Double Digits

I think I've said before that Ben's life is a musical. We hear that leaking out most every day, either in voice or in whistling, although the musical is sometimes off key. Interestingly, the song we hear coming from Ben each morning these days is Amazing Grace.

DOUBLE DIGITS. Nate celebrated his 10th birthday Thursday which means everyone in our family is in double digits now. Quite a milestone!

This, for me, is the time of my kids' childhood I have looked forward to and enjoy the most. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy babyhood, toddlerhood, etc. -- I did -- but the kids are at an age I am more comfortable with now.

So anyway, Nate has turned 10 and he thoroughly enjoyed his big day. He really wanted to skip school, but we didn't go for that after he was sick the week before. We invited Mom over for a special birthday supper complete with strawberry cake at Nate's request. He also got to open the presents that had been so tantalizing all evening. I think his favorite was the little remote controlled helicopter.

At any rate, Nate has entered the double digits club and is well on the way to his teenage years. Kind of scary when I realize this is my youngest child.

WINTER CAMPOREE. Ben went with his scout troop to the Warioto District Winter Camporee this weekend. They camped out on a large farm in the Coopertown area. All the troops competed in building a Chippewa Kitchen and our troop won second place.

This being a winter campout the temperature got down pretty low. Ben said their thermometer read 18° when they got up Sunday morning. I asked him if he got cold. He said we had packed so much he was actually a little hot (except for his mouth at night).

I didn't go on the campout because we aren't equipped for both of us to sleep in cold weather (Ben puts his sleeping bag down inside mine). Both boys had ball games on Saturday which meant two trips to the campsite for me.

I found out in a texting conversation with Dianna that Jim and the boys were camping out with their troop in Florida this weekend as well. Dianna asked if Ben would get a patch for camping out in freezing weather. I had never heard of such a patch and have no idea what the requirements are. I guess what we take for granted due to our weather here is a novelty for others. Our boys camp in temps below freezing at least a couple of times each year.

THE CAMPOREE COMMITTEE. I want to say a little bit about our district's camporee committee. I don't know what other scouting districts do but ours has had a group of men organize it's camporees for the last three decades. They figure this last camporee was their 100th event and with that it was time for them to pass the torch and retire. They decided they should go out with a real bang so Ben came home telling us about all the neat things he had seen Saturday afternoon.

To begin with one of the nearby barns became a bank and several men rode in on horseback and "robbed" the bank. The robbery brought in our local SWAT team to try to capture the bank robbers. A "gunfight" ensued and in all of the excitement one of the bank robbers got away and rode into the woods, dropping a suitcase in the field as he fled. A Tennessee Highway Patrol helicopter was brought in to flush the bandit out. It was assumed that the suitcase held the stolen cash but the SWAT team, not taking any chances, deployed their robot to shoot the suitcase at a safe distance in case the thieves had booby trapped it with a bomb. Once the scene was "secure" and all the criminals "apprehended" the boys got a chance to see the helicopter, robot, and other equipment close up. Ben said it was really interesting.

That evening all the troops honored the men on the committee for all their dedication and hard work. Whoever serves on the committee to replace these men will have a tough act to follow.

A WONDERFUL TRIBUTE. Jenna is very good about doing her homework. She asks for help when she needs it, but she is so self-motivated that we never have to tell he to do her assignments. This weekend she has been working on an essay she was assigned to write about her modern day hero. The hero she chose to write about is Aunt Mar. I will end with the concluding remarks from Jenna’s essay.

The most important lesson Aunt Mar taught was her deep faith in God. Every time she prayed, you could hear the deep sincerity with which she spoke to her Maker. Aunt Mar lived a long 97 years, and she would say God blessed every moment. I truly believe He did because she acted only as God would want her to. She has inspired me to live up to her high standard.

Aunt Mar was a very dear and special person to all who knew her. Her passion, love, creativeness, and faith are only a few points of what made Aunt Mar who she was. I am very grateful to have had the blessing to know Aunt Mar for 14 years. I hope to become as much like her because of the legacy she leaves behind.

Joe

A Simple SLice of Life

Poor Nate has been coughing his head off all week. He left school early on Monday and never went back. Vicki took him to the doctor. No flu, no strep, just the croup. There’s no school tomorrow due to Parent-Teacher Conferences. The poor boy is so tired of being home sick that he was disappointed in the day off. If you know Nate, that’s saying something.

After trying two prescription cough medicines he was better by Friday evening. Now he has the homework blues because Vicki went to school to get his make-up work.

PLACES TO VISIT. We were reminiscing about our cruise at supper last night when Nate posed the question, “What state would you want to visit next?”

Jenna came right in with her answer. “I know what country I want to visit next, Venus.”

We all sort of looked at Jenna. She knew something was wrong, but since she couldn’t put her finger on it so she clarified her statement by adding, “You know, in Italy.” She was still looking confused.

Vicki jumped in, “You mean Venice since Venus is a planet!” We all had a great laugh at that.

Now Jenna has Vicki all confused between the two. (Jenna thinks she heard Venus/Venice mispronounced or mixed up by another little girl when she was a kid.)

BASKETBALL. Neither of the boys’ teams have won a game this year. They’ve played hard and well, but overall they just can’t seem to hit that basket enough. What’s been interesting is that Ben has played against a couple of players who are as tall or taller than he is. He is completely having to rethink the game because he doesn’t tower over everyone else on the court.

Take yesterday’s game for example. Ben guarded a kid who is 2-4 inches taller, a good 50 lbs. heavier, and just as fast on his feet. What I liked was watching Ben analyze the situation. Rather than get discouraged he had adapted by the end of the game and was coping with the challenge. I was proud.

