My baby - my precious Joey - is 28 years old today. Happy birthday, Joey! He was born at 3:50 p.m. on October 5, 1978. My, how the time flies past. Sunday evening we will have a family get-together to celebrate his birthday. He has asked me to bake a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. Yum! Can’t wait! Joey and his wife moved into a new home last week - and it’s only about 5 -10 minutes away from where RT and I live. I’m very excited about that! Click HERE to read last year’s post and see photos of my sweet baby boy.

I wrote before HERE and HERE about RT’s and my wedding on September 5th at McHugh Park outside of Anchorage, Alaska. We woke up that Tuesday morning and realized we had just a few hours before our flight home from Alaska. Our Plan A for our wedding hadn’t worked out, but we still had our Alaskan marriage license, and we didn’t want it to go to waste. We could have waited until we got home to get married, but we had planned on being married in Alaska, and we didn’t want to give up that idea. The resulting Plan B was much better than Plan A ever could have been.

RT got the Anchorage phone book and started making phone calls around 9:00 that morning. He found a minister who could do the ceremony that day, we made a mad dash to Wal-Mart and REI for clothes, and met the minister at 1:00, drove to the park, and the wedding occurred around 1:45. By 8:00 that evening, we were on the plane back to Nashville. It was a whirlwind, but it was truly perfect.

The minister who performed the ceremony was Dr. Michael Mitchell. I don’t recall everything that Michael said during the “sermon” part of the ceremony. However, one thing did stand out. He used 1 Corinthians 13 as the text, and as he quoted each characteristic of love, he gave examples.

When he came to the part, “Love does not take offense,” he said, “Resolve today not to let your mate offend you. Only you can control whether or not you feel offended.” Then he went on to say that whenever we start to feel offended or annoyed by our mates, we should immediately make ourselves think of the things we love about them.

I realize I’ve been married less than three weeks - so it’s still the honeymoon phase for me - even though RT and I were married for 28 years previously. However, that is good advice, and it’s the one thing from Michael’s sermon that has really stuck with me.

Do you remember recess? That carefree time of jumping rope, Red Rover, and simply playing? On rainy days we’d play jacks or checkers inside. I don’t remember a lot about the classes from my elementary school years. After all, it WAS a long time ago. However, I DO remember recess. It was a time to socialize, to play games and to exercise. Except I didn’t think about the fact that I was exercising. I was playing - chasing friends, being chased, swinging, sliding, playing tag. And we had a morning recess and an afternoon recess. The teachers would often sit in chairs underneath shade trees while the children played.

The Education Wonks writes about how recess is being shortened or sometimes even eliminated because of the drive to increase test scores.

According to the mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, 100% of the nation’s children must pass standardized tests by 2014 or else.

School personnel alone are being held accountable for accomplishing that goal.

I believe that it’s highly likely that more schools will be curtailing recess in the years to come.

And that’s a real shame.

Jane at Cozy Reader reports on what the Atlanta City Schools now call “recess.”

Here is a photo of RT’s and my wedding at McHugh Park outside of Anchorage on September 5th. Don’t you love my wedding gown? I TOLD you it was very casual. However, it was beautiful and meaningful, too. There was a waterfall behind us -the ocean (actually a bay) in front of us - and the ceremony was incredible.

Last week my oldest granddaughter started kindergarten. My daughter signed up to help the teacher. After the first day of helping in the classroom, my daughter called me.

“Mom, remember that story you told me about the woman who would ask a question and then just sit there until the kids finally came up with the answer?”

Well, she didn’t have it exactly right, but I knew what she was talking about. And I have to admit I was thrilled that she remembered something I’d mentioned to her almost two years ago. In 2004, I attended a seminar by Ellin Keene. During the seminar she worked with a group of third graders, modeling a class book discussion using the book Freedom on the Menu. During the discussion when she’d ask a question and the child would respond, “I don’t know,” she would reply, “I understand, but if you DID know, what would you say?” Then she would be quiet and wait. And wait. And wait.

I was among the ones in the group who cringed at the thought of how uncomfortable the kids were to be put on the spot like that. The kids would stammer and stumble over their words for a few seconds, but then without exception, they’d come up with an insightful answer. I left there awed. I had always used “pause time” whenever I asked questions in class. However, if a child indicated he/she didn’t know the answer, I would move on to someone else. I didn’t want to put a child on the spot - didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Back to the conversation with my daughter. She continued:

At L’s school today, her teacher did the same thing! She had one of their names with the letters scrambled, and the kids were figuring out whose name it was. She asked them how they knew that the “C” was the first letter in the child’s name. The kids just sat there and squirmed. It was obvious no one knew why. After all, it’s just the first week of kindergarten! But Mrs. K kept waiting. Seconds passed. The silence and the uncomfortable atmosphere were driving me nuts.

