Goodbye Howard Cunningham And June Cleaver

With the recent passing of Tom Bosley and Barbara Billingsley I just want to take a little time to reflect on their deaths. Both played television icons that will live on long after their deaths via televsion syndication, cable television, DVD sales, and overseas markets. How many Americans haven't at least heard of Happy Days and Leave It to Beaver, it they're not familar with the Howard Commingham and June Cleaver?

Both shows were set in the 50's and for lots of people including myself who wasn't born yet and didn't live through those years, these shows were and still are our window into that time period. Mr. C. (as Fonzi referred to him) was a role model of fatherhood for lots of people. While there are lots of jokes about how perfectly dressed June Cleaver was no matter what, her character defined how many people view mothers and the role of wives in society.

Life certainly appeared simpler on these shows than it has been since that time period. The problems faced by Richie and the gang an those of the Beaver seem downright simple compared to the problems and issues that we're facing today. This probably has a lot to do with a fondness that we have for the "Good Ole Days" and much of the desire to want to turn back the clock. Images depicted on those shows are very welcoming and reassuring. There is a civility and friendliness displayed between neighboors and people that you meet and people seemed to genuinely care about each other. Things were black and white without all the grey area that we have today with people doing all kinds of things that they should know in the back of their mind (or whereever their conscience is hiding) are wrong, and doing them anyways. You might even venture to say that this was the American Camelot.

Of course televison, movies, and books can choose to focus on certain things often ignoring others. Given the things that have happened since the 50's there was obviously a lot that was ignored or was brewing under the surface. There was not too much involvement of minorities in either of the shows and given America's melting pot image and demographics, there were plenty of minorities around even in the 50's. Equal rights and the role of women in the work place were not really takled other than being the sterotypical role of women being only mothers and wives. The taboo issues were never reallly touched and we never really saw a darker side of Howard and June, certainly there were areas where they would have both been flawed. You have to wonder how they would have dealt with some of the issues that seem to divide us today?

Much of life and attitudes in those shows are worth bringing back and if given a chance, I think that much of the American population would like to be able to return to the more simpler life of the 50's. In fact there are lots of politicians who have hijacked the "family values" theme for their own corroupt and warpped use. Americans would like to be able to trust their political and business leaders again, but that trust has been violated and a true return to honor in those fields seems like a long way off in the horizon (if it is there at all). Most leaders in that era did seem to genuinely care about their country and the American people as opposed to those today that seem to only be looking to line their pockets at any cost. You wouldn't have expected CEOs back then to get millions of dollars while shipping the jobs of their workforce off to the far corners of the world in the name of Shareholder value. Eisenhower warned the public about the Millitary Industrial Complex, you got to believe that he would not have started a War on Terror, or wasted taxpayer money so irresponsibibly as many of our leaders since.

Finally, I'd like to say goodbye to actors portraying Howard Cunningham and June Cleaver. You've created characters that many of us identify with in our window to that time period. There are lots of fond memories of your shows and the chacters you created will live on in our memories and new generations will continually be exposed and get to know those characters via methods that are probably not even conceived of yet today.

Photo Credit: "Oldsmobile Super 88" courtesy of straymuse.

Happy Birthday To...

A young Aunt Elke

May is quite a birthday month at DC Heron Family. Celebrating birthdays today are: Darryl’s sister, Heather; her son, Jacob; and Christine’s aunt, Elke. On the 17^th is Darryl’s grandpa’s birthday.

Heather and Sarah in July, 2005

Heather is 38 today, while Jacob is 11. I have written posts in honor these two birthdays at a private blog, so I hope that they will take the time to read them. I also plan to put a post in honor of my grandpa’s 91^st birthday at the private site as well.

Jacob in July, 2005

Elke is celebrating her 60^th birthday today! This is one of those landmark birthdays in a person’s life. Her children are throwing her an intimate party at her home later today. Ilona has put together a nice little surprise in honor of the event, I’m sure that this will be well received. Christine had planned on attending, but since one of the insurance companies plan to send someone out to look at the damage from our garden shed, she doesn’t know when they will be coming and doesn’t really feel up to going to a party.

Elke is Ilona’s middle sister. She is also mother to Leoni and Florian. I first met her on Christmas Eve in 1999. Christine and I attended a service at her Aunt Marion’s church and then there was a family gathering afterward, where I met her for the first time.

I remember Elke throwing a real nice birthday party for her boyfriend that I attended not too long after moving to Germany. Also remember having a bit of a pre-Christmas party at Elke’s current apartment not long after she moved in.

