When I got home I made my entrance by
hollering as I entered the front door.
Something like, “Who owns that car parked in front of our house? What’s going on in here, anyway?” That brought on the Attack of the Alamo Avengers. In the first wave, Zakary hit the ground
running and smacked into me as I turned around in the study. Wave two came from Caleb as I headed down the
hall. That one I was prepared for, so he
got a trip to the realms near the ceiling in response to his charge. Of course they were already hard at work on a
Lego battleground. Caleb immediately
wanted me to be involved in whatever the scenario was they had arranged, but I was
having a hard time understanding him, between his excitement and my aged ears. With Christi’s help I did finally get something
about acting out the battle they had set up.
By the time I managed to creak on down to the floor, though, he had
moved on to telling me about the different things he had built. We never did get around to having the
battle. Maybe that’s why older people
make good negotiators. By the time they
get through making allowances for their personal deficits, all the youngsters have
time for is bragging about their capabilities before it is suddenly time to go
get some pizza. Sounds like a good plan
for keeping anyone from getting hurt. Let’s
send that one to world leaders.
I was invited to join Josh and Zak on the
pizza run to Little Caesar’s. Apparently
Caleb had discovered a chink in his army at some point and wanted to stick
around and fine-tuner his plan for world domination. It was a fun trip. I enjoyed listening to the interchanges
between the two of them as they caught up after being apart for a week. Zak has quite the way with words, and he listens
to everything. That’s going to be a
dangerous … er … helpful combination in the years to come. I held the door open at the pizza place for a
young lady just leaving who looked familiar to me, but I had no name for her
available in the bucket. She commented
on my hat, and I knew immediately she had some connection to the fire
department. And then she identified me
as Nathan’s Dad. Yep. There it was. Still no name, but I did remember where I had
met her. Sadly, I still can’t remember
her name. Sorry about that. I am trying.
Please tell me again and again who you are. Assume I’m just one of those old dudes who
can’t remember things that happened just yesterday because, well, I am
one.
Shortly after we returned home, Ryan Dennis
and his three boys came over. Ryan was in
the youth group when we lived in Denver.
They live in Oklahoma now, and were on a family vacation trip to see
NASA and go to the beach. His boys are
great. They are all under 5 years old,
so you never know what will happen next with them around. The youngest one was shy at first, but it didn’t
take long for all of them to jump right in and play with our stash of
toys. The Legos were of course a crowd
favorite, but it always amazes me how kids are drawn to the remnants of
yesteryear we have available. The toys
that belonged to our boys when they were little were all stored in our attic,
and as result survived the flood. They
are now quite popular. Last night’s
favorite was a toy bugle we have had forever.
With it we were entertained by marching bands and even soloist
performances. Ryan once leapt to prevent
a blast directed right at the back of Mom’s head. I stopped Ryan and reassured him that she
probably wasn’t hearing anything anyway.
Just a bit of old age/losing hearing humor that those of us experiencing
such things can share in.
It was a fun evening, even down to the other
visitors who showed up at our front door.
As Ryan and the boys were leaving, two beautiful golden retrievers were
standing at our front door, peering inside. Kind of disconcerting at first, but I checked
the collar on one of them. Chloe from
Austin. She was almost a mirror image of
the other one, who belonged to one of our neighbors. We did our best to direct them back to the
house across the street, but to no avail.
I’m sure they will be fine, though, as long as Chloe doesn’t attempt a return
trip to Austin.
Today we head to Kel’s for a Micah birthday
party before Josh and his crew head back to San Antonio. Gotta love these non-stop Vaughan festivities.
Psalms 98:2-3 says, “The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to
the nations. He has remembered his love and
his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.”
Father, keep the Ryan and Josh families
safe as they do their traveling this weekend.
Help all those boys grow to love you.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment