My Family, in a Nutshell

I'm heading up to Waco tomorrow to hang out with "the fam". I found myself thinking about them a lot tonight...can't sleep (what's new?) and thought I'd share. They're hugely entertaining:

Caleb, age 15. He’s almost 6 feet tall and weighs 130 pounds (maybe). He's decided to participate in every spring sport his school offers: tennis, track, and baseball, though baseball is his passion of the three. He plays the trumpet (very well) and sometimes plays around with the guitar and piano (not quite as well, but he's talented, nonetheless). He likes to show his love for me by hitting me every time he sees me, especially when we're at church.

Seth, age 17. He takes himself entirely too seriously, which makes him much fun to laugh at. He plays bass guitar in a band with some of his friends, and plans to major in bass guitar jazz theory when he gets to college. He does have a nasty habit of driving the wrong way on a one-way street. He always gives me a hug when he sees me, even when his friends are around.

Josh, age 24. Most people don’t know there’s a brother between me and Seth, but there is. He’s always believed that Mom and Dad love me than they do him and feels that his manhood is threatened because his two younger brothers are taller than he is. He is very quick to point out that despite the difference in height, he could seriously wound them both at the same time with one hand. He just finished a six-year stint with the Marine reserves, where he learned to do things like that. He's currently living with his bikini model girlfriend who looks just like Barbie.

Mom, whose age I’m not allowed to say. She’s my hero, though I know I don’t tell her that often enough (i.e. ever). She's made tons of sacrifices to raise my brothers and me, including putting off her own dreams and goals for years. She started college when I was a sophomore in high school, took one class at a time for years, and graduated from nursing school a year after I graduated from Concordia. On numerous occasions, she tried to teach me to cook, but she has control issues and always ended up taking over because she felt could do a better job just cooking it herself. She never taught me to sew for the same reason. When she was my age, she had three kids.

Dad, whose age I’m also not allowed to say. He’s the best dad in the world. He once drove to Austin at 10 pm to look at my car that was making wickedly awful noises, and then drove back to Waco, getting at home around 1 am, and then got up to go to work around 6 am that morning. He sent me flowers on my birthday this year because I had just broken up with a guy I’d dated for nearly two years and he wanted to make sure I knew how much I’m loved and how proud he is of me. He’s my hero, too. If he was any more laid-back, he’d be comatose. He believes he was once abducted by aliens. Seriously. His proof is a little red dot just below his sternum and a matching one in the exact same spot on his back. It’s where the aliens stuck a needle through him.