Sharing Each Other's Interests

I have been looking forward to this summer for some time.  For the first summer since I met Brian three years ago, we don't have to travel back and forth to see one another.  Last summer was particularly crazy.  Between trying to plan our wedding and packing up/preparing to move, it was a whirlwind.  After our honeymoon, Brian was right back to work and that's when I began to look forward to this summer... a hopefully and expectantly un-chaotic, calm, peaceful summer of my dreams.

Perhaps I should not dream TOO big.

In our excitement, we often speak of things we want to do this summer. Earlier today, one thing came up in conversation that I did NOT want to do. Whilst cleaning our DVD cabinet, Brian came across his Yankees World Series DVD (I believe it was '96?), and casually asked me if I would watch it with him. I said an emphatic "no" included with a very strong "I will not". Yikes, I hope I didn't sound like an unreasonable wife, but I did watch the Superbowl with him (a thing single Courtney would never have done in a million years), and I've endured my fair share of listening to recordings of junior high and high school bands over the past few months.

As my husband continued to ask me if I would please watch it with him, I said that I would not unless he would sit down and watch Jane Austen with me. To both of our satisfaction, an agreement began to take form. "How long are those movies?"  "Well, 'Pride & Prejudice' BBC version is something like five hours, and that's just one." He decided to throw in another baseball thing to even out the difference. I tried to tell him that I have three versions of 'Emma' and at least two of everything else, but I won't make him watch all the versions. I won't be that mean.

So now the only challenges that remain are preventing my mind from wandering during baseball and keeping Brian from falling asleep during Jane Austen.  Think we can do it?

Memorial Day Weekend

Since Brian's school district tacked two unused snow days onto Memorial Day weekend, we decided to head up to see his parents.  Brian's folks escape the winter cold at their second home in Arizona for a few months each year, and we hadn't seen them since just before Christmas.

I really like Brian's hometown.  Every time I'm up there, I stare in awe at the landscape- rolling hills that seem to go on and on- so unlike where I grew up.  Yes, I had the beach, but everywhere else in my neck of the woods was completely built up.  If there was a speck of land, they'd build something on it.  Another store, another strip mall, another Dunkin Donuts, etc.  It was convenient all right.  It just wasn't very pretty.  Driving on Brian's very own street, it looks like a postcard.  I can't get enough of looking at it.

We had a great visit.  We spent time with Brian's parents who seem to enjoy my stories of what it is like to live with their son.  We also had a lovely visit with our niece and nephew, Brian's sister and brother-in-law, Brian's grandma (I call her "Grandma", too), and Brian's cousin Debbie.  Oh, and we absolutely cannot forget Puttitat.

Here are a few photos of our time with Lauren and Ethan:

Aren't they cute? :)

Busiest Week of the Year

Since Brian and I had a long distance relationship, I never got to see him conduct a concert until this past December.  Now I think he is getting used to me waiting in the wings, camera in hand, as I proudly watch him lead his band make some pretty terrific music.

I don't envy his work.  It's a job I could never do, I believe, even if I were a musical genius.  This year has been a learning experience for me as I've observed just all the craziness his job entails.  And just having to cart the large, heavy instruments from here to there would be enough for me to turn in my resignation.  Or maybe I'd have to get a gym membership in order to lift the cumbersome things. Anyway, I digress.

Last week was the busiest week of the entire school year for Brian.  If there was an event to be had, it was.  His spring concert was on Tuesday.  This was excellent preparation for the upcoming competition for the band on Thursday as the students performed two of the three songs they would play before judges.  In my opinion, I thought the band sounded great, and I am always so proud to see Brian throw himself into the song he is conducting in order to bring out the best in his students.

On Thursday he and his junior and senior high bands went to the yearly competition where they would be judged, critiqued, graded, dissected, etc. before some pretty important people in the state of NY.  His senior high band was at a great disadvantage due to the absence of Brian's best all-state player whose father had just passed away.  Both bands performed well, but I can say from my own listening experience, as least with the high school band, they performed better at the concert, no doubt to having the full band present.  In any case, both bands were challenged, and Brian was proud of them.

Brian finished the week on Friday doing some judging of his own.  It was a tiring week, but we are looking forward to things winding down in the weeks before graduation.

Here is Brian with his jazz band.  This is a new group that just started this year.

The junior high band gets ready to play.

Brian works with his senior high band before their performance in front of the dreaded judges.

