Run Duck Run!

During summer breaks away from VMI, on the weeks when I wasn't aboard a Navy ship during my midshipmen summer training cruises, I was off earning my keep and being a contributing member of the society known as Virginia Beach.  Many of my college peers were smart enough to strap on business attire and do administrative support type work in cushy, air-conditioned offices for their temporary summer jobs.  As for me, I was barely one level above an illegal migrant worker hopping into the back of a total stranger's pickup truck loaded with farm animals to break my back with some serious blister-producing man labor.  And you know what, I've got zero regrets about sweating my tail off during those "summer breaks."  There's something very humbling about good old-fashioned manual labor.  We need to teach our kids this lesson.  God loves a hard worker.

And so my destiny in life for a few summers was to be a member of the Timberlake Community Association maintenance crew.  Our charter was to keep the homeowner's association happy by maintaining the grounds.  We were the silent refrigerator trolls that scurried around out of sight, beautifying the neighborhood and raising property values whenever the refrigerator door closed.  We landscaped, cut grass with tractors and mowers, manicured the curbs with edgers, and took a weedeater to every square inch of that huge community.

Whenever a private homeowner was lax with their lawn mowing duties of their own personal property, they would receive a nasty-gram from the homeowner's association.  If they didn't cut their grass after several warnings, the association would call in the maintenance crew to cut the slacker's yard - whether they wanted it cut or not.  It was communism at its finest.  The cherry on top was the over-inflated bill these slackers would receive in their mailbox shortly after the covert grass cutting.  These homeowners were never pleased to have total strangers cutting their yards.

I remember one angry old man standing in his doorway as we're about to crank up our faithful Toro mower, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth with two inches of ash barely hanging on, beer-stained wifebeater t-shirt covering his gut, and double-barreled shotgun at his side.  I swear I heard him mutter under his Pabst Blue Ribbon breath, "Go ahead, mow my lawn."  Yeah, we weren't gonna take a chance on that one.  Considering that the best years of our lives were still in front of us and that our current salaries were just a smidge north of minimum wage, we collectively decided that we wouldn't test that guy's resolve on that sweltering day.  I can imagine that old guy's explanation while proudly standing over our dead corpses, "They were on my property officer!"

We encountered a wide gamut of characters during these attempted "forced mowings."  At one end of the spectrum was the trigger happy old man wielding a shotgun.  At the other end was the slightly attractive cougar clad in her open bathrobe revealing enough cleavage to make Christina Aguilera blush.  Btw, have you seen Christina as a judge and mentor on the singing competition show, "The Voice?"  My gosh girl, cover those things up.  It's incredibly distracting.  Makes for a titillating show, but still.  Anyway, back to the cougar.  I think this Mrs. Robinson wannabe was purposely letting her garden grow just so she could get a rise out of our sweaty band of migrant workers.  It worked.

And so one of the funniest memories from my days as an, ahem, Professional Landscape Technician, was when one of the filipino guys on the crew started eyeballing the ducks.  It was a nice neighborhood with several quaint ponds.  The ducks were plentiful.  During the spring, the yellow ducklings would follow Mama duck around.  Cars would politely stop as the train of ducks would cross the streets.  Very cute stuff.

Well, my filipino buddy hadn't been in the US for all that long.  His accent was still very thick and more importantly, his attitude on life was still thick with the filipino culture and life challenges.  It can be tough living in the Philippines to say the least.  I saw that with my own two eyes when I visited my parents in the PI back in 2008.  Depending on where you live, food can be hard to come by, especially meat.

As time passed, my buddy's infatuation with the ducks steadily grew.  It was pretty funny watching this grown man chase the ducks around and never catching them.  This guy knew how to make us laugh.  The work we were doing was back breaking stuff.  I felt like the kid from Charlie Brown that always had the dust cloud surrounding him.  I had multiple callouses on my hands from whacking weeds all day long and was extremely dark from hours sweating under that Virginia Beach sun.  And so my friend's dalliance with the ducks was much needed comic relief.

