Recently in Family Category

Before (top) and after.

I left town Thursday morning (June 10) to meet with a web designer in Dayton, Ohio (3 hours away). When I came back, a new house awaited me. Sort of.

The area directly in front of our house was a mess, and has been ever since we moved in 17 years ago. We've done lots of landscaping; nearly every bush and tree on the property was planted by us; the only remnants of the previous owners was one tree in front, one in back, and three bushes in that jungle in front of our house.

When it comes to this front jungle area, we just haven't had any great ideas. Pam and I didn't inherit any landscaping genes.

We'd done some work here, mainly to tear out creepy-crawly stuff we detested and plant a few new bushes, but we never liked it. A bunch of bulbs had been planted by the previous owners, and no matter what we did, they kept coming up. Bulbs from Hell can't be killed.

I had planned to tackle it this area this spring, but two surgeries pretty much killed that idea. Which was fine.

We decided to just hire someone to make it look nice. Let professionals do it.

LawnsPlus came in yesterday morning at 9 a.m., a couple hours after I had left. They worked real fast. By the time I returned around 3:30, they were mostly cleaning up.

The place looked great. The jungle in front of our house had been dug out and totally redone. We can now see parts of the house we've never seen before.

They actually worked all around the house, front and back.

They planted new bushes, trimmed nearly every bush on the property, mulched everything. A front corner of the house was extended out, and new bushes planted. The huge burning bush in front of our house was transplanted to the back of our property.

One of the few plants remaining from the previous owners was a crabapple tree in the front yard. What were they thinking? I hated that tree. It was terribly difficult to mow around, and grew in a haphazard way. So we had them dig out the crabapple tree and, in a different place in the front yard, plant a new tree. A serious improvement.

Pam has always wanted to do something around the light post. Before, it was just a bare black post stuck in the ground. Now there are plants and mulch around it.

So as of yesterday, we have a brand new yard to enjoy. And this morning, a big thunderstorm came through to soak everything well and help those new plants along. Perfect.

(I put a gallery of before-and-after photos on Facebook.)

Cameron, my nephew, was out in the garage with Dad, who had been working on Cameron's bicycle. Cam's in kindergarten, I think. Maybe first grade. I lose track.

Rick and I were inside, talking to Mom. Suddenly Cam comes running in to Rick, very excited.

"Daddy, Grandpa let me ride my bike on the ROAD!"

One of my snowblower tires was flat, and I couldn't get it to inflate. So what to do?

Take it to Dad, of course. Because he can fix anything. That's what I did a couple nights ago.

Tonight, after practice, I called Dad.

"Wondering if we can stop by to get the tire, since they say snow's coming tomorrow."

"Or, you could look in your garage," Dad said.

He had fixed the tire, then dropped by today and put it back on the snowblower. Ready to go.

That's one awesome Dad. Which I've known for a long, long time.

Here are a few shots from Christmas Eve at the Dennie home. I'm quite aware that my lovely wife, Pam, is not in any of these photos. Please understand that I did take photos of her, but that none would have passed her quality control.

Click on the photo on the left, and a much larger version will appear in a popup window.

	We've had this Christmas tree for around 15 years now.
	I finally cranked up our fireplace on Christmas Eve. The big wreath belonged to Pam's Dad, Chuck, who died two years ago.
	I've always loved manger scenes. Used to rearrange our manger scene all the time as a kid. Pam and I usually add a couple Fontanini pieces each year (we have around 50), but didn't find any this year.
	Pam got me a new, 6 quart crockpot with a clamp-down lid, perfect for church potlucks. Yes, I put this on my Christmas list.
	Jordi loved the smell of these peppermint candies that Pam got me. As if it were catnip.
	Molly, meanwhile, being more discriminating, loved the bona fide catnip which Grandma Barb sent from California. Really perked her up.

Pam and I went over to Mom and Dad's for lunch, and stayed until 7 p.m. We spent several hours playing Rook--me and Dad against Mom and Pam.

Rook, for the unenlightened, is the "Christian" card game. The one we could all play with clear consciences at Huntington University back in the olden days. I remember playing into the early morning hours with Steve Barber, Brad Carpenter, Ray Faber, and other classmates.

As a young married couple in Huntington, Mom and Dad often played Rook with other young marrieds--Marvin and Grace Ann Price, Jim and Joyce Howald, Bob and Fran Myers, Bob and Agnes Baker, and others. Today, they reminisced about some of those games and who usually partnered with who. I realize that one of those "who"s shoulda been a "whom," but this is Christmas, so be charitable.

We play to 500 points, and the maximum you can win in a hand is 180 points. Dad and I burst out of the gates with two 180-point hands. Got up to 470 points, and then let up, going set a few times. But we still prevailed, winning the first game.

But in the second game, Dad and I managed to lose a game to 500 points by 800 points. How is that possible? Mom and Pam ended with 635 points, while Dad and I were more than 200 in the hole.

Then Mom and Pam won game 3. And game 4. But Dad and I salvaged game 5, to end the night a respectable 2-3. Still losers, but at least it wasn't 1-4. That would have been humiliating, as opposed to merely embarrassing.

For his birthday, my brother Rick (that's him above) got tickets to an NFL game--the Arizona Cardinals vs. the Detroit Lions. Rick is a big Cardinals fan. He lived in Phoenix when the Cards moved to Phoenix, and was a season ticketholder for two years. So yeah, he's a big fan.

