Celebration

Yesterday we started the day off at my Aunt Mildred's 90th Birthday party. Doesn't she look great? I now know what I can look forward to.....great genes! I also want to point out the mere fact that I'm wearing those 4 1/2" shoes....and I'm not even as tall as my aunt! We had a German luncheon.....my Great Grandparents are from Germany, so it's only befitting we had lunch at the Phoenix Club in Anaheim. I liked my sandwich, but the smell of the cabbage and saurkraut was not appealing.

After the party we went to go get the kids to go to party #2. My dad's 57th birthday. We went to the swim club and had a BBQ. Always a great time swimming! My boys are doing amazing. Austin is diving so well, such great form. And Zachary.....what can I say? He's like a little fish now and barely needs help.

I found out a little more about Colin and what's going on. He's still not sure why he's "active", but it's not like you can really argue with the government. His unit (apparently he's been reassigned) is already gone in Kuwait doing some sort of training......something about rescue, can't remember what it's called. So he's supposed to go to Fort Campbell later in August for Soldier Readiness Training for a few weeks. There are 34 guys that are to go. Then sometime in October he's to go to Kuwait for a few weeks and then to Iraq. His "unit" is on a 15 month tour. When he goes in October there are 9 months left of that tour and that's how long he'll be gone. We're kind of hoping for a miracle that he doesn't go and here's why. Colin had a job working in a steel factory cutting metal and they held his position until he got back. About two weeks ago when he and another guy were loading a piece to be cut, it dropped on Colin's finger.....his right finger and smooshed the heck out of it. He went to the doctors and it's isn't broken, but apparently there isn't blood circulating in it very well and he has no feeling in it, which in his follow up appt's they'll be checking for that, which means he could lose the tip. Are you catching where I'm going with this? His right finger is his trigger finger. This could be the miracle or a way out. All of this just leaves me feeling so surreal....my baby brother going off to war. I won't go into the politics of the war other than we're not for it and think the troops should have been out of there a long time ago.

I won't leave on such a sullen note, here's a funny story from yesterday's dinner. I'm sitting there with two of my brothers, Colin & Garrett. I keep looking at Garrett's forhead and notice this dark circle, a practically perfect circle. Werid? I ask what happened? Colin whips out his cell phone to show me a pic from a week ago.......HUGE KNOT! Yuck! What happened? Well, Colin doesn't have a car and was at a party and asked Garrett (who's 17) to come get him. When Garrett shows up, Colin is fighting with some guys and getting his butt kicked pretty bad, in fact really bad. Garrett jumps in to save his brother and somebody hits him in the head with a beer bottle. Nice. They're both laughing, especially Colin who has always thinks he's so tough saying how he had to have his baby brother save him. Unbelievable......boys.