Until one day, he chased down one of the neighborhood ducks, caught it, took it home, cooked it, and ate it for dinner.

I guess he wasn't joking after all.  I'm pretty sure he only did it once.

Flashback Friday - Counting with Jake

Zero

One

Two

Three

Four

Five 

Six

...and seven today for Jake!  Happy Birthday!

Talent Show!

CJ was a good friend tonight in coming out to the Arlington Middle School Talent Show to support his buddy Sean.  That's Sean in the middle with the kilt.  He was awesome with the bagpipes tonight.  How many 13 year olds do you know that can play the bagpipes?

Sean and CJ

I hate to admit it, but I was groaning a little as I'm rushing home from work to take CJ to the Talent Show this evening.  I didn't know about the event until today.  I was thinking about all the work that I needed to finish up and how I really didn't have time to do this.  Blah, blah, blah.  What an idiot I am for even thinking that way.  Navy Personnel Command is like a treadmill.  There's always work and it's always gonna keep going.  It never stops.  But these teenage years are gonna zoom by like the blink of an eye.  Parents need to remind themselves to relish their time with their kids.  Me included.  You see, during the Talent Show two years ago at the Busan Foreign School, I was a grump-butt and didn't go.  Well, I went, but I didn't go inside for some no good reason.  Dumb Chris.

I think CJ was glad that we got to do this together tonight.  One of my favorite things these days is just chatting w/ Ceej at night before he goes to bed.  No particular topic.  Just whatever is on our minds.  Inevitably, we end up laughing about something.  It wasn't that long ago where instead of laughing, I'd find something to nitpick on or to get mad about.  Who wants that kind of talk?  So anyway, you have to take advantage of the fun stuff.  And tonight was one of those times.

The Talent Show reminded me of a couple of things.  Adele is still popular, playing a guitar is still cool, and youth is still king.  The reality is, not everyone on that stage can be a superstar.  But you can go out there and give it your all - whether it's shuffling around a deck of cards for some magic tricks, tap dancing your little heart out in your leotards, or making beautiful sounds spill out of a bagpipe.  It's all good.  Some of those kids were terrified on that stage.  But they got out there.  AND THEY DID IT.  They deserved every single clap and woot-woot from the crowd.  It was heartwarming to hear the positive audience response for every act, no matter if a falsetto note was a little off the mark, a piano stroke off timing, a magic trick inadvertently revealed, or a microphone left in the off position.

I couldn't help but sway to the music and smile at the brashness of it all.  How many times has fear stopped us from saying something to the boss or maybe asking a question in a public forum?  How many times do we hold our tongues anytime there's a crowd?  Maybe we don't even answer the phone because we aren't ready to talk to the person on the other end of the caller ID?  No such timidness from the kids of Arlington Middle School.  Bravery and brashness is what I saw on that stage tonight.  And I loved it.

We had dueling violinists, tap dancers, a magician, guitarists, pianists, and of course some impressive vocalists.  We even had an original number from a New Orleans Saints fan crooning on her favorite football player - the not-so-heralded number 16, wide receiver Lance Moore.  Lance would've been proud.  And what a nice treat for me for the final act.  It was one of my favorite songs, Randy Travis' "I Told You So."  Really good stuff.

So I take back my previous statement.  They were all superstars tonight.  And to think that I almost didn't come.  Dumb Chris.

Yeah, it did bring back some memories from my own Talent Show many moons ago.  That's when the Fil-Am Rockers brought down the house at Kellam High School in Virginia Beach with an awesome breakdancing performance to the song, "Breaker's Revenge."

Definitely Not Wordless

In some ways, this is the opposite of Wordless Wednesday.  

I wonder what happened here. 

In Jake's attempt to not be wasteful, he saved a couple of "e's." 

This is my favorite.  It's pretty much a catch-all.