Terrible lighting, I know, but this is the high school band about to perform in an auditorium much larger than what they are used to.

Band Mom

My career as a band mom has officially begun.  After Brian and I got engaged last year, he didn't tell his students right away.  He wanted to wait for an important moment to do so, so he decided that the right time was when his students just performed at their band festival and he was giving them their ranking.  He said that next year, he'd be bringing along a new chaperone... the Mrs.  They were very glad for him, and no doubt surprised, since he never mentioned he had a girlfriend.  For the record, neither did I to my students (a boyfriend, that is), and while happy for me, they couldn't believe I had never informed them of such a significant detail.

Truth be told, I do miss my students.  They brought both joy and headaches to my life, but I miss interacting with them.  Some of them may have given me grief, but I also received plenty of love, and it was hard saying goodbye to them.

So when Brian asked me to help him chaperone his students at their solo festival, I was happy to do so.  Brian was so excited to introduce me to his students and break me into my new role.  I only met a portion of his students, but they were very receptive of me, and I even had a couple of nice chats with a few of the girls.  It made me miss my kids even more.

This week, I'll be helping once again as all ninety-four of his students will be heading to their band festival.  I'm glad to have the opportunity to join my husband in his work and interact with teenagers once again.

But for the record, the term "Band Mom" makes me feel really old.

A Daily Surrender

I read this in one of my devotional books a couple of weeks ago, and it's been with me ever since.

"But is it our business to pry into what may happen tomorrow?  It is a difficult and painful exercise which saps the strength and uses up the time given us today.  Once we give ourselves up to God, shall we attempt to get hold of what can never belong to us- tomorrow?  Our lives are His, our times in His hand, He is Lord over what will happen, never mind what may happen.  When we prayed, 'Thy will be done,' did we suppose He did not hear us?  He had indeed, and daily makes our business His and partakes of our lives.  If my life is once surrendered, all is well.  Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!" ~ Elisabeth Elliot, "Keep a Quiet Heart"  (Book given to me by my friend Ruth.)

I can always count on Elisabeth Elliot to put things into the right perspective.  Oh, how wonderfully true these words are!  Lately, I have found myself worried about various things in my life, all of which I cannot control and cause me grief in one form or another.  When I read these words, it was like seeing my reflection in a mirror.  Did I walk away immediately transformed?  I wish!  No, it is a daily surrender.

I remember reading Elisabeth Elliot's "Through Gates of Splendor".  In that book, she writes of the journey that resulted in the death of her husband and four other missionary men in Ecuador.  When the men were on what would be their final mission, "Operation Auca", they had planned to contact their wives by radio at a designated time to let them know of their progress.  At the appointed time, the radio was silent.  The women knew something was wrong, but they didn't give in to despair or grief.  Elisabeth, in fact, went on to teach one of her classes even as the fate of her husband was still uncertain.  She didn't do what I would have done, which would have consisted of canceling everything so I could sit and fret until I heard word.

When the ladies did finally learn the truth, no one lost control or threw themselves on the floor in a fit of tears.  No one cursed God and pounded the floor with their fists, nor did they start saying, "Why me?"  They understood that His plans are infinitely bigger than ours.  Though they did grieve the loss of their husbands and the fathers to their children, they did so with dignity, all the while trusting in their Savior.

What a lesson for us all!  How I wish my faith were as strong, and I pray that God is not done with me yet, but that as He keeps dipping me back into the furnace, I will eventually, even faintly, resemble something of His image.

An Engagement Story

Yesterday was our eight month anniversary.  Today is the one year anniversary of our engagement.  I thought I'd tell our story here, just because it would be fun to write it down.  So let's rewind the time to April 21, 2011, shall we?  It was Thursday evening, after school had ended and Spring Break had begun:

I was standing in my bedroom, packing my bags, getting ready to head to PA to visit Brian on my week off.  We had looked at rings in December and talked of marriage time and again, and specifically, spoke of marriage that summer.  The weeks and months were going by, and my boyfriend had little time left to propose if he wanted to leave us enough time to plan a wedding by summer's end.  To be honest, I was a bit tired of waiting, because I knew we were going to get married, and I was weary of just being "boyfriend and girlfriend".  I had thought to be engaged by then already, and by the time Spring Break rolled around, I knew that this was the moment.  If we had a week to spend together, surely he would propose then.  As I half jokingly, half seriously said to my mom, "I'm coming back from Spring Break either engaged or single!"