So I’d just like to say Happy Birthday to all those celebrating birthdays today and this month. May is such a nice month to have a birthday, Spring is generally underway and Summer is usually not too far off. I hope that you all have nice birthdays and that you have many happy fun filled memories from your birthday.

We Survived A Fire In Our Backyard Yesterday!

The fence surrounds what used to be our garden shed

I just thought that I would get a quick post out to let everyone know that we had a fire in shed in our backyard yesterday morning but everyone is alive and physically uninjured.

It was right around 3:00 and my alarm went off and I was thinking about getting out of bed, when I heard Christine say that there was a fire in one of our trees. I looked out the window in our bedroom and was almost blinded by the brightness of the flame. Christine went downstairs to call the fire department and I rushed upstairs to wake oma and after some clarification with oma, we grabbed the girls and headed downstairs, then I got Hobbit our of our bedroom.

Christine talked with the emergency operator who said that the fire had been called in. However, the person on the other end repeated back our address but with the number inverted. She corrected the operator, who then repeated that the fire had been reported multiple times.

After what seemed like an eternity the fire department made it but our hut could not be saved! In it were bikes from the whole family (including the one that Sarah learned to drive without training wheels last week!). Our lawn mower and various other yard equipment were also inside. I don't really feel like listing the contents at the moment, but most everything is damaged beyond repair.

A good part of the fence that surrounded the shed is badly burned, but currently still standing. Because of the condition of the yard at the moment, we don’t dare let Hobbit in the backyard.

We’ve spent a good deal of yesterday making calls a lot of phone calls about what to do with all the debris, getting a hold of the right insurance people, and so on. As of this moment we’re not sure when the insurance company will send someone out to have a look, so we tried to we haven't really started to clean up any of the debris yet. At the moment it seems that Christine will be discussing the situation with someone from our agency this morning and then the insurance company will probably send someone out to have a look. I do hope that all this happens today as Christine and are tired of looking at the debris and want to move forward.

I’ll write more about this later, I just wanted to get a quick post out and let everyone know that the whole family is ok.

Happy 50th Wedding Anniversary

Today is the 50^th Wedding Anniversary (goldene Hochzeit) of Christine’s parents! Ilona and Eberhard were married on this day back in 1958. This is an exciting event and I’m always happy to hear about a couple celebrating such an event. Unfortunately, since Eberhard passed away several years ago, Ilona will be celebrating this amazing occasion without him.

I regret that I didn’t have the chance to get to know Christine’s dad and that our girls won’t have the chance to get to know their opa. He was and still is the love of Ilona’s life. Sure she has had other relationships since he passed away but she always keeps that place in her heart for her Eberhard. I don’t think that if she lives to be past one hundred, that any other man will ever hold the same place in her heart.

Ilona and Eberhard had 30 plus years of married life together before he passed away. In their lives together they raised Christine. Where it not for this, it seems unlikely that I would have had the pleasure of getting to know Ilona. She is a wonderful and supportive mother-in law. Her friendly, warm, and outgoing personality makes me think that they must have had some wonderful years together with a lot of great memories. Seeing pictures of their wedding day, I can almost imagine that day.

In a time when some many couples get divorced, it is encouraging to know of couples that can be happily married for so long. While in their generation, divorce was probably not a real consideration, I believe that provided with different circumstances, they would have done things the same. A Golden Wedding Anniversary is a very special occasion and gives us all hope that love sometimes does triumph and people can live happily ever after.

Ilona visits the cemetery and Eberhard’s grave religiously (no pun intended), on their anniversary, his birthday, and other occasions. She will be stopping by there today in fact. She makes sure that the grave is kept up, something that some of many other graves lack. It is reassuring when you think that his memory lives on in Ilona and Christine.

While I can’t really do this event justice, I’d just like to wish a Happy Golden Wedding Anniversary to Ilona and Eberhard. Christine, Anna, Sarah, and I wish you all the best! Do you know of anyone that celebrated a Golden Wedding Anniversary? Do you have any other comments, I’d love to hear them. If you like the blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email.

Here are some other posts that you might like...

• Our Wedding
• How We Met
  

Sarah Rides Her Bike And Hobbit Takes A Bath

Sarah and her bike June 2007 (with training wheels)

I had thought until yesterday that the biggest thing that I would talk about in the blog this time around was that Hobbit had his first bath, but then Sarah went and changed that yesterday when she decided to ride her bike without training wheels!