HB!

The boys love their Uncle Beanie, better known as Uncle Awesome.  He lets the boys play games on his iPhone and iPad and even hangs out with them on New Year's Eve.  He also gives the best presents (CHC - cold hard cash).

So that's Jake forming the letter "H" and CJ contorting his body to make the letter "B."  You would think they're making these letters cheerleader style in honor of their Uncle Awesome's birthday today.  The "HB" is actually for his Hairy Buttocks.  Obviously, Carol and I have failed miserably as parents.

Happy Birthday Beanie!  Btw, that's Flannigan in the background forming the letters "DN."

What You Got There Coach?

I had the pleasure of coaching Jake's baseball team this past spring.  It's a really nice baseball league run by Bellevue Baptist Church.  I highly recommend it.  Everyone gets a chance to play, the atmosphere is comfortable, the kids learn about sportsmanship and it's a lot of fun.  We do a prayer at the beginning of games, we don't keep score and there's always a juice box and snack at the end of every game.

So here was the awkward parenting moment.  When I popped open the trunk to pull out the baseball gear for a Saturday morning game, I forgot about the refreshments still in the trunk that I had grabbed the day prior.  To be clear, the cervezas were for a work function and not a juice box replacement.  I don't always drink beer, but when I do...

Future Aviator?

Another flyer from the Cruz ranks?  We'll see.  On a related note, Jake recently asked about how much money Walmart cashiers make.  Who knows what the future holds?

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like naval aviation is in CJ's future because he's partially color blind.  Not a good thing aboard an aircraft carrier.  Knowing that it's not an option for CJ kinda bummed me out a little bit to be honest with you.

But hey, aviation, cashier or whatever the boys choose to do - I just hope they enjoy doing it with a passion.  And make enough money to move out of the house.

Working Out Together

Carol and I have a long history of working out together.  You might remember this one:

Working Out

Well, we're at it again:

I think it might be time to start working out with CJ too.  Maybe he can count my pushups or something.

The Gun Show!

Here's CJ showing off his guns in front of the 5 inch gun onboard the USS STOCKDALE.  Carol and I are wondering how we're gonna get this kid to come out of his shell.  Notice how he's clamming up around the girls in the background.

So this is during a ship tour after my good friend Lex Walker's change of command ceremony.  The STOCKDALE is in great hands.

Every now and then, Carol hears CJ banging around upstairs when he's supposed to be in bed.  He'll sneak away to the bonus room to workout on the Bowflex or throw some weights around.  I do like the Bowflex by the way.  You can hang a lot of clothes on it.

I'm glad CJ is getting into fitness.  I'm pretty sure he's proud of his abs.  I know this because he told me he's proud of his abs.  I tell him that those aren't abs - that's malnutrition.  I shouldn't talk.  Carol and I were also lean creatures when we were his age.  Keep it up boy!

Pickles!

Meet Pickles, the newest addition to the Cruz family:

We think she's a girl but we're not really sure.  Our niece Jena found Pickles while turtle hunting at Leenie's lake house in Alabama this summer.

CJ managed to talk Mom and Dad into keeping Pickles even though his track record for keeping pets alive was less than stellar.  The recent fish tank experiment did not go well.  Jerry, George, Kramer and Newman - all dead.  It was like the underwater Bubonic Plague.  Bring out your dead!  Newman the bottom feeding catfish, lasted the longest, but alas, we could not stave off his untimely demise.  It was a busy couple of days for the toilet bowl.

Fortunately, our cold-blooded friend Pickles seems to be a hearty creature.  She's evaded death for a couple of months now.  It's relaxing to watch her swim around and let her eat out of our hands.  I also appreciate that she keeps her salmonella to herself.  Just kidding there.  She is totally disease free.  We think.

p.s.  Carol reminded me that CJ didn't talk Mom into anything.  I guess it was all on me to allow CJ to kill another animal, I mean have another pet.  Okay Pickles - it's up to you to live a long and healthy life.  To spite Mom of course.