I felt like screaming, “For God’s sake, they don’t know! Tell them the answer! They’ll all go home traumatized from all this pressure!” But I didn’t, and after a few seconds, several kids raised their hands: “Because it’s a capital letter, and names should start with a capital letter.” They’d figured it out with no prompting from Mrs. K! And you could see the pride and confidence in their faces afterwards. They had thought their way through confusion to understanding.”

What a good reminder for me that too often I don’t give my students the opportunity of being uncomfortable enough to think beyond the obvious! Being intellectually uncomfortable is not a bad thing.

On this 5-year anniversary, bloggers from around the world are paying tribute to the people who were killed in the 9-11 terrorist attacks. This is the day to remember the innocent victims and to pay tribute to their lives.

I have the honor of paying tribute to Tom McGuinness who was First Officer on American Airlines Flight 11 - scheduled to fly from Boston to Los Angeles. Soon after take-off, the hijackers commandeered the plane and flew Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. But this isn’t about 9-11, the hijackers, or any of that. This is about Tom McGuinness - a Christian, a husband, a father, a friend, and so much more.

The first thing you notice when you look at a photo of Tom McGuinness is how strikingly handsome he was.

From The Syracuse Post Standard, comes this:

Two days before his senior prom, Tom F. McGuinness made a life-altering choice: he asked a young woman named Cheryl to be his date. It didn’t give her a lot of time to prepare, but she agreed. “I got a dress and we went to the prom, and we stayed together ever since,” Cheryl McGuinness said recently.

But then Mr. McGuinness, 42, was big on life-altering decisions. About a year and a half ago, he and his wife and children, Jennifer, 16, and Tommy, 14, decided to move back east, to Portsmouth, N.H., from California, in part so Mr. McGuinness could pursue better opportunities with American Airlines. He was the co-pilot on American Airlines Flight 11, which struck the north tower of the World Trade Center.

More significant, his wife said, was a decision he made eight years ago, while they were attending a small Bible study group. Mr. McGuinness had always been a religious man — the family attends a nondenominational Christian church — but hearing others talk about their relationship with God gave Mr. McGuinness a new perspective, and he found his faith intensifying.

That realization prompted a change in him, said his wife. “Our family strengthened, his relationship with the kids strengthened, our marriage strengthened. The way we showed love to one another deepened,” she said. “It was the biggest blessing that I could have received.”

Not only was Tom a Christian, but he allowed his Christianity to strengthen and deepen his relationships with his family and friends.
On one memorial site, a friend of Tom’s wrote:

It has taken me a while to quantify my feelings surrounding Tom’s loss. I was lucky to know Tom in college … we were on the swim team together, took some of the same classes, and lived in the same dorm. He was probably the single most important influencer in my decision to join the Navy. He was a good friend and great mentor. I miss him, his laugh and his goodness.
I have read through the nice postings that have been written on his behalf. If I didn’t know him personally, I would not believe anyone could be that determined for excellence while being kind and considerate. He was truly a remarkable person who strived to find the good in everything he accomplished. I was so lucky to have known him. I am better for the experience and many people that I have influenced are better because of the lessons he taught me. Tom helped get me through some of my life’s toughest times and will always have a special place in my heart … the sadness replaced when I recall his smile and infectious laugh.
John Allen (Marlboro, MA )

A few years after 9-11, a young woman named Jill Smith was asked by a teacher to create a collage about a devastating time in our history. Here is what she wrote on one of Tom’s memorial sites:

As an assignment for our Senior Institute class, we are to create a collage about a devastating time in our history. My partner and I wanted to create a collage about 9/11 and the World Trade Center, but after visiting this site I don’t think we can do that. The images here go way deeper than the images we found of the actual burning building. These people were inside the attacks…you don’t see that through the photos of the WTC covered in smoke or the rubble of remains from the planes. Here, nearly four years later, we still feel it. May God bless this man’s family, and as a 17 yr old daughter who adores her own father, my heart goes out towards his children!!

Tom’s parents, Tom and Edie, also wrote on his memorial page:

We are Tom’s parents, and we want to thank you all for your prayers, love and support. Tom was a wonderful husband, father and son. He cared deeply for family, friends and anyone he met. His sense of humor was special. Your notes have helped us, and we will put them in his memory book.

.
Tom’s wife, Cheryl, writes about him on her web page:

When I was 16 I met a young man and fell in love. As I have said on many occasions, Tom was my high school sweetheart. Our relationship blossomed through high school and college.

