After Valentine's Day

I wanted to have this post done for Valentine's Day, but life happens, and so this didn't quite make it in time. This year will make 30 years married to Barry. I can look in the mirror and see that it has been 30 years, and yet somehow that time seems to have evaporated. We are older now and wiser (I hope!), but even with 30 extra years of wisdom, I could not have picked a better person to live my life with. After 30 years, I would choose him all over again.

I've been going through all my pictures and have thoroughly enjoyed that little journey through time. Here are a few that I hope you will enjoy, too!

THE EARLY YEARS...

Here he is with his mom and dad and older sister Martha.


Left to right: Barry, Paula, and Martha

Look at all the scabs on his face! What had he been up to? Or was it chickenpox?

A little older...


Soccer was his favorite past-time!

Barry's parents let him spend 2 weeks with our family so that we could practice music to sing at a big event in the city.
Left to right: Carol-Ann, Barry, me, Gord

Left to right: Dad, Barry, Paula, Mom (Of course, this was before they were actually "Mom" and "Dad" to me!)


Nearly 30 years ago!



A wonderful dad...



Helping Coral with her weightbearing exercises.









It's a good thing I decided to stop after "the early years," or we'd be here all day!
I love you, Barry. You will always be my Valentine.

A Typical Evening at My House

Here I sit at my computer. Coral is beside me in her wheelchair, keeping me company as she loves to do. Her big Elmo is sitting in the chair by Dad's computer, and she is hoping that Dad will soon come in here and "yell" at Elmo to leave his computer alone! This is a game we play every day. It never gets old to Coral, and her pure joy never gets old to me!

Coral has her headphones on. She likes it that way, and so do I, because that means all her fun stuff is heard by her alone. We call it her "umbilical cord," because it stretches all the way from her headphones down the hall and into her room where it is plugged into her TV. She can go anywhere in the house and hear her TV programs. Every day I set the recorder to record her favorites, one after the other, and then when she gets home each afternoon, she gets to catch up.

Right now, she is leaning toward me with a cute little smile, saying, "I'm waiting." She knows that I know that she knows that I know what she means! She is waiting for "Becker," her new favorite program, to come on. All evening she says the same thing: "I'm waiting." And all evening I answer her: "I know you are. It's not time yet."

Every few minutes I hear a jingle. Coral holds in her left hand a set of bells that she got for Christmas many years ago. She loves them and wants to hold them all the time. Every time she is excited about something, or something makes her jump, they go jingle, jingle. In her right hand she holds a little fox with very long arms and legs. Andrea and Uncle Gord bought him for Coral at the zoo several years ago, and he has had to have many baths to keep him pleasant! His name is Kirk, named after one of her favorite singers. On her knee sits Elmo (her smaller Elmo). These three are "The Boys" and are with Coral all the time.

From the living room come the faint sounds of a basketball game on the other TV. Dad is enjoying his quiet evening and so are we. He loves to watch Becker, too; in fact, that is how Coral found out about it. So in another hour or so, we are going to join Dad in the living room and watch it together before Coral goes to bed. I will do my exercises while we watch. It is becoming one of our little routines.

How very thankful I am for the peace in my home.

Carol-Ann

I have been sorting through pictures hoping to find the ones I can see in my mind's eye and which I really wanted to put here for you, but no such luck! They are probably slides residing at Carol-Ann's house. Most of the pictures our parents took when we were little were slides. The snapshots that I have left are pretty much ruined by the tropical moisture in Liberia where we grew up, but I do have a few usable ones, so here they are!

This is the earliest picture I could find of Carol-Ann! Here are Gord and me with our new baby sister.


Isn't she the sweetest little thing? I think Carol-Ann is 2 or 3 years old here. (You can see a bit of the damage I mentioned.)


Carol-Ann with Samuel and his mom.


Carol-Ann's kindergarten picture taken when our family came back to Canada for a year.


Carol-Ann and I were absolutely thrilled to be bridesmaids. She was about 9, I think, and I would have been about 12. Isn't she elegant! (Am I chewing on something??!)


Here she is as a teenager...


...with Gord and me...


...and with Bruce!


So here is a tiny snippet of history-in-pictures for Carol-Ann! I just love all the remembering that looking at these brings to me. So much fun, fighting, playing Monopoly, laughing, crying, working, singing... Well, you just had to have been there to really know what I mean! I love you, Carol-Ann!