Family Man Librarian » linda

Another trip to Volo Bog

Steve — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:49:49 +0000

Saturday afternoon we met my brother Tim and his wife, Linda, and their youngest, Elsie, for lunch. Afterward we went to Volo Bog and had an interesting tour. We had a great time!

A good cry

Steve — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 03:02:57 +0000

My brother and sister-in-law, Tim and Linda, played this for us when we had breakfast at their house yesterday. It just blew me away and I had a good cry. God uses the most unlikely people, and the most unlikely circumstances, to make a huge statement about His love. I love my great God.

Some family photos

Steve — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 21:48:04 +0000

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:

Lane’s End (Devon, England)

Steve — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 02:06:02 +0000

My brother Dan recently created a nice website for relatives in England. My sister-in-law, Linda, is from Devon, and her parents have a centuries-old farm called “Snape” on which they recently built a cabin that they rent out to vacationers. The cabin is called “Lane’s End.” Click here to see the online version of the official brochure for “Lane’s End” that Dan put on the web. There are also some additional photos of the farm and surrounding countryside taken by him on a visit to this beautiful place a few years ago. I was fortunate to spend some time there as well about five years ago, and among other experiences, was able to help birth a lamb! If you’re ever in England and are looking for a wonderful place, a hideaway, in which to get some rest and relaxation, this is THE place to go.

Hitting a deer in our new van

Steve — Mon, 02 Jun 2003 14:45:29 +0000

We spent this weekend in Villa Grove with family. We were anxious to see how my sister-in-law, Linda, was doing, and also how my mother was doing. On our way there Friday night, a deer jumped out from the side of the road and hit our van. Fortunately none of us was hurt, although there’s quite a bit of damage to the front of the van. It shook us up. The poor deer was badly hurt but not killed instantly. The situation was complicated further by the fact that a storm spawning tornados was rapidly bearing down upon us on the small, country road we were on, and we had to wait about an hour for a policeman to come to give us an accident report and shoot the poor deer. After the policeman finallly came, we drove on to Villa Grove through very stormy weather, on the lookout for a tornado in the vicinity. We could only wait ’til flashes of lightning lit up the sky to see what was around us. It was pretty scary! We heard after we got to my brother’s house that a tornado had been sited about five miles from where we were. Today is Keegan’s first day of summer vacation and already, he is anxious to get outside and play, ride his bike, call friends, etc. I told him to chill out a bit I’m hoping to get the insurance matters worked out this a.m. relating to the car accident before I go into work.

Garage sale

Steve — Sun, 25 May 2003 20:44:49 +0000

Yesterday was an incredibly busy day, as Michele helped to manage a garage sale at our house while I attended commencement as part of Taylor’s faculty in the a.m. and did some work in the garden in the p.m. The garage sale proceeds all go to MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers). Michele is on the leadership team for the local group. The sale netted about $365, which was really good. Fortunately Taylor’s commencement was held outside in the stadium, rather than in the unairconditioned gym. It was a beautiful, although windy, day. I got a good sunburn on my face, sitting there for hours. Taylor graduated more people (over 400) this year than any other year in its 157 year history. The keynote speaker was Ravi Zacharias, one of my favorite Christian apologists. His son, Nathan, was graduating this year from Taylor. I was really pleased to get many things planted in the vegetable garden, including bush beans, two different kinds of tomato (Goliath and Beefeater), red and yellow pepper plants, and jalapeno and habanero peppers. I have cucumber plants to put in today or tomorrow, plus I hope to put in some corn and some other things. I also planted some nice hollyhocks on the side of the garden shed that faces the house. They should be really pretty when in bloom later this summer. Unfortunately, Brinley got pretty sick last night after being outside all day yesterday. We think she may have the croup, although we hope it isn’t something worse. Michele hardly got any sleep last night because she was listening to Brinley’s breathing, which was labored at times. We heard yesterday that my sister-in-law, Linda, was able to go home from the hospital, which is good news. She is very weak and is still experiencing some bleeding but otherwise is better. One other piece of good news is that someone who stopped at our garage sale took one of the four remaining kittens.

Feral kittens

Steve — Tue, 20 May 2003 20:46:56 +0000

Well, our family has grown by four. I discovered that a feral cat had a litter of six kittens in our garden shed. As of this afternoon she was nowhere to be seen and two of the kittens had disappeared, so we made the difficult decision to take the remaining four inside and try to raise them. They are about three weeks old at most, and barely have their eyes open. One is all black, two are brown tabby in color, and one is black with white markings. Michele and I are both allergic to cats so are we insane, stupid…you name it? Go figure. Now we’ve got four kittens to feed every three to four hours. Gluttons for punishment, that’s what we are. We heard good news today about my sister-in-law, Linda. I spoke with her husband, my brother, Tim, this evening. He said she’s doing better. The baby is ok although located near the cervix rather than near the top of the womb as it should be. I saw a new bird at the bird feeders, a gray catbird. That was kind of exciting. I didn’t sleep much last night so am pretty tired and hoping tonight will be different.

Sick sister-in-law

Steve — Sat, 17 May 2003 20:49:44 +0000

Word from my mother this a.m. is good in that my sister-in-law, Linda, is doing a bit better than last night, even though she is still in tremendous pain. She has a very low blood count and has had four units of blood. I’m feeling better than yesterday, when I basically slept most of the day. Tristan still has a fever this a.m. but it is lower than before. It’s a rather cloudy day outside — looks like it’s going to rain, again. Michele and I need to clean the garage because we’re hosting a garage sale next Saturday, for which the profits will be donated to MOPS. I’ll not be able to help next Saturday with the garage sale as that is graduation day for Taylor and I have to participate in the faculty march. Every morning I continue to enjoy watching the birds at the feeders. This morning I identified a new sparrow that I hadn’t known about, a song sparrow. It’s very common but I hadn’t identified it before. I’m waiting for the goldfinches to feed at the special feeder hanging from the overhang next to the patio door. I don’t think they’ve noticed that it’s full of thistle seed yet. I need to fill up the hummingbird feeder and hang it. Today is also the day when Keegan’s school has its annual carnival and Keegan really wants to go. We’ll see.

Teaching an online course

Steve — Thu, 15 May 2003 20:50:52 +0000

Today is a sad and troubling day because Michele and I heard from my mom that my sister-in-law, Linda, is very sick again and hospitalized for intense pain in her stomach region. She spent two weeks in hospital about four months ago for similar pain and had an operation to clear up intestinal adhesions. Now we wonder if that really is the problem or not. She is in surgery as I write this and we are praying for her and my brother Tim, as well as their children. Fortunately Linda’s parents are over here from Great Britain and staying with them right now. I’m regressing into feeling worse again with this cold or whatever it is, and it looks like Tristan has come down with it, too, judging by his runny nose and general crabbiness. Today I accepted an offer to teach a course this fall as an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science in their distance education curriculum, known as LEEP. It’ll be a great experience but it scares me to death as I’ve never done something like this before. Just the thought of developing a syllabus is awfully intimidating!