Birthday Musings #2

Tomorrow (Tuesday, 9/25) I will be 60. The time has flown since I wrote last year's post on this subject. Not much has changed in regard to the aging process since then - the vision, the brown spots, the loss of flexibility, the memory, the exhaustion - pretty much the same. I still have the least gray hair among my siblings.

This is a very significant year for DC and me. He turned 65 in July, I will be 60, and we will celebrate our 35th anniversary on December 28.

My sister was born two weeks before my first birthday, so we loved being "twins" for two weeks every year - except we always got the same gifts from everyone, so I always knew what I was going to get. We finally started opening our gifts that came in the mail on the 18th - halfway between, sitting on the floor back to back so we didn't see what we got if the other one was faster on the draw opening the packages. We did the same at Christmas. Everyone was afraid to get us something unique, I guess.

When DC and I started dating, we spent my first birthday week-end taking a ride to view the autumn colors in the mountains. You from the Midwest and East Coast don't think our coloring is that fantastic, because we don't have a lot of red. But when you're driving through the mountains and suddenly you come upon a sunshine-bright patch of yellow aspen in the midst of evergreens, it is a glorious sight. I have a memory book that my sister gave me when DC and I started going together. It has pockets for each month's memories, and places to write a little bit each day. I checked Saturday to see what the date was that year when we went to the hills. It was the 23rd, this year Saturday was the 22nd. Exactly 35 years later. Here is what I found when I opened the September page and looked in the little pocket:

That night we took a busload of teen-agers from church about 70 miles east of here to hear David Wilkerson, the founder of Teen Challenge, speak. Little did I know that someday we would be so thankful to him for starting that program (see sidebar for Kevin's and my story, if you don't know what I'm referring to). Obviously, we were much younger and had more energy in those days!

I found several other treasures that I will be sharing in the days ahead. But for today, here are some shots of our trip two days ago. I'm so glad the rain held off until today!