read the music.  You can hear the video here. 

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On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Grif invited us to come up to Grace Community Church in Goshen to watch him play banjo in the praise band.  We were able to attend the 1:00 service in the afternoon and we enjoyed being able to visit a different church and worshipping the Lord with them.

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In other news, with the larger storage case that Marissa received for Christmas, she was able to organize all of her nail supplies and put them all in one place.  She is excited to take it all back to campus and continue practicing on her friends.  

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My parents are getting ready to head south for two months after the New Year, so they came back over to our house the evening of the 26th.  They dropped off a couple more gifts for our family and we enjoyed visiting with them before they head out of town for warmer places.

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Morgan left on the 26th and headed over to Ohio to spend a couple of days with Ian and his family.  They were able to go to an extended family Christmas and they also spent one evening at the Toledo Zoo which was all decorated with Christmas lights. 

We actually had the blessing of having Ian stay here at our house for three days earlier in the break,  but somehow they managed to make it through his entire stay without a single picture being taken of them.  

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Marissa put her lego flowers together...

...and Nolan completed two of his lego phones.

I gave the older girls these lego figures in one of their care packages back in the fall.  Morgan finally had the time over break to get them put together.  Aren't they so cute?

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Marissa gave me a watercolor book for Christmas and I worked on one of the designs.  

It's okay to laugh... I'm not very good at it.  Kudos to my kids who all worked very hard to find some positive and creative things to say about it.  LOL

Here is what it was suppose to look like:

Here is my final product.

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We also played a lot of games together while we were all home.  Many many games of Uno, Uno No Mercy and Uno Teams and Trouble.  We also played Throw, Throw Avocado, Happy Little Dinosaur, and a new game called Tower Stack.  Nolan and Marissa also played a couple classic games of Chess.

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There were also plenty of times where the kids just sat on the couch and played video games together or read books and just enjoyed being together.

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On the Saturday right after Christmas was over, Marissa asked if we could go to Ft Wayne so that she could use a couple of her gift cards before she heads back to school.  Since Noel was already in Indianapolis for the day and Melayna needed to be home for work, it was just Marissa, Nolan and I.  We started out at Plato's Closet but also visited Game Stop and the mall.  Marissa was able to find some really good sales and she bought what she wanted (and way under budget) and we also just enjoyed a fun afternoon together.

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We had a New Year's Eve party on the 31st and then Marissa and I ran some "Back to School" errands on the 1st so she could get ready to head back and she introduced me to one of her favorite treats - the DQ Misty Freeze.

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Unfortunately, Marissa had to head back to campus on Friday, January 2nd as she has a week of winter training with her swim team before they head over to Center College for a two day meet next weekend.  She spent the morning of the 2nd doing laundry and packing and Noel fixed her windshield wipers.  Then we sadly waved good-bye as she headed out.

We really had an amazing time while all four kids were home together and a lot of great memories were made.  It's always so bittersweet to see them go.  It will be a long six weeks or so before she has time to come back home so I guess we will just have to start a new countdown until then.

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After Marissa left, I started occupying myself by putting away the Christmas decorations and getting the house back in order.  At first I just put all of the decorations away except for our tree, but then a couple of days later, I took all of the ornaments off of the tree and Noel took it out to the burn pile.  

Morgan had originally asked if we could keep the big tree up but we didn't want to keep watering it if we were just going to take it out in a day or two, so we decided to move the small tree to the corner instead.  She got a good laugh out of that and we kept that tree in place until she left and then it was also packed away for another year.

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Nolan got a haircut...

I finished another memory book... (Only two more years to go!)

Melayna met some friends for ice skating....

And Morgan and Nolan had an all-nighter where they played all 48 Mario Kart circuits and had a major Dance Battle. 

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We celebrated Nolan's 13th birthday on Sunday the 4th...

And then before any of us were ready, it was Morgan's turn.  She left on Sunday afternoon and thankfully she safely arrived back to her dorm about 90 minutes later.  She will start right back up for her last semester of undergrad work on Monday.

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Wow!  We really did accomplish a lot in three weeks.  And Noel and I even had time to squeeze in a quick wedding reception in Dearborn, MI that I will post about soon.  

But first, I'm off take a quick nap to recover before the younger two head back to school on Tuesday.