Flashback Friday - 13 Years Ago

So I'm a little late for Flashback Friday.  Details.  

For this post, I'm rolling back the clock 13 years, when CJ first somersaulted out of the cramped quarters of Carol's belly and into this great big world of ours - with a full head of hair standing on its end that would've made a pencil-sitting troll beam with pride. 

Like most babies, he was a PECS machine - poop, eat, cry, sleep.  That's all they do for those first couple of months.  He had the "C" part down extremely well.  Because of his maximum capacity lungs and the above average crying ability that went with them, the nurses nicknamed him, "Pavarotti."

That's Alice Cagnina who delivered CJ at the Naval Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.  Although the actual delivery was more complicated than expected, the entire experience at the hospital, especially Alice's personal attention, was really great.

Those first couple of days were surreal.  We weren't sure whether we were coming or going.  Thank goodness for all of the help from family and friends.  Fred wasn't sure what to make of our new addition.  They soon become fast friends though.  Until CJ learned that he could stick his fingers into certain places that is.  That's another story.  

 Our intent was for CJ to breast feed.  I say "our" as if I'm the one with the boobs.  He was having a hard time latching on at first so we gave him a bottle every now and then at the hospital just to make sure he was getting enough to eat.  Little did we know that giving a baby a bottle would result in the full wrath of the La Leche League and their fanatic cultdom philosophy of world domination through breast feeding.  I believe their weapons department has recently developed a laser that instantly disintegrates baby bottle nipples upon initial detection.  Maybe it was just this one La Leche League lady that was off her kilter, but dang.  I get it.  Breast milk is good.  But don't throw us in the hole with Charles Manson just yet cause we wanted to give our kid a bottle for a whole quarter ounce of milk.  CJ did get the hang of the breast feeding thing.  Good thing too.  I would've hated to be on the LLL's black list.  BTW, if you see these whopper-sized kids still breast feeding - I'm talking 4 and 5 year olds with a full set of teeth and size 9 Skechers on - that's just wrong.  I'm sure the LLL had a little something to do with that.  If your feet are hitting the ground while feeding, it's well beyond time to stop with the booby.  I digress.

And now we have a teenager!  Weened and all.  Let the Parenting Olympics begin! 

Carol and I are extremely blessed to have such a fine young man.  I salute you CJ!

Making Dreams Come True

After growing up as a military brat, attending one of the most spartan military schools in the world and serving 20 years and counting in the US Navy, I consider myself to be a pretty organized and attention-to-detail kind of guy.  It used to be that the checking account was balanced and reconciled monthly down to the last penny.  Mail and papers were filed expeditiously and with precision.  Each clothes hanger in my closet faced the same direction with the exact spacing of two finger widths, just like the way we did it at the Virginia Military Institute.  My car was washed and waxed on a regular basis, boasting a sense of pride.  And checklists galore for every evolution.  Oh yeah, I was one together dude.

But after 17 years of marriage, two boys, pets and the daily grind of family life, the order of magnitude of my meticulous ways (read anal tendencies) has dropped a notch or two.  And that's a good thing.  Now, I'm totally okay with piles of clothes on the floor, stacks of unfiled papers all over the house, an unmade bed and a lawn that's not edged.  Don't get me wrong, I still try to get to these things, but if I don't, I won't have a conniption like I would in the past.  I'll admit it, Carol has worn me down.  I've joined the Dark Side of the organization world - and I like it.  There's a sense of joy and liberation over not stressing over the little things that really don't matter.  No longer does every second of every day of vacation need to be planned.  It took a little bit of letting go.  But it's the right thing to do.  And I'm liking it.

There are certain things in the organization arena that I still think are pretty important though.  Like being on time - especially for church.  If you're going to make time for God, then be on time for God.  But as a family, we've been pretty bad about getting to church on time for whatever reason.