HONEYMOONS. I mentioned last time that Bro. Bill is doing a sermon series on marriage. He made a reference to a honeymoon today which prompted Ben to ask, “What do you do on a honeymoon, go away and wait for them to get your house finished?”

The poor boy has obviously watched too much Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Vicki and I got a big laugh as we remembered going away on our honeymoon in 1994 only to come home to a dinky, dingy, cinderblock apartment at UT-Knoxville’s married student housing, complete with multi-colored carpeting from the 1970s.

SUPERHEROS. Our boys still have quite a bit of innocence about them. When Vicki got up from a nap this afternoon she came to the door of the bedroom and stopped. At the end of her hall to the right stood our two large boys in superhero capes: Ben wearing a red afghan and Nate a green blanket. She heard the word “flying” followed by the pounding of feet and then a red and green streak zipping by. I am so glad the boys aren’t into anything more “grown up” yet.

Joe

Riding the Weather Roller Coaster

We have been riding the weather roller coaster. We had a little ice on Friday of last week which closed school. Then the temperatures gradually got warmer reaching a high of 72° by Tuesday. Some serious storms blew through early Wednesday morning. We had some strong winds, though we slept through it. There were a total of thirteen tornados to touch down in Tennessee, one or two of those were here in Robertson County and five in Sunmer County. We really dodged the bullet on that one. Wednesday was another warm day with a high of 68° but by the time we were leaving church the temp had dropped to 38° and it was spitting snow. The next morning we woke up to 16°. Now we’re starting the week with above average temps.

The old saying is true. If you don't like the weather here in Tennessee just stick around.

ANY WAY YOU LIKE IT. Last Saturday Ben and Nate had back to back basketball games at 12:00 and 1:00. During Ben's game Vicki was a little hungry and sent Nate to the concession stand to get a hot dog. She told Nate to put ketchup and mustard on her dog but he had his hands full with other orders and came back with a plain dog. She sent him back with the hot dog for the condiments.

When Nate came back the hot dog had a huge glob of ketchup, overflowing the bun, on one end and a huge glob of mustard, also overflowing the bun, on the other. Obviously not how a connoisseur of these things wants them on their hot dog and Vicki set Nate straight on that point.

"Nate, what I want is a line of ketchup down the length of my hot dog and then a line of mustard, right beside the ketchup, down the length of my hot dog."

Nate looks at Vicki, looks down at the hot dog, and proceeds to stick his finger in the mustard in order to stir the two condiments together. And in that brief moment before Nate took action all of us sitting there knew exactly what he was about to do. We laughed so hard Ben said he heard us from out on the court.

SOUPER BOWL SUNDAY. Our church has had a fundraiser on Super Bowl Sunday for many years to raise money to send our youth to camp. They will be going to Charleston, South Carolina, in July. The event is a chili/soup dinner in the basement immediately after our second worship service. There is an auction to follow. As of now we’ve raised $6000.

Vicki had prepared a batch of potato soup before going to bed last night and left me instructions to take it out of the fridge and put it in the crock pot when I got up early this morning so it could start cooking. By the time the boys got up the pleasant aroma was strong and Nate said, “Mmmm. That potato soup smells good.” Then after a moment he added, “Hey, do I like potato soup?”

YOU’VE GOT TO PAY ATTENTION! The auction that followed our lunch had quite a few donated items. Eddie Cope served as our auctioneer. One of those was a box of those “World’s Finest Chocolate” bars that kids are typically selling as a fund raiser for school or a ball team. This caught Ben’s attention so he entered into the bidding and won the sale at $5. When Eddie asked Ben how many candy bars he wanted he decided on seven. That’s when Vicki said, “Okay Ben, do the math. How much money have you spent?”

Ben’s answer made it obvious that he hadn’t been paying attention and missed Eddie’s announcement before the bidding started that the winning bid would establish the price per chocolate bar. When this was explained to him he said, “Well, I was going to get ten bars but I wanted to leave some for other people.” Vicki was going to cover Ben’s purchase but much to his relief his grandmother bailed him out on that one.

It could have been worse. This was the second batch of candy bars to be sold. The first batch went for $15 a bar.

SELECTIVE READING. While we’re on the subject of church, Bro. Bill started a sermon series today titled “Love, Sex, and Marriage.” The text for today’s sermon came from Genesis 2:15-24. Now the more astute people in church, like Vicki and Mrs. Sue Freeland, noticed that Bro. Bill stopped one verse short of completing the second chapter of Genesis. I think Vicki is going to ask him in staff meeting why he didn’t go on and include verse 25. Maybe he’s saving that for another sermon.

DEAR DAD… While the Swann Family News has been going since September 2003, my journaling actually started back in 1992, though I wasn’t as consistent between 1992 and 2003 as I am today. In the beginning this took the form of letters to my dad. I dug out those notebooks and have been reading them over the last week.

There are about 130 letters, with 84 being written between January and September of 1992. Then I didn’t write again for almost four years. The remaining letters are spread over a longer period of time. It’s been really interesting to read and relive the time of my life when Vicki and I first started dating and when I was in Korea. I’m glad I took the time to write all that down.

I remember back in high school -- I believe it was my sophomore year -- when the English teacher I had that year took a maternity leave. Her replacement was Rita Read, who is one of the assistant principals at East Robertson now. Mrs. Read gave us the permanent assignment to keep a journal for the rest of the year. I hated it and resented the intrusion into my privacy. My journal was as brief as possible as I vowed she wouldn’t win. Well, Mrs. Read, it looks like after thirty years you won after all. Too bad I can’t apply today’s work to yesterday’s grade.

Joe