So today I'll formally introduce everybody. Of course you know me, PFCMom, or Rozylass. I was born and raised in San Diego, California. I served a mission in Florida Tallahassee, back in the olden days (as my children call them) when it included all of the panhandle, south to Gainesville, and included southern Georgia and Alabama. I served in all three states and love the South and southern folks. After my mission I worked, traveled, attended college and kept hoping to get married. I eventually met a US Marine named Steve, known as TopDad now, and we married in June 1988. He was thirty-one and I was thirty. Our first child, Noble, was born July 1989. She was followed by four brothers, Elder PW in January 1991, JET in August 1993, Doc Brown or Dr. Hair in September 1996, and Dandylion or Mr. Music in June 1998.
We have lived in San Diego, Oak Harbor and Mount Vernon, Washington, Dale City and Stafford Virginia, Provo and Midvale, Utah. Currently we are in Audubon, IA, Heartland, USA. It is a tiny town of about 2,100 (my HS was larger) and we are surrounded by gorgeous farmland, corn and soybeans, as well as pastures with cows of all colors. The rolling hills, woods, wildflowers, streams and farm buildings make for a beautiful picture anyway you look.
When I ask Noble where she says she is from, she says "I tell them I'm from all over, a military brat." I told her to mystify people by saying she is "bi-coastal."
TopDad is an Industrial Technology teacher here; he teaches beginning and advanced woods, beginning and advanced drafting, keyboarding, Eighth grade exploratory (Careers), and next semester will be adding a new class to his repertoire: Small Engines. All this keeps him busy enough, and in the spring he adds coaching the Boy's Tennis team to the mix. At church he's the Young Men's President which gives him reason to spend time with our own boys helping them through the ranks of Scouting.
Noble is in the Air Force now and attending language school in California. She just got a computer and skyped me for the first time last night. It was really fun. She is studying Korean and expects to be stationed there when she finishes school. She's also an aspiring writer with an imagination to be envied. She creates whole worlds and cultures complete with magic systems and all sorts of interesting creatures in them. She's tall, slim and beautiful.
Elder PW is in Argentina, way, way down south in Caleta Olivia. He will return at the end of March 2012 and has a scholarship waiting for him at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. He dream was to be Marine Corps pilot, but I think his mission has changed that a little. We'll see what he decides when he returns. We know it will involve flying.
JET is attending a local community college and loving life. His major is media productions which shows off his skills and talents. He is the most social of all our children and loves to be around people. He is totally artistic, even to the point of making his food look pretty!
Doc Brown/Dr. Hair is a freshman, birthday next week turning 15. He plays the trumpet in the marching band, loves school and is a serious student. He is a Lego Master Builder and would love to work for Lego later. He is also a budding architect who has long promised to build me my dream home.
Dandylion/Mr. Music is thirteen, in eighth grade and still my sweetheart who hugs and kisses me. He'll always be my "baby" no matter how old and big he gets. He plays percussion (bass drum) in the Jr. High marching band and his teacher tells us that the band falls apart when he isn't there to keep the beat going. He is Mr. Music because from the time he was a baby I knew he had music in his soul. He taught himself to lead music from looking at the diagrams in the back of the hymnbook during Sacrament Meetings at age three. At age four he wanted to learn to play the fiddle. At age five he began lessons and took to it like a duck to water. (It was a VERY sad day in my life to have to end lessons for financial reasons, but that's a whole 'nother story.) At about age six or seven he announced that he wanted to be an orchestra leader and learn all the instruments. Well, we'll see. He is also a good artist and cook and mathematician. He has so many talents!
Here's my brood, two years ago, in the spring before TopDad and JET moved to Audubon.
And here am I with TopDad, both pictures taken on Mother's Day, in front of the giant Lilac Bush in our backyard in Midvale, Utah. I wish I could have transplanted that beauty out here to Iowa. They take so long to grow.
Many years ago when I was struggling with all little children and the boys especially were hard to handle being rude and totally boyish, I had a brief glimpse of all of the boys grown up. They were all in white shirts and ties and they all loomed over me. They were handsome and I could feel their protecting power surrounding me. It gave me the strength to press forward and continue teaching them, training them and leading them to adulthood. My husband and I often remark that our children are on a 19 year training program to help us be patient with their unfinished selves. Now that two are out of the nest and another is almost ready to leave I'm beginning to see the fulfillment of that vision.
I love being a mother; I would choose the same path over again, and I would exercise even more faith and have more children. True joy in life comes from family and as it has been said "No other success can compensate for failure in the home." And "The greatest work we will ever do will be within the walls of our homes."