Tom and I married soon after I graduated from college, just knowing that we would live happily ever after. Tom progressed in the Navy as a Top Gun fighter pilot flying F14’s and I advanced in my own career. We were blessed with two wonderful children and it just got better and better.

Tom and I were Bible study leaders. Our family had much joy, peace and contentment and it flowed into all parts of our lives. Everything was fine. I was a normal woman living a very happy life. I never pictured that our dream would suddenly become a nightmare. I never imagined that our peaceful life would be completely shattered.

On September 11th, Tom gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. Little did I know that I would never see him again. He was to pilot American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles that day.

As the horror of that day unfolded, I quickly realized that I needed God more than ever before. I was devastated - searching for answers that didn’t exist - terrified at the prospect that Tom would not be coming home.

As I have spoken with people around the country I have come to realize that while my tragedy was in many ways unique to me, many of the feelings - the hurt, the loss, the anger, concern for my family - are shared by so many others. In fact, I dare say that all of us will, unfortunately, at some time in our lives experience what I call time in the pit - that time when you feel absolutely lost, alone, afraid and devastated. It may result from the loss of a loved one, divorce, issues with children, career problems or any of the hundreds of other life issues that we all deal with.

What do we do with the pain that results from tragedies in our lives? How do we move beyond them? I have learned how to hope again. Drawing daily from the foundation of faith that Tom and I held together, I have found my footing; He has rebuilt my life.

We have all been impacted by September 11th. Security, peace, safety - things we all took for granted - become casualties of that infamous day. Every life endures saddness and loss. But my story is that no matter what you have experienced or what pain you have suffered, God can bring you through the ashes of destruction to the beauty of life.

Tom’s two children are practically grown. According to The Boston Globe his daughter is studying cosmetology, and his son is studying to be a pilot like his dad.
Tom left a final legacy for his family. Just a few weeks before his death, he and Cheryl had dinner in Boston to celebrate their 18th anniversary. From The Portsmouth Herald:

Over dinner at Legal Seafood, Tom McGuinness shared some horrifying news.

A good friend was in a coma and his wife killed instantly in a car accident. Cheryl McGuinness said she told her husband she couldn’t dream of living without him. She asked him if he thought she was strong enough to endure the intense pain of such a loss.

“‘No you’re not, but God is strong enough. Trust God and he would get you through it,’” McGuinness recalled her husband saying. “He said, ‘Trust God with your life and stay strong in your faith.’ And that’s what I do.”

Later, Cheryl and her two children, Jennifer and Tommy, remember their last night with Tom

. . .The night before he died in the Sept. 11 crash at the World Trade Center, they spent the evening celebrating his 42nd birthday. It was a beautiful celebration. After Tom returned home from a two-day trip, the family shared a special birthday dinner, complete with cake and presents.

“Jen gave Tom a love certificate for the two of them to go out to an Italian restaurant. Tommy’s gift was to spend time with Tom working in the back yard for a day cleaning up the woods and chopping down a couple of trees,” she said. “I thank God for not telling me what was coming in the hours ahead. If I knew, I would have spent our last hours pleading with God not to call Tom home. Our last night would have been very different.” . . . .
She said her husband actually helped prepare all of them for such a loss. By sharing his faith in Jesus Christ with his family, the Massachusetts native gave them a gift — an understanding of the circle of life.

Tom’s legacy to his family is summed up with this quote from The Portsmouth Herald:

One night Tommy tried to comfort his mother as she cried. Instead, the 14-year-old amazed her with his breadth of knowledge.

“Tommy put his arm around me, gave me a hug and said, ‘Mom, everything will be all right. Our life on Earth is so short. Our life in heaven with Dad is for eternity.’ He then went on to say, ‘Dad described eternity this way to me: If you emptied out all the oceans in the world one drop at a time, this would only be the beginning of eternity.’”

Links to tributes to other 9-11 victims can be found at 2996.
The Cotillion is also highlighting the tributes.

Note added on 9/20/06: Let me clarify. This post refers to commercial airplane designers and owners. RT owns a plane and flies regularly - and I fly with him often. And he should definitely NOT be shot. (Can you guess that he saw the title of the post and ask, “I should be shot?”)

Well, not literally. But REALLY! The way airplane seating is designed is criminal! Have you traveled by plane lately? The planes have seats so crammed together that you literally cannot stand up in front of your seat. Even average-size people can barely fit in the narrow seats. And even if you fit in the seats, you can’t rest both arms at the same time because you share an armrest with the person next to you.