And so a couple of weeks ago, Carol went down to Alabama for a surprise 40th birthday party for her good friend, Heather.  I was Mr. Mom for a couple of days.  The boys and I had some good bonding time.  On Sunday, we got up, had breakfast, got showered and dressed and bam, we were on time for church.  Not a big deal.  It just kind of happened that way.  When Carol came home, I casually told her about how things went with the boys and mentioned how we managed to get to church on time.

Well.  Did I ever strike a nerve.  I haven't had the pleasure of visiting Yellowstone Park but I could've sworn Old Faithful was catapulting highly pressurized water right there in my kitchen.  Carol's reaction was energized and comedic.  I haven't heard octaves that high in a while.  Now it was crystal clear.  Surely Carol was the weighted anchor that kept dragging down "my dream" of getting to church on time.  It's all Carol's fault!  Good thing she was gone for a few days so I could experience the ecstasy of promptness.  My lovely wife's profuse (and highly sarcastic) apologies for crushing my dreams of butts in pews on time was pretty dang funny.  I honestly wasn't trying to rub it in her face.  But she was giving it to me good.  It was a lungbuster of a laugh.  I'm sure that if I was drinking something at the time, it would've came shooting out of my nose.  I am very happy she was only joking.

And yet, like the verbal diarrhea that spews from the mouths of the inebriated, sometimes a little bit of truth escapes.  For the last couple of weeks, "my dream" has come true.  I didn't ask Carol to change a thing.  And yet we've been getting to church on time on a regular basis.

The boys making a beeline for the car.  Gotta get to Bellevue Baptist on time!  CJ's job is to grab the Bibles.  Jake's job is to not spill anything on his shirt.

And there she is, making Daddy's dream come true.

We did have a glitch this past Sunday though.  Our garage door opener broke that morning.  I had to manually pull the door open and stand on a ladder while supporting the open door while Carol drove the cars out of the garage.  And so we were just a tad late.  Dream crushed.

To be clear, I really wasn't making any fuss at all about being late for church.  It's nice if we're on time but I'm not gonna get in a bad mood or lose sleep over it.  I do appreciate the family's extra effort in being more timely for this one thing though.  You see, Carol does so much for me and the boys already.  I've got zero to complain about.  Absolutely nothing.  She still makes my dreams come true - and I'm not talking about being on time.

Miami Vacation - Part 2

It was just too much to put in one blog entry.  And so, like the crusty uncle that bores you to death with a projector full of vacation picture slides, I present to you more Miami pics.

Like Jake, this shark in front of the Bass Pro Shops lost one of his teeth.  Without the toothless area, CJ wouldn't be able to perform this fine impersonation of a human hors d'oeuvre.

Darby and Ariel at the Fort Lauderdale Riverwalk.

Alan and Danita

Chilling.

Too often, we leave the kids to their devices.  Literally.  Even the six year old has to have his fingers on the laptop, iPad, iTouch or iPhone.  Not only that, it's gotta be hooked up to the internet.  Steve Jobs - you're a witch!  If there was even a micro spare moment during the vacation, you'd see these little boogers scrambling to be connected - Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Facebooking, texting, emailing... it was ridiculous.  Like little crack addicts.  Jake is less than two seconds out of bed in this picture and he's needing his internet hit bad.  What have we created?

Carol and I got to visit my good friend Edisa at the new US Southern Command Headquarters.  Edisa and I worked together a few years back.  Although the job was extremely challenging, spending time with Edisa was the best.  I really miss her.  Got to see some of the old gang too.  The new place was really nice.  Might have to find my way back to Miami.

Saw a couple of these guys basking in the sun.

It was all smiles on our 4 hour fishing trip aboard the Flamingo.  Couldn't beat the scenery.

CJ the hood ornament

Bait

The pose while cruising through Fort Lauderdale, the Venice of America.

Rigged and ready to catch some fish.

