Serve by Design

It was a day or two before Thanksgiving that our oldest granddaughter, Chloe, popped the question, "Poppi, when are you decorating your Christmas tree?" This grand is always jazzed about Christmas! Each year, since she was a little girl, Chloe Michelle has helped her Mimi and me with Christmas decorating. If you knew that she already had her room decorations up on November 1st, you can imagine that she was more than a little anxious to help her grandparents "catch up" to the Christmas Season! Inspecting Charlie's Gingerbread House! I am a stickler about not putting up our decorations until Thanksgiving Day is over. Although I enjoy the ambience of a well-decorated family room with a beautifully lighted tree adorned with keepsake ornaments, garlands and red bows above the entry ways, and greenery threaded with red stringed beads on the mantle, I don't like to hurry into Christmas! So, Friday or Saturday after "Turkey Day" is soon enough for me! It w...

This is our family picture and greeting card! When Monique and I met in January 1970, it was love at first sight! At least for me! I knew that this woman was really special and I wanted to get more acquainted with her. We dated a couple of years and then took the plunge into marital bliss on June 10, 1972. That was forty-six and a half years ago! From that initial meeting on the campus of Eastern Illinois University just after the Christmas break of our freshman year, God has blessed and blessed our lives and now our large family. What started out at just two young college students in love has now blossomed into a beautiful family of four children and spouses and eleven living grand children that are scattered out from Austin to Albuquerque to St. Louis and Sherman. I never had a vision for this, but Monique would later confess that we had actually fallen one child short of her goal to have five children. We will never know what kind of kid "Jonathon Michael" would have grown...