Category Archives: birthdays

Look who’s 40

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Today my brother, Dan, and sister, Debbie, who are twins, turn 40 years old. Amazing. I am the youngest of seven children (five boys and two girls; an eighth child, Donny, died when he was 18 months old). Dan and Debbie are the next youngest siblings. When we were kids, we tended to play games together and were perhaps closer to one another than we were to older brothers and my older sister. Individually and together, we have gone through a lot over the years.

Partly in celebration of their birthday, Dan and Debbie are going on special trips soon. I’m a bit jealous ;-) because Debbie is going to Florida for a week, and Dan is going to New Zealand for two weeks to visit with my sister, Becky, and her family.

Now tomorrow is another family birthday, this time, for my brother, Jeff. I wish Debbie, Dan, and Jeff well on their special days.

Keegan turns 14

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Yesterday was Keegan’s 14th birthday. We are celebrating his birthday this coming weekend with a get together, but last night, Michele made him a special meal and we had cake and ice cream. Keegan was pretty down in the dumps in spite of this, mainly because he found out that a Gamecube game he had wanted to buy at Target wasn’t suitable (too much violence, foul language, etc.). It was his choice to make and I’m proud of him for making it, even though he felt pretty bummed about it. He also wanted to buy a new MP3 player (he already has an iPod Shuffle) but doesn’t have enough money yet to buy a nice one.

Tristan turns five

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Monday we celebrated Tristan’s 5th birthday. Hard to believe he is five already! Next year he starts school. I hope to post pictures from his birthday party soon. On Sunday afternoon as part of celebrating his birthday, I took Tristan and Brinley to see Chicken Little at a nearby theater. It was Tristan’s second time going to see a movie and Brinley’s first. We had a good time and in general, the movie was good. Some parts of the movie were a little too intense, I thought, and I worried that Brinley in particular might get scared and start to cry. But she did ok. She just kept saying that the movie was too loud! The funny part was when one scene featured a sudden movement accompanied by a loud sound, and I levitated a few inches from my seat whereas Brinley and Tristan remained calmly sitting in their chairs. I laughed ’til I cried. I’m notoriously jumpy when it comes to startling movie scenes and if I go to a movie with others in our family, they usually refuse to sit next to me for fear that I might spill popcorn all over them, or worse, a drink. They usually say, “OK, get a seatbelt, would ya?!”

Some family photos

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My brother, Dan, digitized many family photos a while ago. I’ve chosen a few to show here.

Below is a photo of all of my family members on the afternoon of our wedding in January 2000, including my six brothers and sisters and almost all of my nieces and nephews and one of my cousins. This is the last photo taken that includes all of my siblings and parents. My sister, Becky, is married and lives in New Zealand, so it is very unusual to have her in a recent family photo. And then my father died almost exactly two years after this photo was taken.

First row from left to right: Dan (brother), Ben (nephew), Keegan (son), Pelle (nephew), and Nils (nephew); Second row: Lars (nephew), my mother with Kerstin (niece) in her lap, my father with Bjorn (nephew) in his lap, and Sam (nephew from New Zealand). Third row: Debbie (sister), Bradley (cousin), Linda (sister-in-law), Jeff (brother), Jocelyn (niece), Tim (brother), Petra (sister-in-law), Kevin (brother), Britta (niece), me, Michele, Becky (sister from New Zealand).

Here is a photo of my mother and father on their wedding day in September 1958:

This photo is of Grandma McCallum, my mother’s mother. I was really close to her and miss her even to this day. This is the last photo taken of her not long before her death in October 1982. The baby in the stroller is Nils, my oldest nephew:

Below is a late photo of Grandpa and Grandma McCallum, the only grandparents I ever knew (my paternal grandparents both died before I was old enough to remember them):

I like this photo of all of us kids (except Donny, my parents’ third child, who died of unknown causes at 18 months of age). Left to right: Dan (#6 and twin to Debbie), Kevin (#1), me (#8) in Kevin’s lap, Tim (#2) with Debbie (#7 and twin to Dan) on his lap, Jeff (#4), and Becky (#5). At this point we still lived in Nebraska:

My Kiwi brother-in-law, Martin (top), along with some friends, pretending to do a Maori war dance called the “haka,” on a beautiful beach on the North Island:

Finally, here I am for my third birthday:

Tristan Turns 4

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Sunday was Tristan’s 4th birthday. We had a small party for him and had a lot of fun with the Spiderman theme. He loves Spiderman. Here are some photos of that evening. Highlights of his presents were a beautiful pair of real cowboy boots from Grandma Oberg and a V-Smile video learning system from Grandpa and Grandma Jozwiak and Uncle Brian. He also got a castle-themed Playmobile set. He feels very grown up! It’s hard to believe he is 4 years old already.

A beautiful fall day

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Today is a beautiful fall day here in Indiana. The leaves are turning brilliant colors, the temperature is around 70 degrees, and the sun is shining. Better yet, the kids — my hooligans — are all either asleep or calmly watching television. In other words, yes, I get an opportunity to write in this blog a little bit, and to reflect and relax a little bit, too.

Today didn’t start out very well. The nighttime was rough. All of the kids except for Keegan have colds and aren’t feeling well, which means that invariably, one or more of them end up in our bed, and I end up in one of their beds. It’s been so long since I slept in my own bed the whole night through, sans kids, that I can’t remember what it was like! I couldn’t sleep for most of last night and ended up watching Nova on PBS, an interesting show on pearls. I fell asleep in the living room and woke up with one of the worst headaches I have had since the meningitis episode a year ago. I had to go back to bed, twice. Fortunately, now I feel quite a bit better, although worn out. Michele is taking a much-deserved nap upstairs. Keegan is holding Cohen.

Things on my mind today: I need to pay bills; I wish I had the energy to clean up around the house; we might do some shopping this afternoon so that Michele can spend some of her birthday money; should I accept the offer to teach another class next spring (’05) for my alma mater, the #1 ranked graduate library school, UIUC GSLIS; if I’m going to start my PhD program next fall, I need to get going with the application process; how am I ever going to get caught up at work; I desperately need a network of Christian friends and community here, and so does Michele; how ironic it is that this is so hard when I’m working for a Christian university in a largely Christian town.