That's Darryl the deck hand on the left.  It was obvious he had been on the high seas for quite a while.  I think he was growing barnacles.  He had to be one of the grumpiest and vilest human beings I've ever met in my life.  I'm convinced he's eaten a child or two.  "I told you we shouldn't have done a drop rig!  Filth, flarn, filth!"  Note:  actual language replaced because this is a family blog.  "Those kids are gonna be bored out of their minds in a few minutes!"   Loud burp right after he removes a remora suctioned to his backside.  "Who put this squid on the railing?!?  That's gonna jack up the boat!"  Juicy fart.  "Argh, look at this tangle!  That's gonna be 30 minutes of no fishing!  I told you so!"  Silent fart followed by seagull poop hitting the deck.  Although he reeked of pessimism, his gloom and doom disposition rang true as soon as we left calm waters...

No more smiles for the cousin trio.  Our young fishermen were not amused by the steady rocking of the Flamingo.  Queasy and green is no way to go through life.  While it didn't stop them from feeling horrible, CJ's suggestion of going horizontal helped the cousins to avoid the dreaded technicolor yawn - unlike the rowdy teens who were loudly chumming the waters over the side of the boat with their violent vomit comets.  I was proud that CJ, Jena and Ariel didn't hurl.  They were troopers.  I believe this type of experience is a major reason why Jena's brother Joel will be doing Army or Air Force ROTC at VMI vice Navy ROTC.  Darn shame.

I should be fair.  I'm exaggerating with Darryl's personality.  He was keeping it real and was very helpful.  I don't think we could've gotten a harder worker.  There's not much he hasn't seen.  I could've sworn we brought four kids on the boat though.

Catching a couple of tilefish.

Josh getting in on the action.

CJ feeling a little better.

Staged picture only.  No actual hurling, unlike the group of teens that kept yelling for their friend Ralph.  "Ralph!  Ralph!"  CJ now knows that if he's disrespecting Mom or Dad or isn't doing his chores, he just might get the dreaded punishment of an all day deep sea adventure with Dad.  That'll keep him on the straight and narrow.

Alan enjoying the ride.

The tourists on this Duck Tour boat gave us a couple of loud quacks as we sailed by.

What recession?

One good thing about Fort Lauderdale fishing trips is that even if you don't catch anything, you'll still take in some fantastic scenery.  You know you have a big boat when you need a small boat to get to your big boat.

Believe it or not, after having a bad experience during the deep sea fishing trip, later that same day, Jena and Ariel wanted to go to the lake and do some freshwater fishing.  They just had to catch some fish.  Reminds me of my brother Lee when he gets skunked on a fishing outing.  He goes out and eats some revenge sushi.  Jena caught this little one without a fishing pole.  She used a stick and some line just for kicks.  Show off!

Speaking of showing off, here's Jake showing off his new Jake-O-Lantern smile.  Always the negotiator, Jake let it be known that he thought the Tooth Fairy should leave him more money than usual because 1) he's on vacation 2) it's one of his big teeth 3) it's right after losing the other big tooth.

Carol on the balcony of our resort.

Jake enjoying the big sauna tub with some of the members of Jena's duck collection.

Super Mario Smash Brothers (or something like that) was the Wii game of choice.  Those darn devices again.

Every time the elevator went by the 3rd floor, a strange rumbling noise would emanate from under the elevator.  We were convinced it was the cables grinding past the forgotten bones of the elevator repair man that was sent to investigate the original noise many moons ago.

We walked around the Hard Rock complex for a bit.  That place has gotten really big.

Too bad Hooters didn't get the memo on the big theme.  For those that can't read lips, Jena is saying, "Where's the beef?"  At least we got to see Prince's purple jacket, Slash's top hat, Elton John's crazy outfits (compete with boa) and listen to some good live music.  There was also plenty of silicone that evening, even outside of Hooters.

This Cuban meal was definitely better than Jena's burger.  La Granja is such a simple place but so dang good.

