Grandpa Boeds

 

Cyril L. Boedeker
November 30, 1918-December 11, 2011

As I mentioned previously, we said farewell to my Grandpa in December.  He was 93 years old and lived a full life…enjoying his family and the things he loved for longer than most.  I can't count the number of people that said the thing they remembered most about Grandpa was his laugh or his smile.  I have to admit that is one of the things I remember the most as well. 

Grandpa had his share of hard times, that's for sure, but he always had a song in his heart and in his step.  You might think that is an exaggeration, but it's not.  Even when he didn't have music playing at his house (which was very frequently) he was always humming or singing some tune.  He would very often share a line or two if something reminded him of one of his favorites.  I remember distinctly listening to him sing in church and feeling nervous about dancing with him at my wedding.  He was a MUCH better dancer than me after all.  I've heard stories about how he loved to perform in variety shows when my mom was growing up and can picture it easily. 

Grandpa served in World War II.  As with many veterans, he had an obvious loyalty and love for his country.  He didn't always say it with words, but you just knew it.  I loved seeing that glint in his eye when he talked about being in the service, especially when he talked about meeting my Grandma.  He remembered fondly those days of being young and in love.  They had a military wedding (as I understand it) and then spent the early days apart from each other.  Eventually they settled in St. Louis and continued to have fun while raising their family. 

The one thing that was probably more important to Grandpa than his country and family was his faith.  He was always very active in his church life and generous to the needs of his parish.  Grandpa was not a complainer, but when he was feeling ill or weak, the one thing he complained about was not getting to go to Mass.  The example of faith that he lived and his rosary beads at his chair spoke much louder than his speech. 

Grandpa's funeral was a special time to remember him and to be with family.  The Mass was beautiful and burial service, complete with military salute, was powerful.  It was (and is) hard to say goodbye but easier first because I can imagine that glint again as he was reunited with my Grandma 26 years after her death and secondly because of our hope that we will see him with Jesus when it is our turn. 

Love you Grandpa...

 

 

On to 2012...

 It wasn't 10 days after we got back to Michigan that Grandma and Grandpa Meinhart came up for a visit.  No, it wasn't that they couldn't stand to be away from us that long.  I had known for a couple of months that I would need to go to Atlanta for 2-3 days for work.  So, we called up the reserves!  The great thing about that was that we got to celebrate Grandma Meinhart's birthday with her.  Marie was CERTAIN that Grandma would love to have apple crisp for her birthday dessert.  It turned out pretty well, but we'll know next time to let it cool a little bit more before putting in the candles…it doesn't take long for those to melt!

So I think we've pretty much gotten back into a routine around here.  I guess we should by now since it is almost February.  Marie is thriving at school.  I just went to a parent teacher conference last week and the teacher said Marie is doing very well with all of her studies and is particularly impressed with her reading.  Her only real complaint is that Marie can be a bit of a slow poke when it comes to transitioning from one thing to the next.  This was not at all surprising to us since she is very much the same way at home. 

Somewhere in all that December traveling, Joey was potty trained.  He had been doing excellent with #2, but was always to distracted or busy to worry about #1.  To be honest, we were not stressing out about it too much and would venture to say that we really hadn't committed to getting him trained.  But, all of a sudden during the early December drive down to Illinois, he was dry…the whole time!  Sure we've had some accidents here and there, but for the must part, he is doing great.  He is started to recognize numbers and letters.  A few of the letters he is able to associate with sounds and can do some basic addition and subtraction.  He still skips "15" when he counts to 20, but we'll keep working on that.

Stevie is quite the card and still gets into everything.  He frequently makes a series of faces at us as if he is giving some sort of treatise.  He is really very animated.  The stairs seem to be a a magnet for him with the sole reason to just climb up and down.  Yep, he really likes climbing down them but is not quite good enough yet not to worry his mother.  And his latest trick just the last day or so has been WALKING.  He has been able to take quite a few steps in a row and has covered 6'-8' on his own.  He thinks he is pretty hot stuff.  He is almost 11 months old, which means he is 3 months ahead of when Marie and Joey walked.

Even with the mild winter, we have been able to get out to the sledding hill a few times.  Marie and Joey still really enjoy it and since the snow has not been that deep, they have both been able to climb back up on their own.  Well, Joey likes to hold our hand, but at least we're not towing him up.  We've also taken Stevie a couple of times, but he doesn't like it.  We can't quite figure that out since he is a bit of a daredevil everywhere else.  We're guessing he'll grow into it.