Saturday I did a lot of things with the girls’ bikes, including taking the training wheels off Sarah’s bike. I worked with Sarah for a couple of hours, holding onto her shoulders while she peddled. It got to the point that as soon as I would take my hands away that she would get excited and immediately fall over. Sarah can sometimes be a little stubborn (well, can’t we all) and she decided that she wanted to ride her bike on the trail near our house. I continued holding onto her shoulders for a good part of the trail and then when we got to a paved clearing I started to try to take my hands away at various intervals with similar results. After awhile, my back was getting sore from the bending that I had been doing and I wanted a break, I suggested going back home to take a break before we continued. She didn’t like the idea of taking a break and was very vocal about it. Christine and I talked about the situation and thought that maybe the bike was too heavy for Sarah to really learn to get her balance without the training wheels, because it was heavier than Anna’s bike (which was way bigger!). We decided that we might look for another lighter and bigger bike for her on eBay, as we had done to buy Anna’s bike.

Before going to church on Sunday, Sarah had said that she wanted to ride her bike to there. The idea of having to hold onto her shoulders the entire way there was something that I didn’t feel up to and part of the way would have been by too much traffic to worry about her riding her bike. We suggested that she could ride her Like A Bike but she of course wasn’t too keen on this idea! When she finally decided that she would do that, it was too late to ride to church, so I drove them there (over Sarah’s protest, I must admit).

Yesterday I was installing a cargo net in Christine’s car so that Hobbit can ride in the back of the car and got the girls’ bikes out so that they could play outside with them. Anna and Sarah had planned that Anna would try to help her get started with the bike. I heard Anna say something about helping her get started and explained that this was really too difficult for Anna to do and that I would be glad to work with Sarah again after finishing installing the net. I spent some time trying to figure out how to install the net and I looked up to see Sarah speeding by on her bike! I did a double take before realizing that she was riding by herself and without training wheels. In fact, she was riding as though she had been riding for months, if not years! I was so shocked, that she had managed this without Christine or I helping her. Christine later returned and I showed her Hobbit’s net, all the while wondering when Sarah would come back around on her bike and what Christine’s reaction would be. Christine walked to the nearby playground to retrieve the girls and I could hear her surprised voice shout when she noticed Sarah riding by herself. Christine immediately called Oma to give her the good news and I called Grandpa after the girls had gone to bed.

Christine took Hobbit to his weekly puppy meeting on Saturday. Hobbit spent much of the time playing with his sister. From the way that Christine talked, I think that he might have now realized that this was his sister. One of the instructors told Christine that the breeder had done a good job with the litter and Hobbit and his sister seemed ready for the puppy class and appeared to have a “here I am look at me” attitude as they tried various equipment at the facility (i.e. a see saw, tunnel, and etc.) while the other Beardie was more reluctant to try the equipment.

Later Saturday, the girls played in these plastic seashells fill with water. Anna was very keen on Hobbit joining them. She tried to bribe him with some doggy treats. He did end up putting his front paws in the pool to get the treats. I video tapped this. Before I can post the clip, I need to figure out how to get the video from our mini dvd camcorder to the computer, as my editing program doesn’t recognize the format of the video on the mini dvd.

A wet Hobbit after his first bath!

Sunday Christine and I gave Hobbit his first bath. We thought that it was encouraging that he had put his front paws in the kiddie pool the day before. He was very good in the tub. Christine gave him some liverwurst after he came out of the tub, so maybe we can train him to think that he gets liverwurst when he has a bath.

The picture of Sarah and her bike is from last Summer. I didn't have my camera out to take pictures of her and the bike without training wheels yet. In the picture of Hobbit you can see that he is still a little wet from his bath. The pictures of the girls and Hobbit was taken shortly after the girls had woken up on Sunday, so they're still in their pajamas. If you like the blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments.

Here are some other posts that you might like to read...
• Anna Rides Her Bike
• Carnival
• How We Met
• Our Wedding

Our Wedding

As Christine and I will be celebrating our eight wedding anniversary on April 7^th, I have been giving some thought to our wedding (Hochzeit, in German). Most every married couples has some story to tell about their wedding, maybe there was something really unusual about the ceremony, the location; or collection of misfortunes, things that didn’t go according to plan or went totally wrong. A wedding is one of those life events for the participants, so most everything occurring at this time is amplified exponentially. Some things that taken in any other context would be considered minor, can on this day, become extreme highs and lows and often the day’s events build. The story of how we met gave us an interesting start as a couple, so why wouldn’t our wedding be memorable too? Without further adieu, here is the story that is our wedding.