Tuesday night coming home, I had an experience I have never had before in traveling by plane. I was in a middle seat. RT was on one side by the aisle - and some guy I didn’t know was on the other side by the window. It was 3:00 in the morning. We had been traveling for about five hours. It was hot. It was cramped. Lots of people were sleeping, but I just couldn’t go to sleep - I was too uncomfortable.

I started feeling sick, and I knew I couldn’t stay in my seat. It wasn’t a rough flight, and I hadn’t eaten anything that would make me feel ill. However, the stuffiness, the lack of sleep, the cramped quarters made me ill. The only way I could move at all was to try to stand - bending from the waist - ask RT to let me out of the row (he had to move out into the aisle to let me out) - and side-walk out of the row and up and down the main aisle of the plane. I walked from one end to the other thinking that a little exercise would make me feel better. It didn’t.

I went into the bathroom and just stood there for a minute - and surprise! standing in a plane lavatory didn’t make me feel better. So I then went out and asked the flight attendants if they had something that would help. The ONLY positive part of the plane was the flight attendants. One of them got me some ginger ale, and the other went to find a cold cloth for my forehead, and they had me sit down on a stool in the galley. I sat there for about a minute and suddenly I knew that it was imperative that I get to the lavatory immediately.

Within a minute I was in the lavatory, but there weren’t any air sickness bags in there! I looked everywhere! I couldn’t use the toilet because. . . well, I was having to use it for another aspect of my general stomach upset. The only solution was to throw up in the sink. As any air traveler knows, the lavatory is so cramped that using the toilet and the sink simultaneously is not an impossible task. (Caution - gross description is next) So I threw up in the sink -over and over and over. But, horrors! It wouldn’t go down the drain - too chunky, I guess. So I had a sink full of upchuck. Have I completely grossed you out yet? When my stomach was thoroughly wrung out, and I was practically hanging onto the sink in exhaustion, I knew I couldn’t leave the bathroom that way. What to do? I finally used a mountain of paper towels to clean the sink - throwing the used ones into the trash and grabbing more. I think I cleared them out of paper towels. Being the fastidious person I am, I stood there and worked at it until the lavatory was as clean as I could make it.

When I emerged from the lavatory, I felt much better, although still shakey. The flight attendants had gotten RT when I made my mad dash for the bathroom. So he was there waiting for me. I went back to my seat, kept the cold towel on my forehead - and actually dozed off a little before we landed in Chicago.

I place the ENTIRE blame for that experience on United Airlines and their stupidly cramped airplanes. Long flights are nothing more than an exercise in endurance. It’s criminal!

While I was downstairs at the hotel in Anchorage writing the previous post, RT was upstairs in the room on the phone. When he puts his mind to it, the man can get things done! And that’s what he did. Within a couple hours, we had a minister, a location for the wedding, a professional photographer, and new wedding clothes - since by that time the only clean clothes left were our absolutely least favorites.

I firmly believe that God works things out in His own time. Neither RT nor I felt “right” about how things worked out at Camp Denali. They said they could still do the ceremony, but it sounded like it was questionable as far as being legal. Someone was going to make it look like the copy of the marriage license was received prior to the wedding - or something like that. Who wants a wedding of questionable legality?

So we didn’t get married there. And it really wasn’t a big deal because neither of us felt that it was the thing to do.

RT found a minister in Anchorage who was happy to perform the ceremony. NOT a Methodist minister because the one he talked with didn’t even ask any questions, just very stiffly said NO Methodist minister would perform a wedding without a minimum of three counseling sessions. He wasn’t interested in any details of our story. I’m glad he was so obnoxious, though, because otherwise things wouldn’t have happened the way they did.

The minister - Michael Mitchell - was perfect! He’s a retired minister - Methodist turned Catholic. He basically used the Methodist wedding ceremony, but with his own “sermon” added to it - which was absolutely wonderful! Even though he met us less than an hour before the wedding, he personalized the service and made it incredibly meaningful. RT and I had also written out things we wanted to say to each other, and the service ended with that. I, of course, cried through my vows. I tend to get quite emotional at times. It was good crying, though.

RT and I got married yesterday afternoon at McHugh Park in Anchorage - outside with Michael and his wife, Nell, and our photographer, Govin, as witnesses. Govin is another good story. We met him at Camp Denali. He’s a retired physician and currently a professional photographer. He was a part of the photography workshop with us, and we left Camp Denali, he happened to stay at the same hotel in Anchorage. I saw him in the business office when I was writing the previous post - so we knew he was there and that he didn’t have any pressing plans for the rest of the day. We asked him if he would take pictures at the wedding, and he was delighted.

