Wordless Wednesday - The Joys of Moving

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.

We Miss You Paw Paw

Carol's step-dad, James Mathews, better known as Paw Paw to the kids and Mathew to the grownups, passed away last month at the ripe young age of 91.  Carol's Mom called him Mathew because she didn't want to confuse him with her son who was also named James.  So Mathew it was.  Like Aunt Charlie says, "It doesn't matter what your name is, we're gonna call you what we wanna call you."  Gotta love Aunt Charlie.

When loved ones pass away, it's of course very natural to feel great sadness.  With Mathew's passing though, I was uplifted by the story of open arms and love that defines Carol's family.  And so here's the quick story:

Aunt Charlie got to know Mathew through his first wife, Ruby.  She was Ruby's oncology nurse.  After a long and happy life, Ruby died of cancer over 20 years ago, leaving Mathew pretty much by himself.  Unfortunately, he and Ruby were unable to have kids.  But it wasn't God's will for Mathew to be alone.  One day, Aunt Charlie invited Mathew to one of the family gatherings.  Before this invitation, Mathew didn't have any kids and the very little family he had lived out of state.  After this invitation and lots of love from the Hosmer gang, Mathew suddenly inherited a multitude of kids, grandkids and enough family to win an election!  He also met his future wife, Carol's Mom.  It's amazing how powerful a single invitation can be.

     

Here's Carol and Mathew right before they walked down the aisle to partner up with an incredible studmuffin of a Navy man.

Watching over Carol while she's pregnant with CJ.

Mom and Mathew drove all the way to San Diego to visit us.  On the last day of driving, they got pooped out and checked into a hotel that was about 20 minutes away from our house.  They didn't realize how close they were.  Carol hopped in the car, retrieved them, and did the caravan back to our humble abode.  It was a fun visit.

Jake and CJ love their Paw Paw.

Mathew has seen a lot of things.  He was with Ruby during her battle with cancer.  He was with Mom through her successful fight with breast cancer.  He was also a veteran, having served overseas during his time in the Air Force.

During our last couple of trips to Alabama, Mathew would ask me, "So are you on a ship in Tennessee?"  Speaking of ships, here is Mom and Mathew dressed up as pirates during one of CJ's birthday parties.  These two pirates got to do a lot of traveling during their time together.  They visited Italy, Israel, Alaska and many places throughout the US.

Mathew was a very spiritual man and did many things for his church.  He was sharp as a tack all the way until the very end.  I'll miss hanging out at his house in Bessemer laughing at Ray Romano on the tube or watching the Weather Channel while the boys played checkers.  It was always pleasant conversation with Mathew, although you had to talk kinda loud so he could hear you.  After failing my hearing test two days ago during my flight physical, my ears aren't far behind.  Darn jet noise.

Growing up as a kid, I had no memories of grandparents.  They had all passed away when I was young or before I was born.  I'm really glad that my boys have many fond memories of their Paw Paw.  One memory that I hope stays with the boys for a long time is the story of Aunt Charlie's invitation.  

Paw Paw - you were loved by many and will be sorely missed.  Rest in peace.

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...

Flashback Friday - Are You Ready For Some Football?!

I'm going with this post even though the Miami Dolphins are winless this year.  It's gonna be a long season.  I hope head coach Tony Sparano survives.

So here is this week's Friday Flashback.  It's actually Saturday, but who's counting?

In the fall of 1997 after returning from a six month deployment aboard the aircraft carrier USS JOHN F KENNEDY while attached to the VS-24 Scouts, a couple of friends from the squadron hopped in a car (minivan actually) and headed south from Jacksonville to Miami.  It was a fun football weekend to hang out with good friends and watch my beloved Dolphins play at Joe Robbie Stadium.  Or was it called Pro Player Park or Sunlife Stadium at the time?  I don't know.  Whatever company was paying the big bucks for naming rights at the time.

Anything we did with our squadron-mates was always fun - hanging out on the water, parties, going to see movies, road trips, working out or grabbing beers.  It really didn't matter what we did.  There's nothing like being around a great group of guys to make a long deployment out at sea that much more palatable.

There was something off about this particular football weekend though.  Carol was always able to hang with the boys well - actually out-hang a lot of them.  But this weekend, she seemed...tired.  Very unlike her usual energetic self.  It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that we unraveled the mystery of her massive wide-mouthed yawns - she was pregnant!  We were absolutely shocked.  Nope, we weren't trying to have a baby at the time.  I should've known that the odds of slipping one past the goalie were greatly enhanced after being deployed for six months.  And so this is one of the first pictures of Carol with the little "Pinto Bean" inside her.  We nicknamed the baby Pinto Bean because when we found out Carol was pregnant with CJ, the doctor informed us that the baby was currently the size of a pinto bean.

BTW, that's our good friend Speedy on the right.  He spent most of the game looking at the red-headed cheerleader on the sideline through some binoculars.

Here is Knobby, Fran and Whip.  Fran was kind enough to let us load up in her minivan for the trip.  I gotta say, those things aren't sexy but man are they convenient.  Fran was always a ball to be around.  Our seats at Fruit of the Loom Stadium weren't great.  Matter of fact, our seats were almost the furthest away from the field that you could possibly be.  I say almost because that specific honor belonged to the people just two rows behind us.  Of course we had to turn around and tell those people that their seats really sucked.  That made us feel a little bit better.

Anyway, even though my team is struggling - and has struggled for the last decade or so - I am absolutely ready for some football.  Go Dolphins!

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!!!!