Dustin's back....hide your young and impressionable

Ah......Dustin. What can I say about Dustin. He's a party in pants that boy! I love Dustin so much. He and my son Chris get together and I laugh so hard I should probably have a "Depends" on standby. We met Dustin at the Airport when he came back from basic training. Kid's goodlooking and lost a bunch of weight, something like 30 or 40 pounds I think he said. He's pretty ripped and in great physical condition and feeling good about his path in life now. I think all of us that loved him worried about where he was headed, but he's taken a higher road and traveling down road going somewhere better than where he was headed. Good going Dustin! I love ya with all my heart......keep it going sweetie.

Kirk came back to ICT!

It doesn't happen very often that we get to see our little (youngest) brother Kirk, what with continent hopping, speaking in front of thousands, family, church, friends, book and article writing and his various hobbies. Busy man that he is, we are always happy that he finds time to drive all night from whatever state where happens to be that is somewhat close to Kansas to see us.

We all relish the time we have with him. For some reason he seems to gel the family and for awhile, we all enjoy his humor, wit and engrossing storytelling (he's got some good ones) and his general easy going and charming nature. I think I will always be impressed that he rubs elbows with Bill Gates......and I'm not easily impressed. I would love to find a man like my brother. I think the world of him and I love being around him.

We thought he was coming in the week before, but we got the weeks wrong (actually it was my eldest sister Becky who got it wrong, but I'm not one to point fingers or anything....).

We had a great time despite the fact our entertaining and much missed brother was not there. We kind of had a practice gathering to warm up our sense of humor, wipe the copwebs off our storytelling and sharpen our wit before Kirk arrived. We all decided we didn't make time to get together enough and should try and do it more often and not just when "Golden Child" came to town (giggle), we love ya Kirk!

From left to right: My nephew Dustin(Luann's son), Samantha (my 16 year old younger sister), my dad Wayne in the chair, Leah (in purple, second oldest), Luann(third oldest), then Becky (oldest of all of us and our second mom).

Home in Althornbach, Germany

My brother travels quit a bit with his postion at Microsoft which gives him the opportunity to visit some of the places we lived as children when dad was in the military. While he and his wife were visiting Germany he went to Althornbach and took some pictures of a house we lived in while stationed there. Most of the cities we were stationed in we lived in the family baracks, but we got to live in the city with the civilians at Althornbach and it was a great experience for us all. That's where I learned to speak German, while playing with the german kids. I have lots of memories of this house. I especially remember the coal drop and having to go down into the creepy, dark and spider infested basement and fetch coal. It probably wasn't as bad as I remember it.

This is a back view of the house. I remember this well. I especially remeber that little balcony. My sister Luann threw a doll that I loved with all my heart off that balcony once when she got mad at me. My poor doll was never the same after that. It was terribly traumatic (she says dripping with sarcasm). One of my best memories was when all of us kids would get together in an upstairs "play room" that had wood floors and we would play "foot eater"? I think that's what we called it. We would all wear socks and the designated foot eater had to move around on all fours.........while all the rest of us skidded frantically around on the hard wood floor trying to get away from the dreaded foot eater before he caught us and ate our feet. Ah....good times. I can't imagine what that must have sounded like to my parents underneath us. But maybe that was a small price to pay for all six of us to be out of their hair for a few short minutes.

This is the back yard. I spent lots of time back there. We had a vegatable garden, mom always made sure that if we had a patch of ground somewhere, we were growing vegetables. I know I griped a lot about weeding and watering, but some of my best memories are being in the garden with my mom. I now love growing things.......just about anything, and I know it was because of mom and her gardens. Anyway, one of the most poignant memories I have are of my brothers pouring salt on the slugs in the garden. They thought it was so cool to watch them shrivel up. I hated it and thought for sure I could hear little slug screams while they melted under the salt.

Here are some other pictures of the church we went to and of the farm house across the street from us. I don't have as many memories as the rest of my siblings, except that the services at church were in German, I was bored and would play with my dad's huge hands. Funny the things we remember.