In the midst of my small bedroom, with clothes all around me as I planned out my outfits for a week, I heard a saxophone playing outside my window.  Completely startled, I looked up and saw my Brian.  He got me good!  He had called me just a couple of hours before to tell me he was on his way to his evening job, but he was really coming down to see me!  I fumbled with the window, which is very hard to open, and he asked me if I heard what song he was playing.  I had to admit I hadn't... I was too surprised and jittery!  He played a few bars again, and it was our song "Bless the Broken Road".  I told him to come around to the door so I could let him in, which he did, and then he told my mom and he'd be taking me for a drive.

Well, obviously, this was the time at last, and we walked to his car, which he parked on another street so I wouldn't have seen him pull up.  He drove to the parking lot in the community where I lived, and I guessed by that time that we'd be walking to our favorite bench where we had had several important talks and earnest prayers.  I hadn't grabbed a jacket before we left, and it was a bit chilly, so Brian made short work of the big moment, dropped to one knee, and pulled out a ring that was made just for me.

What a wonderful surprise engagement, because even though I knew Spring Break would bring the glad tidings, I didn't know he'd come down to meet me before I'd be looking for it.  It was wonderful to spend Spring Break engaged from the very beginning, and he saved me the drive by taking me back with him and returning me a week later.  I loved that week, because the majority of people in my world didn't know I was engaged since I was away, and it was a beautiful, sweet secret for the time, just a knowledge that only ourselves and a few people in our lives knew.

Here's a picture of us on that day, one year ago today.

Spring Break in NJ

Brian and I headed to my home last week for Easter.  It was my first Easter home in three years, because the last two I had headed northwest to visit Brian.  It was nice to celebrate Easter again with my family.

My mom and I labored the day before on two pies (apple and strawberry- sadly rhubarb wasn't in the stores yet).  Then on Sunday we went to my sister's.  It was really wonderful to see my nieces and nephews again.  Lindsey has entered a cuddly stage, and I was more than happy to oblige.  Emily is becoming quite the little lady, and the boys have grown these adorable tufts of hair... so cute.  I really could have kidnapped them all and taken them back here.  But alas, we have no room for them.

Easter Sunday was truly a great day... until a scare sent my mom to the ER later that night.  At about 10:30, my mom's back pains (which she thought just were back pains) became excruciating, and so we decided to head for the ER, with minds full of fears.  I guess back pains can indicate a heart attack, so I was whispering unintelligible, two or three word prayers to God the entire ride to the hospital.  "God, help!"  "Lord, heal her." Brian, bless his heart, did a great job speedily navigating my mother's vehicle on the dark streets that he is unfamiliar with.  I was too nervous and so glad he was there to drive.

As it turned out, my mom had a gall stone.  She was released several hours later after receiving pain meds, and I think we were all safely in bed by three.  She may still need surgery, but she is still going through some testing.

It was so difficult watching my mom in that much pain, but I was so thankful to be there with her and that it happened when we were home with her.  Isn't God good?

But, I'm getting a little tired of my trips home involving hospital visits.  It seems like everyone was healthy before I left.  I moved away and my first visit home was to see my dad in the hospital on the brink of triple bypass.  Then this happened with my mom.  When I say that I am tired, I merely mean that I hate watching my parents get older.  It makes me realize they will not be around forever, a thought I'd care not to think at all, but must.

This visit home hit me hard.  I'm not sure what it was- perhaps it was because my mom had to go to the ER- I really don't know, but I cried when we left.  As we were pulling away, my niece Emily was at the door, waving until she could see us no more.  When I blew a kiss, she blew one back, and I looked at her and she looked at us until our car turned the corner.  I think it is just a combination of things- feeling like I'm always missing something now- that made me lose it.  And lose it I did.  Brian held my hand and comforted me; you would have thought I was leaving home for the first time.

I love my husband dearly, and I would follow him anywhere.  He is my partner for life.  But I wouldn't be me if I didn't feel the pain of being separated from my family.

Me and my cutie nephews.  Looking at the picture, I'm not sure which one is which, though I can tell them apart in person.  I went just about weak in the knees to see them in their matching sweater vests.  

My girls are growing up too fast.

Uncle Brian was coerced into playing hopscotch. (That's my lovely sister in the background- not me.  I guess to some we can look alike at times.)

Before we left, Lindsey found Uncle Brian's shirt to be a great place to put her stickers.

They remained there throughout the drive home.