So, I think that brings us up to date.  I have the best intentions of not letting things go this long before I post again, but quite frankly I'm not making any promises.  Thanks for hanging on with us this long and hope to see you again soon in the blog-o-sphere.

Christmas 2011

After Joey's birthday weekend, I was thinking it was time for me to focus on the upcoming Christmas holiday.  After all we had already celebrated the first two Sundays in Advent.  There were decorations to get out and put up, shopping to do, and parties to attend.  Saturday the 10th, we went to the annual Christmas party hosted by our dear friends.  That is the one night a year that we REALLY don't worry about staying out too late or getting home at a decent time. 

The next morning as we were getting ready for church, we got a call from Grandma Meinhart, saying that Great-Grandpa Boedeker had passed away through the night.  As soon as I saw that she was calling at that time of the day on a Sunday, I knew something was wrong.  There will be pictures and more on Grandpa later, but for purposes here, that just meant that we quickly made arrangements and packed up the family to drive back down to Illinois / St. Louis for the funeral and services.  We left Michigan on Wednesday and drove back the following Sunday.

By this time, it was less than a week before Christmas.  We quickly got Christmas cards out and did virtually all of our shopping online.  We got by with the decorations that were already up and didn't worry about getting out any more boxes.  We went to our very first Christmas program at SSA on Monday night.  It was unlike any other Christmas program that I had ever attended.  Sure there were still the cute little songs sung by the younger kids in their mixture of shy and barely audible and confident almost yelling voices.  But, there was also a Eucharistic procession and a short time of family prayer and adoration in the chapel in front of the creche.  Despite having three very tired young kids on our hands, it was definitely a good experience. 

The rest of the week was a flurry of tying up things at work, unpacking and re-packing, wrapping presents, and getting ready for our traditional Midwest Christmas tour.  First stop…Pittsburgh.
It was Friday by the time we had ourselves ready for our Christmas tour.  We loaded up as much as we could on Thursday night and headed out the next morning.  We stopped in Aurora to have lunch, spend the afternoon, and eat dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Shibata.  Uncle Joel, Aunt Jenn, and TJ were also there so it was good to catch up with them.  We then drove the rest of the way to Pittsburgh and spent the night at Aunt Jess'. 

The next day was Christmas Eve.  Everyone came over to Aunt Jess' to celebrate.  There was pickle finding, craft making, present opening (and playing), church going, and of course lots of eating.  The day went by quickly.  The following day, we all went over to Uncle James' and Aunt Jaclyn's house.  Uncle James made a ham and there were more than 10 kinds of Christmas cookies (thanks mostly to Aunt Jaclyn) to be eaten.  We spent the day there just playing and enjoying the company.  The day after Christmas, Uncle Joel, Aunt Jenn and TJ had to head back to State College and Grandpa and Grandma drove back to Ohio.  The rest of us went back over to James' and Jaclyn's house to visit some more and eat more of those Christmas cookies.  Aunt Jaclyn was such a trooper to have so much company…did I mention that she was literally only a couple of days from her due date during all of this!!

 On Tuesday, we started our trek from Pittsburgh to Illinois.  We prepared mentally for it.  It ended up taking us close to 12 hours in all, but that included stopping both for lunch and dinner.  We made really good time during the first half, even getting to just east of Indy.  But then, in the last two hours of driving time, we stopped 4 times.  We threw in the towel and stopped at a little Mexican restaurant for dinner.  The kids loved it.  Marie got to try out the Spanish she's been learning at school.  "May we have dos boxes, please?"  We finally made it "home" welcomed by Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Mark, Aunt Sarah, and Uncle Matt and got the kids to bed as soon as we could.

We stayed down in Illinois for four days.  While there we took Joey and Stevie to get their hair cut; it was Stevie's first.  (Thanks, Ang!)  We spent a good deal of time getting ready to host a baby shower for Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mark, which was held in Grandma and Grandpa's brand new dining room.  We got to go to the Meinhart Christmas and enjoy the always heated Meinhart Mishap Award competition while catching up with quite a few of our relatives on that side.  And last, but not least, we went to a bridal shower for the "Meinhart" next in line, Jordan Traub, who is marrying Cousin Brad in just a couple of weeks.

We celebrated New Year's Eve with drinks, food, and a rousing game of Mexican Train Domino's (house rules).  But probably most exciting was getting the news that our new niece, Joy Aiko had been born!  I couldn't think of a better way to bring in the new year!