Detroit? Maybe not his first choice, but the only one available when his wife Dorene was looking for tickets. But turns out it was a very good game.

Rick wrote about the experience on his blog.

Last night, we had our staff Christmas party. We started with light snacks at the home of Phil and Darlene Burkett, and then headed to The New Huntington, the renovated theatre in beautiful downtown Huntington, Ind., which has been turned into a supper club.

The meal was good. The program was great. Three very talented singers doing Christmas-themed songs, interspersed with hilarious background info about the songs by one of the founders.

One song was Gary Allen's "Let's be Naughty (and Save Santa the Trip)." One of the two guys, Kyle, a nice-looking young guy with a beautiful high voice, sang this one. And for part of the song, he was on his knees in front of my wife, serenading her with these words:

Such a long sleigh ride from the North Pole
And he's already got so many places to go
We've got each other, don't need another gift
Let's be naughty and save Santa the trip

Well Santa's face would turn red if he could only see
What we'll be unwrapping underneath our Christmas tree
Well this year all I'm asking for is one little wish
Let's be naughty and save Santa the trip

He couldn't have picked a better person. Pam, as those of you who know her are aware, is a very outgoing, free-wheeling kind of person...NOT. I was sitting behind Pam, but would love to have seen her horrified face. At least she didn't have to get out of her seat.

Anyway, it made the evening quite memorable. And now Pam has challenged me to serenade her with, "Let's be naughty and save Santa the trip." Hmmm.

Jordi loves laying under the Christmas tree, but still prefers his cat bed.



Meanwhile, Molly has become quite the Daddy's lap cat. She'll settle in for hours at a time, or until my legs fall asleep and I just HAVE to move.

Jordi was sitting in the front yard, looking up the street. Two young kids, maybe 6th grade, came down the walk with three dogs on leashes--a small poodle, and two even smaller dogs. The yappy kind.

Then the two kids spotted Jordi at the same time. They quickly came to a stop.

I heard the girl say, "I thought that was a big dog."

Then they turned around their dogs and headed back the other way. Didn't want to risk tangling with our 17 pound boy.

Jordi is SO intimidating. Meow.

On Tuesday, September 22, we visited Mount Rushmore. We were there around 1992 on a trip to Colorado. Back then, they just had a gift shop and an observation deck from which you could see Mount Rushmore in the distance. But they have totally redone it. I know we're not supposed to believe that government can do anything right, but let me tell you--they did this right. Plus, there were far, far more visitors than I remembered on my previous two visits.



As you come up the steps from the parking garage, you walk right toward the monument in the distance. It's spectacular. It's a very long and wide walkway. The latter part is lined with 14 pillars, each bearing four flags. That's 56 flags--one for each state, plus each of the 6 US territories. After the columns is a large observation deck, with an amphitheater beneath it. You're a lot closer than you were with the previous gift shop.

But that's just the start. You can then take a path which circles around right up to the base of the mountain. You're basically at the bottom, in the slag rock pile, looking up at the faces. Nice, very nice. You really feel like you're a part of this monument, not just gazing from a distance.

By the time we browsed the new gift shop and ate a monstrous ice cream cone, it was probably 4:30. We headed on to our bed & breakfast. Just beyond the park, we encountered a whole bunch of cars stopped. Two white mountain goats were in the gully beside the road, and people had stopped to take pictures. So did we. Beautiful creatures.

We settled into our B&B, and then decided to return to Rushmore for the nightly program. And we're sure glad we did. Hundreds of people were there, far more than I was expecting.

A lady park ranger led the program. She gave a lot of history about the mountain and the four presidents, and we watched a nice 20-minute film about Rushmore. As the film ended, the mountain gradually began lighting up, thanks to a beacon and a couple banks of powerful lights. There were no shadows among the faces. Very well done, and quite dramatic.







The park ranger then invited all military vets to come down. Probably 60 did, lined up double-file across the wide outdoor stage. She found six volunteers to help lower the American flag, which they then folded into a triangle. I was very struck by several vets who stood at attention, saluting, while the flag was being lowered. Their reverence for our country ran deep. In the photo above, the one on the far right was the night's only WW2 vet.



The ranger then went down the lines of vets with the microphone. Each vet put his or her hand on the flag--just as thousands of other vets had done previously, with that same flag--and gave his/her name and branch of service, and maybe a little bit more--rank, unit, country where they saw combat. One woman came forward to represent her husband, a WW2 vet. Another woman was representing her husband who was in Iraq.

There was only one WW2 vet. When he mentioned serving in World War 2, the crowd applauded.That was the only applause of the night. There were many Vietnam vets, but no Korean War vets. However, some fellow guests at our B&B, who went the next night, said they had several Korean vets, but no WW2 vets. They also said the crowd applauded for each currently-serving soldier. So I guess the dynamics differ each night.

I had been to Mount Rushmore twice before. But with the enormous changes they've made (finished in 1997, we were told) and the evening program, I was just overwhelmed. I would gladly go back.

Time has proven that they made excellent choices in the four presidents chiseled into the mountain. Today, we might argue for FDR instead of Teddy, and some would suggest Ronald Reagan. But those four guys--Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt--were definitely larger-than-life presidents.