Initial Planning

Shortly after I had purposed, we started planning the wedding. I had always wanted to get married in Europe at a castle, so I was intrigued by the possibilities. In Germany couples often have two weddings. The official wedding is somewhat like a civil wedding and is how a couple is legally married. Half of couples getting married will only do the civil wedding. The other half of couples getting married will have a ceremony in a church (kirchliche Trauung), so that they can be married in the eyes of God. The church ceremony has no legal standing.

We looked around at a few castles and decided upon the Biebrich Schloss for our civil ceremony. Biebrich belongs to Wiesbaden (not too far from Frankfurt); in fact it is often referred to as Wiesbaden-Biebrich. Christine knew an American bishop through having been a member of the Wiesbaden International Newborn Gospel Choir, and we arranged to have him perform the church service. We decided that we would have the church service at the same church where Christine’s parents had been married and that she was baptised at.

The Visa Situation

Weddings can be difficult enough anyways but when you add an international element to it, they can become pretty complicated. Because we wanted to marry in Germany, there was a requirement that I provide proof that I hadn’t been married before. I hate to imagine how complicated things would have been had I been married previously! I ended up going to the American Consulate in Frankfurt and getting a sworn statement that I had not been married before. Christine had been offered an Ex-Pat training assignment by one of the American managers that she had dealings with, so it was planned that she would come and live in the U.S. for a year and a half. One of the next biggest problems became that she needed a visa to enter into the U.S. I had heard horror stories about couples where one was American, they wed outside of the U.S. and then immigrations would not let the spouse in. While getting the necessary green card/visa was not guaranteed, it could take the couple up to a year and a half or longer. We were now hoping that she would get a training visa through work, if that didn’t work we would have needed to get a fiancée visa which would have allowed Christine to come into the U.S. and for us to then get married there. You needed to apply for a fiancée visa three months before it is needed. It all seemed very complicated and would have required the timing to be just right, something that I wanted to avoid.

Because of not knowing how the visa situation was going to turn out, we had to have a few plans. Plan A was that the training visa comes through and we can go with the wedding ceremonies as planned. Plan B was that we would have skipped the legal ceremony, had a church wedding in Germany, applied for a Fiancée visa and got married in the U.S. This would have meant that we would have been married in the eyes of God, but not legally. We didn’t know till the Friday before that she got the training visa so we could go ahead with Plan A!

Arrival of The Groom

I arrived at Frankfurt airport two days before the wedding. Matt (our best man) and Tracy (a friend of his) had flown with me. Shortly after walking through customs and meeting Christine, Tracy made the observation this was really our third date. We all kind of thought about that for a moment or two, Christine and I didn’t have any doubts as to if we were doing the right thing or not. That day Christine and I picked out wedding rings. We also had a session with an interpreter, I was told that this was required so that I understood what was going on and couldn’t claim later on that I thought that I was buying a washing machine or something like that.

The Groom's Parent Arrive

The day before wedding my parents were flying in, along with my friend Kurt and his wife Julie. Before leaving Christine’s apartment that morning I asked if I would need my passport that day, when Christine said that I wouldn’t, I promptly placed it on my bigger suitcase under a jacket or something and all thoughts about it vanished. Because of all the people that we were picking up, we tried to organize things so that Christine and I could lead my parents and their rental car to their hotel, while Kurt and Julie would follow Claudia (our maid of honor) back to the hotel. As luck would have it, my friend got separated which threw things off a little. We did finally all arrive at the hotel.

The Dress

Christine and I needed to go for the final dress adjustments and to find an outfit for me to wear. In order to fit Christine, my parents, and her mom and into one car (and avoid anyone else getting lost), we took my parents rental car to the bridal shop and Claudia re-parked Christine’s car. I found something to wear and they took Christine’s measurements to make the final adjustments. We now ran into the problem that the dress wouldn’t be ready till that afternoon, so we’d have to come back to pick it up. We had lunch and returned back to my parents’ hotel. We were approaching the time that the dress was to be ready and my dad suggested that we take their rental to pick it up. We did this and went to put the dress in Christine’s apartment, but guess what? Because we didn’t have her car, we didn’t have her apartment key. We found a neighbour that was home so we were able to leave the dress with the neighbour.

