Saturday was the one day of the weekend when the entire family would be together and my Mom really wanted to get a family picture taken - one of her gifts to daddy. Our only window of time was at 10am (Mom was subbing for someone at the temple and needed to leave at 11 and wouldn't be home until 4pm). To add to the impossibleness of this task, the weather forecast for the day called for 100% chance of rain all-day-long! Mom had suggested a great park near their house and Friday GR and I found a good spot for the picture there.
My parents decided to use this picture as their New Years picture with the story of it's miraculous occurrence as their letter. I'm going to share a slightly edited version of my Dad's write up and hopefully this won't ruin the surprise for any extended family that reads this blog ... if you haven't gotten their new years letter, stop reading and wait till your envelope arrives, OR promise to act just as excited and read every word like you would have if I hadn't spoiled the surprise.
"This picture is worth a thousand words, but a few hundred will have to suffice. It was taken Saturday morning, December 27, 2008, and the forecast indicated a 100% chance of rain. Although threatening, it wasn’t raining yet, so we went ahead with our plans for a 10 AM family picture at a nearby park. Then we realized we had neglected to give an exact time to our son Joe and his fiancée, Katy. (If you look closely you will see the ring on Katy’s finger—we are all looking forward to their wedding in September.) about 40 minutes away, but, as you see (at the far right) they made it!
We really wanted a picture of all of us, since our daughter Barbara (above left from Katy) has plans to serve as a missionary and would thus be unavailable for the next year and a half. She has been living in the St. Louis area for the last year and recently got a job that could put her psychology degree to work at a local University.
While waiting for Joe and Katy, the grandchildren had a good time in the playground until Stella got a really bad bump on her forehead. Through the excellent parenting skills of her father she was coaxed to join the picture. Matthew and our daughter Mary Ann, Stella (upper left corner—note the bandage on Stella’s forehead) along with the youngest of their family, Danielle (next to Stella but looking away from her), have a house about 25 minutes from us—a lot closer than their former home in Beirut, Lebanon.
We also needed to get the picture taken because our daughter Suzanne (sitting left of Barb) needed to go back home that evening. Among her duties working for a Mid Missouri Health Care Organization is driving the 44-foot long mammography van for its visits throughout central Missouri.
We were also happy to have Kathleen and family make the trip from Kansas, to be with us for Christmas. GR (far left in front of Matthew) was the photographer who—with tripod and timer—got the shot ready to step into. He and our daughter Kathleen (between Suz and Katy), now have five children: Rebecca, Emily, Sam (in a row from Suz to Stella), Alex (on Suz’s lap) and baby Anna (guess where she is!).
Art and Mary Sue are the ones left over in the picture, and if we look happy, we really are. We are thankful for the blessing of good children, fine sons-in-law, a lovely future daughter-in-law, and grandchildren, who all bring happiness into our lives. We are reminded that heaven is but an extension of the ideal home, and are grateful for the Redeemer of all, whose birth we celebrated at Christmas."
After the picture was taken ... we promised everyone as the rain drops started to fall, that we would only take two shots, so smile and look at the camera, cause the least offensive of the two would definitely get used ... we headed home for sandwiches and a little rest time before some of the children and a few of the adults went to see the movie The Tale of Despereaux. I enjoyed the movie, but the film is much darker and scarier than portrayed in the book. I have really come to love Kate DeCamilo's style of writing. I listened to Tale of Despereaux back in September and loved it. On the way to St. Louis we listened to another one of her stories (The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane) which is equally as charming and just as full of life lessons as Despereaux.
Following the movie the entire family met at a deluxe burger restaurant (a birthday dinner of sorts for my Dad) before everyone had to go their separate ways for the evening.
Friday (12/26), Katy had a couple of appointments to go dress shopping and Joe ended up spending the day in bed not feeling well, but the rest of us decided to take advantage of some of the free fun at Forest Park.
Forest Park is home to the St. Louis Art Museum, and on Friday admission is free. They currently have a Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940–1976 exhibit Mary Ann had seen and enjoyed. I thought the kids would enjoy seeing this type of art ... especially with Aunt Mary Ann's extensive knowledge of art history around to tell them fun little tid bits about the art. And since it was free, if it took us all of 15 minutes to walk through the exhibit, so be it, the children were exposed to the art and hopefully would walk away from the experience knowing one or two things they hadn't known before.
Rebecca, Emily and Sam really enjoyed the exhibit. My parents rented little iPods that gave some of the background on a selection of the pieces in the exhibit, and Rebecca and Sam would borrow those iPods whenever they came to a piece they really liked and wanted to know more about it. It's really too bad traveling exhibits like this one don't have recordings like this geared toward kids 5-16. The iPod recordings were done in the same "voice" as the descriptions next to each work of art, so it's a wonder the kids took anything away from what they heard. To my amazement and delight, the children really enjoyed their brief exposure to Action/Abstract art, and had a number of favorite pieces of art they could actually describe after our visit during lunch. (Mark Rothko's Red, Orange, Orange on Red; Jackson Pollock's Number 3, 1950, were two of their favorites.)
In retrospect, I think I would have done a couple of things differently to enhance the kids experience. First, I would have had my sister talk about more of her favorite paintings from the exhibit, so the children would have had things to look for - a mini scavenger hunt of sorts. They instantly recognized the one painting they overheard Mary Ann talk about and they each got very excited when they discovered it for themselves. From a distance the painting looks like a completely black canvas, but as you get closer you realize it's not black, but squares of really dark colors. (Ad Reinhardt)
Second, I would have rented an iPod for each of the kids. At the time I didn't think we would need them - we had Mary Ann after all - but Rebecca and Sam really enjoyed the freedom and the novelty of using the iPods they commandeered from their adult buddies, and I think Emily would have enjoyed it too had she had the opportunity to do the same.
I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas filled with friends and family and cherished memories. We spent Christmas with my parents, arriving late Tuesday night and staying a whole week. It was one of the longest trips the kids have had at my parents house in years and they enjoyed every minute of it. All of my siblings were home for Christmas and our kids had such a good time playing with the cousins, aunts and uncles.
Christmas Eve was spent shopping and wrapping and crafting and sewing (new nightgowns for all the granddaughters) until the wee wee hours of the morning. In true W* style, we are once again very grateful to Walgreen's for being open on Christmas Eve and in the early hours of Christmas Day. Every year we seem to manage to make it worth their while to stay open. This year it was for a plunger [one of my Dad's home teaching families called to report that their only toilet was clogged and they couldn't find a plunger. Thankfully the clog resolved itself minutes before my dad and GR got to their doorstep, and they now have a plunger.] and 44 AA and 8 9V batteries. Santa's Reindeer are also quite grateful to Quick Trip and their freshly delivered donuts (at 2:30 AM) - even on Christmas Morning.
Here are the kids with Aunt Barb, wearing their new PJs, courtesy of Grandma Mutti:
Christmas Day was spent leisurely opening presents all day long, eating lots and lots of chocolate and yummy handmade goodies (thanks to Joe and Katy!) and helping the kids play with their two favorite toys ... the Wii and 6 remote control cars (one for each of the grandchildren).
The minute we put the close on Christmas Day our families total focus shifts to celebrating my Dad's birthday which is a few days later ...