  

 

Needless to say, our time down south was a busy time, but as always loaded with tons of fun.  During "down" time, the kids got to help "the guys" install some shelving, drive the tractor, feed the kitties, read lots of books, visit the farm, and generally get lots of well-deserved attention.  We drove back to Michigan on Monday which turned out to be not a very good day to be driving.  There wasn't a lot of snow, but the temperature was just right and there was just enough to make the roads treacherous at times.  In fact, we spent over an hour and a half in Indy stopped on the freeway and pulled over north of Fort Wayne due to almost white out conditions.  Miraculously, we didn't have any screaming children and no urgent potty issues.  We made it home late and got the kids in bed just as soon as we could.  Thankfully, Marie had another day before she had to start school.  Poor Jon had to get up the next morning and get to work.

As with years past, the Christmas road trip was busy and tiring, but we came away from it so thankful to have had the chance to see and visit with so much of our family and knowing that we wouldn't blink an eye about doing it again…in about a year.  :)

Thanksgiving and Early December (2011)

If I were to pick a theme for the end of 2011 I think I would choose…road trip. 

The last update from the Shibata's was at Thanksgiving time, when we were in Illinois to celebrate the holiday with the Meinhart clan.  Marie did not have school on the day before Thanksgiving, so the plan was to take that day to drive south. 

As it turned out, we did use that as our driving day, but we didn't get as early a start as we had hoped / intended.  You see, the day before, I had noticed that the furnace wasn't working.  I had this realization in the morning, when it was still in the low to mid 60's in the house.  I figured it wouldn't be so bad; I'd have the repair guy come out and take a look at it.  He had all day, right?  I decided to use the day to do a bunch of baking (at least the kitchen would be warm) and waited for him to arrive. 

It got to be 4:45 PM and still no repair guy.  I called the repair company back and learned that somehow the work ticket had been misplaced and that is why no one had come to check out our furnace.  I was assured that a repairman (presumably the guy in charge) would be there right away, and in fact he was.  He went into the basement, and when he came back upstairs, he informed me that the furnace required a new part and that he might have the part back at his shop.  If he didn't, then he would need to pick up the part the next day and then install it.  I really hoped that he had the part…

He drove back to his shop and called me back to inform me that he in fact did not have the part.  This meant that we would have no heat through the night.  So, we got our (gas) fireplace going and decided  to have a camp out in the living room.  Hopefully it was something fun and out of the ordinary that at least Marie will remember.  At any rate, it was out of our routine enough that we didn't get started as early as we had intended.  (For those of you that are interested, the repairman came over later, replaced the part, and fixed the furnace.  Thanks Uncle Mark for checking on things later that night!)

We were able to make it home and enjoy a very nice Thanksgiving Day / dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Meinhart, Uncle Matt, Uncle Dave, and Itxaso. 

Our original plan for Black Friday was to have the whole family head over to St. Louis to celebrate and visit with Great-Grandpa Boedeker.  Since Grandpa wasn't feeling that well, just a few of the adults went over to visit for a bit.  It was much more time in the car than time to visit, but I think that Grandpa chatted just a bit and I think genuinely appreciated it.

On Saturday, we celebrated "Meinhart" Thanksgiving and Marie and Joey were able to play with and spend more time with that side of the family.  Marie is getting old enough to play with and remember some of her second cousins (and great-aunts and uncles), which makes those gatherings even more fun. 

We headed back to Michigan on Sunday, thankful for the time to spend with our family, but as expected, tired.

Not a week later, it was time to celebrate Joey's 3rd birthday.  Mom and Dad drove up to Michigan a couple of days early and helped out with getting the house in order and getting food ready for the party.  That also allowed us to celebrate Grandpa Meinhart's birthday with him.  We are guessing that this might happen on a regular basis in years to come since Grandpa's birthday is the day before Joey's.  We're not complaining! :)  This year, we had apple pie and ice cream and the kids' gave him night crawlers as a gift.  Boy was he surprised!
 

For the kids' birthdays we never have a really big get together or go too far out of the way, but I like to have a little something to make the day special and don't know how I would get it done without a couple of extra sets of hands.  Uncle Mark and Aunt Sarah came over and Grandpa and Grandma Shibata and Aunt Jess come up for the afternoon. 

The day after Joey's birthday, I was again able to take advantage of the extra hands and we put up the outdoor Christmas lights and also picked out our tree.  This year we opted for just picking out our tree instead of cutting it down ourselves.  We were running out of sunlight and decided if we didn't get it done that day, then it would be difficult to impossible to fit it in some other day.  As it turns out, it was much less work, the kids still enjoyed it, it was less time consuming and less expensive, and we still got a nice looking and smelling tree out of it.