I’ll write more details later. However, I HAVE to say that the wedding and the whole day was just perfect.

I hope you’ll join us for the first Cotillion Wedding Celebration. Feel free to trackback and/or leave your comments here or here.

As stated in the invitation above, dress is formal, it IS the Cotillion after all. We will be wearing our tiaras. The tiara is standard for the Cotillion, we wear them everywhere, yes, I said everywhere.

~~ side note: Beth D., I hope you will do what you can to encourage John not to blog nekked for this event! Thank you ~~

I expect that this will embarass the living daylights out of Carol when she get’s back and reads it. She may never allow me to have the keys to her blog again. So let’s enjoy it while we can!

Once upon a time there was a girl who went away to college in another state, far, far away. One day, while she was sitting in a commons area with her friends a boy saw her from across the room. He told his friends, ‘I’m going to date that girl’. He came over and introduced himself.

He was right, they did date, then they fell in love, then they married.

They were so much in love that everyone around them thought ‘they are so much in love, sigh’ or became nauseous or both.

Her handsome prince moved the seatbelts in his car so that hers was right next to him and not all the way across the bench seat to the other side of the car. That was much too far away. They always rode around town like that. He would pinch her cheeks and call them his little biscuits (this is where the nauseous part comes in).

When they moved into their very first tiny apartment her younger sisters helped her move and all of their belongings were in the back of a pick-up truck with plenty of room to spare. They only had a single twin bed. When one of her younger sisters (that would be moi) asked if they were going to buy a bigger bed she replied dreamily, ‘We don’t need a bigger bed’. She even added that they would never need a bigger bed. (See what I mean about there being a nausea element to this story).

They seemed very happy, indeed. She was a school teacher and he worked hard to provide for his family. They moved into a larger apartment and then another and eventually bought their first house. They remained dizzily in love.

Eventually, they had a beautiful baby daughter. Her handsome prince loved his beautiful daughter as much as he loved his beautiful wife. He was silly in love. He would sing to the daughter and she would look up to him as though Luciano Pavarotti himself was giving her a personal concert. She was much too young to know what the rest of us knew excruciatingly, that he was completely tone deaf. But it was music to her ears. And quite frankly, in spite of the fact he couldn’t sing a note, it really was sweet.

A few years later they had a little baby boy. The little boy was handsome and active and all boy. This completed the perfect family picture.

As her handsome prince became more successful in his career, this happy little family moved to bigger cities and into bigger houses. He became more and more successful and she kept hearth and home together. His business took him out of town more and more and the kids, teaching and keeping the home business in order took more and more of her time.

When new cars were bought the seat belts stayed where God had intended them to be, on the passenger side of the seat. I’m not sure how long ‘forever’ in that twin bed lasted, but the twin bed became a water bed (yes, there was that fad) and eventually a california king. Her handsome prince had become so successful that they probably could have lived happily ever after in their master bedroom suite without ever running into each other.

And so it went, I suppose, not that I’m privy to all the details of everything, but then this is a fairy tale, so creative license is expected.

The beautiful daughter and handsome son grew up and went off to pursue their own dreams. And one day her handsome prince and our beautiful heroine divorced, as is the American way.

They had changed.

Her handsome prince turned into a frog ~ or she did ~ or they both did.

During their divorce years they dated, broke up, dated other people, broke up, dated, broke up, dated other people, broke up (you get the drift) and eventually dated again for a long time. And yesterday they remarried in the wilds of Alaska.

In the end, or the new beginning, it seems that after trying on so many class slippers, only one really fit.

When she returns from Alaska she will either delete this post, correct the parts that embarass her or can fill in the details. Her choice.

Meanwhile, please leave messages for her to read when she returns from Alaska.

And they lived happily ever after.

The End.

Reutered Wedding Photos:

Whoops. That’s not them.

crossposted at Blue Star Chronicles

We’ll be up early this morning to make the four hour drive to the entrance to Denali. Once there we will take a short plane ride to take us the 90 miles to Kantishna. If it’s too stormy or foggy for the plane ride, we will ride a bus the 90 miles which will take about 6 - 8 hours.

We took the bus ride last year, and it was phenomenal even though it was a LONG trip. We saw several grizzlies with cubs (similar to the photo above except the grizzlies we saw weren’t on the road).

Once we get to Camp Denali from Kantishna we’ll start scouting around to determine exactly where we want to have our wedding the next day. Maybe Nugget Pond:

Maybe Wonder Lake:

Maybe North Face Lodge:

We’re staying at Camp Denali with a photography group led by a reknowned nature photographer, and most likely the group will get together tonight to see what all is planned for the next couple days.