The Rehearsal

We drove back to my parents’ hotel and I left my suit there. We then had to head off to the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. We arrived at the church and waited for the maintenance guy to open it up. The church had not apparently been in use that day prior to our rehearsal, so it was cold. The rehearsal seemed like pure chaos to me and I was wondering how this was really going to work, when I heard my mom ask if there was going to be heat the next day at the wedding. My mom was almost always cold, so it wasn’t surprising that she would be concerned about this, but it only intensified the moment for me.

The Groom Gets Lost

The rehearsal dinner went well, everyone seemed to have a good time and enjoyed the food. After the rehearsal dinner Kurt and I went to an Irish Pub where one of Christine’s cousins was to meet us, he had told her that he wanted to throw me a bachelor party. After a few beers, Kurt and I then proceeded back to his hotel. After some difficulty we did finally get to his hotel and after some problems parking in the tight parking lot at the hotel, we decided to walk to Claudia’s apartment. Because it has been a superstition in my family that you shouldn’t see the bride before the wedding, I made arrangements to stay at Claudia’s apartment which was very close to the church and not too far from where the civil ceremony was to take place. I wasn’t sure how to get to her place while Kurt didn’t remember the way either. We walked around trying to find Claudia’s apartment and then we decided to take a taxi. The taxi dropped me off in front of the church and I told Kurt that he could go on back to the hotel. I walked all around the church looking for Claudia’s apartment but I couldn’t find it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any phone numbers on me so I could not really call anyone.

After a while my bladder kicked in and I was getting concerned about that. I was thinking that I didn’t want to get arrested in a foreign country for peeing in public. I was beginning to wonder if I would find Claudia’s apartment and if I would be able to make it to my wedding. All seemed to be lost, and then it occurred to me that maybe this was not the right church. I decided to walk further down the street to see if there was another church. That was the case. Claudia had given the Americans (except me) a tour earlier where she pointed out that the church that the cab driver had dropped me off in front of was the wrong church!

Because the door buzzers weren’t lit very well, I accidentally rang Claudia’s parents, who lived in the building next to Claudi. They let Claudia know that I was on my way. I arrived at Claudia’s apartment and she gave me the toiletry items that Christine had dropped by at my request. The stranger in a strange land anxiety had not left me and I was so relieved to be at Claudia’s apartment!

Will the Wedding Happen?

Early the next morning, Claudia told me that Christine had called and wanted to know where my passport was. I told Claudia that I thought that it was around my suitcase and I proceeded to take my shower. At my parents’ hotel, dad told me that mom had lost a lot of hair that morning. Mom had been battling cancer and the day after the wedding, my dad shaved off her remaining hair, so is was nice that she had most of her hair for all the pictures that were to be taken on this day!

Christine had been in a panic because she couldn’t find my passport, and her cousin who was supposed to pick her up in an old timer (a 1938 Lancia, I believe) was nowhere to be seen. Christine was waiting outside dressed in her gown waiting for her cousin. People drove by and honked at her all excited to see the bride in her wedding gown, which only made her more nervous. She was thinking about driving herself when she did finally get her ride to the castle. Claudia, my parents, my friends and I were at the castle waiting for Christine at this point. When Christine arrived she was all worried because we didn’t have my passport and the whole ordeal about being driven to the castle, and so on. My dad started to take some pictures of her, clearly stress, she promptly told him that now was not a good time to take pictures. Most of my life a driver’s license was the main from of identification, but driver’s licenses are not accepted as proof of nationality and identity in many international situations, so without a passport there was the possibility that the magistrate might have refused to marry us. We went into the castle and wanted to explain the situation, so that we could determine if we could even have the wedding. Our interpreter was sitting in an office waiting for us and she vouched for us, so we were able to have the civil wedding.

A couple of minutes into the ceremony, Christine realized that it was really going to work and we were really going to get married and she became relieved and was able to enjoy the ceremony. One thing that struck me about the ceremony was that they identified the participants by name, address, and occupation. I can still hear the magistrate and the interpreter saying “Matt Neumann, stagehand” (Matt’s primary employment at the time was doing stage setup, teardown, and occasionally spotlights at some area concern venues).

The Church Service

After going through the civil wedding, I wasn’t the slightest bit nervous at the church ceremony, because we were already legally married. I was able to enjoy the ceremony and marvel at the beauty of the church. The church ceremony was done in English with a friend of Christine’s translating into German. Matt and Claudia both read selected passages from the bible, Matt’s in English, while Claudia’s was in German. The gospel choir, that Christine belonged to, sang and were well received. The ceremony was nice and went well. After the church ceremony a log was set up in front of the church door and we had to use a hand saw to cut it. The log represents the first challenge that the married couple will face together.

