Our daughter, Kelly’s birthday lands on Easter today. She checked it out the last time that happened when she was eleven and this will never happen again in her lifetime. So this is a special birthday. She came to visit us for a week, but had to leave after a small, early celebration. She is in a very good place right now. She has very good friends in Seattle. She struggled early in her PhD program, but just finished her best term ever. The picture with this post shows her sitting at her computer working through some of her research. More important than all that and above all, she considers God and her place in this world relative to his will. We are so thankful God lent her to us even it is just for a little while.
Kelly was a beautiful baby. One of the first things we noticed about her when she was born, after the full head of black hair and the blue eyes, was that she had a little butterfly birthmark on her left forearm. You can see it close to her elbow in the picture. It beats the monster Rorschach test birthmark I have on my back all hollow (even though I am quite fond of my birthmark).
It is fitting that today I used up the last Betty Blonde comic Kelly drew as part of her homeschool education. I think there are a few that I lost, because there are some missing dates and we never missed a date (five times per week) in the five years she drew them. Still, 501 is a good number of comics. She drew them from when she was 14 until she was 16 for an absolutely stellar run. The quality of the comics improved greatly over that time. She really hopes she can get back to that one day–maybe not to draw Betty Blonde, but something new.
Happy Birthday Kelly. We love you.
Betty Blonde #501 – 07/19/2010
Click here or on the image to see full size strip.
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Lorena is off to Seattle again to give Kelly a hand while she is in the race up to the delivery of an oral presentation of a big paper based on her research. I am stuck here by myself to steam over the election. I am glad I have too much stuff to do to pay much attention to the politics. All the news people who made unequivocal statements about what would happen at the Iowa Caucuses are now making just as unequivocal statements about what will happen at the primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina. They were completely wrong about Iowa and continue to double down by making a bigger deal out of the third place finisher than the winner who got the greatest amount of votes in Republican history of the event. We will see what happens next, but I am pretty happy I am so busy I cannot pay a whole lot of attention.
Christian got into Portland at 3:00 AM, Christmas Eve morning. Lorena has enjoyed spoiling him ever since. We had a great day with all the cousins at Aunt Julia’s house. Grandpa Milo and Grandpa Sarah were even there to help out.
We count Gladys as the fifth grandparent of Christian and Kelly. We are really thankful to have the chance to live so close to Glad. She has been a fixture in our lives since forever. She and Lorena went down to their Wilsonville manicure salon this morning, then we made our way to the new Noodles and Company here in town for a (late) Birthday lunch. We are especially thankful that she was able to make it all the way out to Raleigh for Thanksgiving and for the kids graduation from NCSU when Grandma Sarah could not travel. Thanks Glad. We love you.