Although we played plenty of games, we didn't do a full blown Cruz Olympics this time.  We were playing Yahtzee this night.

Taboo was the best though.

 Jena keeping a close eye on the timer.

Of course the Cruz's had to spice things up with the game of Taboo.  Hasbro, take note.  We introduced this plastic horn - the Vuvuzela - as an added punishment if you made three or more mistakes or only got two correct words during your turn.  The Vuvuzela, or Zaboomafoo or whatever it's called, was made famous during the 2010 World Cup.  Imagine an entire stadium full of soccer hooligans blowing into these horns at the top of their lungs to support their team.  If you didn't perform up to standards during your turn at Taboo, the punishment was to place your hands behind your back and take the full brunt of a loud Vuvuzela being blown into your face.  If small pieces of undigested pork or a damp mist of black bean aroma unintentionally smacked your face during the trumpeting of the horn, so be it. More motivation to perform better next time.  Here's Joel doling out the punishment of the Vuvuzela on Brandon.

Darby was fortunate during this punishment.  Her son was being lenient and did not blow at point blank range.  Still deafening though.

Usually a solid player at Taboo, this punishment will remind me not to let my guard down.  After being water boarded at Survival/Evasion/Resistance/Escape (SERE) school years ago and now experiencing the Vuvuzela punishment, I believe the Vuvuzela should be banned by the Geneva Convention.  I can live with the water boarding.

Another fun (and very simple) game was "Four Eyes."  You sit in a circle where you have eye contact with everyone in the group.  Everyone puts their head down.  Someone then says, "head up!" All you have to do is stare at one person and one person only.  Just randomly pick someone.  If that same person is staring back at you, you're both out.  You can't look at the same person two times in a row until you get down to four people.  When it gets down to two people, you have a staring contest to determine the champion.  If it's an odd number of people, you won't need to do the staring contest.

And so the champion of Four Eyes was Jake!  He won it fair and square.  The big prize was Ric Flair.  Josh won Ric Flair at the first Cruz Olympics.  Jena won it last year at the Outer Banks.  And now, Jake gets to take home the prize.  Ric Flair is his until the next big Cruz get together.  For those that can't read lips, Jake is saying, "Woooh!!!!!" in his best Nature Boy voice.

Woooh!!!!

The farewell pose.

The girls get into the act too.

Can I simply say that I love my family?  During the blessing for Alan and Brandon's surprise graduation party dinner, my brother Beanie reminded us all that God has really blessed the Cruz kids in that we WANT to see each other and WANT to spend time with each other.  I don't take that for granted.  Some of my friends don't keep in touch with their mother, father, brother or sister.  The issues that sometimes get in the way are money, kids, favoritism or some rift that seems too big to overcome.  I'm telling you, whatever the issue is, it isn't too big to overcome.  It's simply a matter of letting it go.    

Don't think  that we didn't have our issues.  We fought like cats and dogs as kids and would've been great entertainment on Jerry Springer in our hey day.  Heck, there's stuff happening right now but we're all trying to work through it.

A lot of us expend so much energy putting up these walls of anger, guilt, shame or pride with our own family.  Instead of piling on to those negative walls, be reminded of the Good Book and specifically, the Greatest Commandment - which tells us to love God and love each other.  Remember that this is a COMMANDMENT.  It's not a suggestion or a polite request to follow only if we feel like it.  I'll get off my soapbox (or pulpit) now.

I like to think that we're following this commandment when we get together like we do.  I hope my kids and my nephews and nieces remember and learn from these times together so that they can carry it on with their families when they get older.  

The games, movies, fishing, sightseeing, meals, silliness, shopping, sharing a pew at church, Cruz Olympics, laughs, tears, Ric Flair, loud horns and all of the time together with family - it just brings a huge smile to my face and a tear to my eye.  That's good stuff right there.

Cathy and Lee - we missed you guys.  Until next time.  Woooh!!!!