Clearing my throat….

Hello dear ones,
Since I am so overwhelmed at the prospect of catching up with the past few years of not writing much, I think I am going to just try one thing at a time. Maybe the exercise of just poring everything out will help me find my writing voice again…..so ahem! Here goes.

Update #1 since 2013: The Three Boys

They are all 31 now. (Whoah!)
At this moment, all three are kind, conscientious, handsome, loving, and gainfully employed.
Trevor married lovely Casey in our back yard a couple summers ago. They had 100 mini apple pies instead of a wedding cake, and a local food truck rather than a catered meal. My wonderful sisters decorated the sprawling apple tree and made the pies. I designed Casey’s wedding gown and did all the flowers. Casey wanted sage green succulents and coral roses. I added a locket to the bridal bouquet with a photo of Casey’s mom who passed away from breast cancer when Casey was 16.
Don worked all that summer landscaping the yard and growing hundreds of dahlias, so all looked lovely and the wedding day was perfect. The pronounced couple then announced to the cheers of the crowd that they were expecting their first child. (I already knew, as her gown needed to…..expand!)

          
We are now utterly smitten grandparents to our beloved Leonie, who turned a year old this Saint Patrick’s Day. Both Trevor and Casey are beautiful parents, but I love watching Trevor become such an incredible dad. This is not surprising to me—but there is something magical about your child having a child. I watch his loving hands and the way he cradles her in his gentle arms. And the adoring way Leonie looks at him through her baby eyes—-well, I am completely undone.

Ian continues his life in creative performance work, and is now production manager at a circus dinner theatre in Seattle. He also teaches aerial and clown work to children at a performance college. His girlfriend is amazing in so many ways—but my favorite thing about her is that she “gets” Ian, his great heart and side-splitting humor. Ian is also a very loving uncle and is constantly carrying Leonie around when we are all together. It kills him to be so far away from his niece. This identical twin thing is quite disconcerting to little Leonie, and she looks in confusion from Trevor’s face to Ian’s.
Charlie moved back to Colorado again and lives an hour away (happy us!) He’s working in sales for a big software company and is so genuine, enthusiastic and unconventional in his approach, that he’s doing very well. Meanwhile, he is taking after his dad as a voracious reader and thinker—interested in all sorts of subjects and thought. He’s probably the most politically active and liberally outspoken of all of us. He met his long-term girlfriend on the job, and they both enjoy travel and the arts. It’s so wonderful that he just pops up for the weekend, or we travel to meet the two of them for a weekend of art, restaurants and gardens.
Our amazing boys have turned into such wonderful men….they make me beam!