The Reception

We had a nice small reception in a local restaurant. We asked a friend and neighbour of Christine to be our DJ. He had never done this before, but he did a good job and had fun (thank you Christian!). Christine had made a seating chart but things got mixed up and some people ended up sitting in different spots. At many weddings that I have attended, it is common that the people at the reception will strike their glass with a spoon and then the bride and groom are supposed to kiss. In Germany, when somebody strikes their glass with a spoon, it is because they wish to make a toast, so that custom didn’t work very well.

Between courses we all took a walk over to a park belonging to the Biebrich Schloss. We all stopped at a large tree that had a bench wrapped around it. Christine stopped and announced to everyone that at that exact spot was the first place that her father kissed her mother and she pulled out a picture of her father that she had been holding in her dress all day and told everyone that her father was a part of our big day. Christine’s father had passed away in 1993. I was touched by her inclusion of her father in the days events.

This was my first German wedding and reception (Hochzeitsfest or Hochzeitsfeier), so I wasn’t familiar with what happens at a reception. Christine’s friend Ute had placed several almonds decoratively on sheets of paper, one for every week of the year following our wedding date, and all the guests received at least one. During your week you’re supposed to contact the couple during your week, so that the couple knew that they had the support of friends and family. This was even a nicer idea when you consider that Christine was going to spend the next year in the U.S. and might occasionally feel homesick. Christine’s friend Anette organized a couple of games that were well received. Nicole, our DJ’s wife, had created this board with kids clothes on it, with holes for me to sick my head through the hole so that I was wearing what appeared to be a kid’s hat and kids clothes, while there were other holes where Christine put her hands and they appeared to be my hands. The way that it was set up, she could not see my face, so you can imagine some of the things that Nicole had Christine feed me tried to give me to drink. Most of our guests were thoroughly amused and laughed pretty hard while this was going on. I managed to move my head so that I could eat and drink everything alright up until a beer at the end.

I don’t really remember how it started, but a few of the women were in the mood to do some line dancing. Christian was rummaging through the CDs trying to find songs that would work for line dancing. Christian had done an excellent job as our DJ. Everyone enjoyed themselves and we had a very memorable reception.

Like many other couples, we’ll never forget our wedding. I’m really glad that my parents and some of my friends were able to attend. Going to Europe is something that many Americans would like to do, but so many people don’t ever get to do it. I was glad that my mom was able to Germany as a result of our wedding. Weddings can bring out the best of people and they can give us so much hope. It is nice to think about a couple getting married and wondering what adventures their marriage will bring them. It is nice to see the family bonds strengthened or renewed at weddings, to see families reaching out to welcome a new son in-law or daughter in-law. A nice spring or summer wedding on a nice day can give really lift your spirits. So this is more or less the story of our wedding. On your wedding day every bride is a princess, it is her day, and to all the brides, their groom is their prince, regardless of if he came riding in on that white horse in shinning armour or not. While I might not have been raised of nobility, we did get married in a castle and had a wedding I’ll never forget.

Before I forget, the video at the top of this post is a slide show that I made last year in honor of our anniversary and posted to our channel at YouTube. It is made up of the pictures taken by our wedding photographer. How about your wedding? What was memorable about your wedding? If you like blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments.

How We Met

As Christine and I will be celebrating our eight wedding anniversary on April 7^th, I thought that I would share the story of how we met. My apologies for those of you already familiar with it, if you don’t wish to hear it again, then please skip this post.

I was looking through our global address book at work (within our email systems) and I happen to run across Christine’s name in it. This email system at the time let you know what home server was for the company employees contained within the global address book and I noticed that she was listed on a server that I thought had to be in Germany. I decided to write her an email that stated something like you’re probably wondering who I am and that I thought it would be nice to have a penpal in Germany. A little time passed (including recovery from an inline skating accident) before Christine answered my email.

We exchanged several emails, snail mails, phone calls, and then she decided to use some of her vacation time to come meet me. She booked a flight to see me and then was going to fly to visit an aunt in California. One of her friends asked if she was afraid that I might turn out to be some serial killer or something, to which she replied that wasn’t who I was.

We packed a lot of things into Christine's visit. We took a nice trip to Chicago, a stayed at a nice bed and breakfast in Luddington, and a wonderful bed and breakfast on Macinac Island. I took her to one of the annual Heron Family reunions/picnics, pretty brave on her part when I think about it, as my dad comes from a family of nine and so there were usually a lot of people at these events. I took her to see one of the last baseball games at Tiger Stadium. Between vacation days and weekends we spent 10 days together on that trip, then it was on to California to visit her aunt.

Immediately after she left my sisters and mom let me know that I should not let her go and I started thinking about visiting Christine that Christmas. I also decided that I would purpose while the fireworks were going off and 2000 was a brand new year.

I arrived a Frankfurt airport on Christmas Eve, 1999. A little later we drove to Christine’s mother’s apartment for a visit. Ilona, Christine’s mom, had taken a beginning English class to be able to talk to me and she worked out this nice little “Welcome to Taunusstein” speech, something that I found really neat. To test the waters so to speak, I had gotten Christine a necklace, placed it in a ring box, and presented it to her as a Christmas present. Both Christine and her mom were relieved when the box was opened and it was only a necklace! I attended a Christmas Eve service in a church in the little village that Christine’s Aunt Marion lived and I met some of Christine's family. At this point I was feeling the effects of jet lag, the time difference, and lack of sleep, so that might have all factored in to make things larger than life, but they were larger than life for me.

We did some nice trips and spent some good quality time together before New Year’s Eve was upon us. We went off to see the fireworks over Wiesbaden prior to 12pm. Immediately after the New Year had started, with fireworks still going off fast and furious, in a quite moment I told Christine that I had forgotten to give her a Christmas present that it was in my coat pocket, if she would pull it out. She pulled out the ring box, opened it up and at this time I had gotten on one knee and purposed. She immediately said yes. She showed her mom the ring and they both cried together. Later on Christine had told me when I had given her the ring box earlier she was really hoping that it wasn’t a ring inside, but by the time New Year’s Eve had come there wasn’t any doubt in her mind about if she would say yes or not. Christine planned a New Year’s Eve party for me so all of us went back to her apartment and continued the celebration. I sent off an email to some friends and family to tell them that Christine had said yes.

I'll be posting the story or our wedding after I have a chance to finish writing it, so stay tuned. If you like blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments. The picture in this post is one that I recently put together in honor of our anniversary, it is a collage of various wedding pictures that we have.

Christine's birthday

Christine’s Birthday….

August 14^th is Christine’s birthday. Last year was one of those “big” birthdays, so there isn’t the adjustment that comes with one of those to deal with this year. I don’t want to say that it is a normal birthday, because there really isn’t such an animal. Birthdays mark that another year has passed in your life but it is also a time to realize, that you are lucky to be alive and have been blessed. It is a time to celebrate life, even if it isn’t a full-blown three-ring circus in honor of the event.

Last year since we both celebrated one of the “big” birthdays, we planned to have a bigger joint celebration between our birthdays, but it didn’t work out. So, this year we’ve decided that we wouldn’t attempt anything else so big. Christine’s mom will be here looking after the girls, so that the two of us can have our own quite celebration.

While Anna realized that her mom was having a birthday last year, it seems to have now sunk in with Sarah, that here mom is having a birthday. Sarah now seems to have “birthday awareness”. Anna’s birthday is 12 days after Christine, so August is a bigger birthday month for us (not to mention that we have several family and friends celebrating their birthdays this month). I think that it is special that the two of them share the same month but they each have their own days. Sarah’s birthday comes more than a month after mine, but within the space of a year is closer to mine and there is Christmas and New Years in between, so it seems pretty close together.

In honor of Christine's birthday I created several slide shows and have posted them to our channel on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/dcheronfamily). One of special note is one that I put together of the girls dressed as brides.

According to FamousBirthdays.com, Chirstine shares her birthday with David Crosby (of “Crosby, Stills, and Nash” fame), actor/comedian Steve Martin, novelist Danielle Steel, Far Side Creator Gary Larson, NBA star Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and actresses Susan Saint James and Halle Berry.

From http://www.paulsadowski.org/BirthDay.asp ...

Christine was conceived on or about November 21^st. In the Julian calendar here birthday is 2439351.5. She was born in the Chinese year of the horse. Her Native American zodiac sign is Salmon and her plant is Raspberry. Her birthday is 12.17.12.17.7 in the Mayan calendar. As of August 13^th at 2:02:42 AM EDT she was 21,562,682 minutes old. The moon’s phase was a waning crescent on the day she was born. In dog years she is 5.86066536203522 years old. (still chasing cats)

From http://www.kakophone.com/kakorama/EN/index.php ...

Also sharing Christine’s birthday but somewhat earlier…

1297 - Emperor Hanazono, Emperor of Japan (d. 1348)

1642 - Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1723)

1688 - Frederick William I of Prussia (d. 1740)

1740 - Pope Pius VII (d. 1823)

1777 - Francis I of the Two Sicilies (d. 1830)

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Simpsonized

Simpsonized

I found out that you can turn photos into Simpson's characters. I first read about this here. So without further adieu here we are as Simpsons....

Intertesting

Wikipedia

Many of you are probably familiar with Wikipedia. It is a web-based encyclopedia edited by its users (here is the official "Wikipedia about"). This site is one of the more famous wikis. While this is not an academic web site, it is a handy place to get quick information on a subject. Posted towards the end of most entries are a list of sources used in that entry, so that you can probe further if you would like or maybe you might care to do some fact checking on the entry. This site has grown into one of the more popular ones on the net. Subject to the rules and conditions of the site, almost anyone can become a member allowing them to post and edit entries. If you know a lot about a subject and believe that an area of that subject is incomplete or inaccurate, this would be an opportunity for you to contribute. Some of Wikipedia's sister projects include the following sites: dictionary, news, learning, open content textbooks, quotations, free content publications, and media.

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A visit from Ute

A visit from Ute...

On Saturday we were visited by Ute and her family. Ute has been a friend of Christine since they went to college together. Her husband, Axel, is a major in the German Air Force. Axel was stationed around Norwich, England for a few years and now he is stationed around Maastricht in the Netherlands on a N.A.T.O. assignment.

Interesting...

Tour de France

Alberto Contador from the Discovery Channel Team won the 2007 Tour de France on July 29th. The 24 year old joins another famous Spaniard, Miguel Indurain, who won the Tour from 1991-1995. Alberto was expected by many tour followers after Michael Rasmussen was ousted from the Tour 5 days before the end of the race. I just wonder if people will forget all the talk about doping in this year's race. Will the grand race ever be able to get beyond all the doping. Only the future knows.

YouTube

I'm sure that most of you have heard of Youtube or even have been at their site by now. I have posted several videos and slide shows at the dcheronfamily channel. Pachelbel Rant is from comedian Rob Paravonian, who does a funny bit about how this one piece of music seems to haunt him throughout his life. If you're a fan of Monty Python and Star Wars, you might enjoy this one. If you're a fan of 24, you might enjoy this clip of catch phrases. Here are some Simpsons 24 parodies one of the show, Previously on the Simpsons, and Simpsons promo 24 style. I heard Bertone play a clip of Bush speaking a version of Imagine, a famous John Lennon song. The clip that I linked to here isn't what he played, but you can find many different clips if you search "George W Bush and Imagine" at YouTube. Here is a clip from the Bush blopper reals and one from more humorous sound bites.

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Aunt Helen Has Passed Away

My Aunt Helen passed away yesterday. As she hasn't been in the best of Health for several years now, it didn't come as a surprise but is still very sad. Aunt Helen was always lively and fun. Aunt Helen had moved to Florida many years ago, but she has often returned to Michigan. I remember on one of these visits, Uncle George and her came to see us at our home in Ortonville. On these visit we went for a walk and ended up with a stray Afgan dog. Uncle George asked us to keep the dog for him as they couldn't take the dog back to Florida (for some reason!). We had that dog for several years until we found her another home (and not with Aunt Helen and Uncle George!)

This is the only picture that only good digital picture I have of Aunt Helen that I could post. This picture was taken in July 2005 when we were in Michigan. I'll have to look through what I have and see if I can scan some in for posting. I'll be thinking about Aunt Helen, her kids, grandkids, and the others who will be missing her. I plan to post some more about Aunt Helen later, in the mean time please feel free to post any stories, memories, and etc as comments to this post.

Bye for now.

Darryl

Felix's Confirmation

We were recently in Switzerland for the confirmation of family friend Felix. Christine is Felix's godmother and has known his mother, Anette since college. The first picture is of the girls with Felix at the after party. The second picture shows Daniel, Felix's younger brother, in the pirate outfit. Bye for now.

Darryl

Visit from Grandpa and Aunt Betty

We were visited by Darryl's dad and Aunt Betty from April 10th to May 17th. Here are some pictures of the girls with their grandpa taken shortly after they arrived.