Finally…..the one thing that our son Scotty wanted to have at home, a flagpole.  And this afternoon, after months of hard work and planning, his little brother Ben, dressed in his REAL USMC cammies, (with the name TIRMAN on it just like his brother’s) raised both the US Flag and the USMC Flag in honor of the brave men and women who stand in harm’s way for our great country everyday!

It was a humbling request from our son Scott as he left for boot camp.  He is still there and we rarely get to hear from him, but the flags will be the first thing he sees when he returns home for leave in December.  It has been a BIG project and it is a BIG flagpole (30 ft) and had BIG flags (US- 8×5 and USMC 3×5)  AND, it looks spectacular, although nothing will compare to being on base and seeing all those young Marines graduate!  It will be a high honor for sure.

I want to encourage ALL OF YOU to SHARE this blog post with anyone you can.  These flags fly for all Americans, and especially for our US Marines…..the ones who have served, for those serving, and for those to come…like our son Scott……and someday perhaps his brother Ben.  We are proud to have them wave in our yard, and they will fly 24/7 and 365, as they have been designed.  It doesn’t matter who is political control, or anything else….we are proud to support the brave men and women who serve and who have served.

On this Thanksgiving week, we have A LOT to be thankful for.  As for us, we will witness to that by flying our flags proudly.  We will see our son Scott in just 26 days….and he will be a US Marine.  We will be thankful for that…..just as we will be thankful for all who put on the uniform of our country and serve.  Thank God for them all!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes this is the pre-surgery Ben, in the Mini Cooper that he (and all kids) drive to surgery at the Surgery Center.  And in all honesty, he totally stunk at driving it.  He never kept his foot on the gas long enough to get anywhere, which made even getting the OR quite a feat, and he has no concept of corners.

And post operation, he still is having trouble with corners.  He refuses to swallow ANYTHING….including his own spit.  And yes, this has delayed his recovery and made him a candidate for dehydration, but this afternoon he DID make a lot of progress.  It seems he will not need to go back to the doctor over the weekend.  But I will say that he still is not a big fan of drinking a thing!!

The good news in all of this however, is that I WENT to my doctor today about the fever I have been running since the night of Ben’s surgery.  I am NOT contagious to him and am now on meds.  This means I can now take night duty, regardless of how I feel.  And it may not seem rational, but I am really quite thankful for that.  Amanda is exhausted and I want her to get some sleep.  Tonight she finally will.

So that is my report.  It’s progress, but I am hoping tomorrow to give even a better one!!  We have a lot to be thankful for here…..and the best is this……Ben’s recovery is far better than he drives!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Although neither Ben or I are feeling well….he has lost his tonsils and adenoids and is running a fever, while I am just running a fever as well, we DID manage to get out into the yard today and slide the flagpole into it’s base.  It took ALL OF US (Amanda, Steph, Kara, and myself) to lift it into the hole, but it looks great and it made a Thanksgiving I wasn’t able to participate in as I wanted, all the better.

And…….as this was something that Scotty had requested, it was fitting to put it in the ground on Thanksgiving.  We hope to raise the flags over the weekend, and we will leave them up so that the US and USMC flags are the first things he sees as we pull into the drive.  He serves one and he earned the other.  And it was a very honorable request for him to make.  I didn’t want to disappoint him.

But with that, I am worn out and hoping that I can turn a corner sometime tonight.  More importantly however, we need Ben to.  He needs to DRINK, but he is a pretty stubborn soul.  Please pray for him to get better.  I can deal with myself……but I worry about him.

ALSO, please pray for my wife.  She was up all night before the surgery worried.  Last night and today, with me unable to take care of Ben in case I was contagious, she took care of him by herself.  She is exhausted.  Pray that she can make it through this.  And pray that I get better as well….THAT would be a big help!

But Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  We are not as happy here as we want to be, but we ARE thankful!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, Ben had an extremely successful surgery this morning and we were home just a little after noon.  He was on pain meds, and wanted to do too much as his sister was here, but he seemed to do it all without consequence.

By bedtime, he was far more tired and far more grouchy too.  But we  stocked up on ice cream and such for “fake Thanksgiving” tomorrow, so we assumed things would just be okay.

Of course MY spiking a fever has been an unexpected and unwelcomed surprise.  I immediately distanced myself from him, and am now in bed in sweats and all as I already have the chills going on.  It totally sucks, I assure you.  But in life, it is what it is…..I will deal with it the bet I can and I have Amanda and Steph to step up and make it work.

But for now I am thankful AND I feel like hell.  I am holding onto the good, and I am praying that the bad does not overtake me.

Ben is on his way to better health……me,…….not so much.  But the big point is to be beyond surgery and get HIS problems resolved…..and that is what we did!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, tonight is the night BEFORE surgery for Ben.  Tomorrow morning he will have his tonsils and adenoids removed AS WELL AS tubes installed in his ears…..he needs it all.  He has tons of ear infections, he cannot hear, and hopefully this will solve his, other than that early bedtime thing.  He is not looking forward to the surgery, but seems strangely drawn to the fact that he gets to eat ice cream all the time for a few days….go figure.

And STEPH will be home tonight around midnight, so she will go with us to his surgery.  Ben is very excited about that, and in all honesty I think Steph is too.  All the kids are pretty tight, and if it was not on her break, she would just worry.  We didn’t schedule it for her break for her though, he just doesn’t need to miss any more school if he doesn’t need to.  So they have no school tomorrow anyway, and there is a chance that he could be fine by Monday when they return.

PLUS…..we were not having REAL Thanksgiving on Thursday anyway.  We instead were having FAKE Thanksgiving.  We figured if Scotty couldn’t be here, we would celebrate our family Thanksgiving a day or two after Christmas when he is home on leave.  I know one of his buddies had his Thanksgiving BEFORE he shipped.  So I know we are all looking forward to that anyway.

But Ben is out having Mac and Cheese at Panera right now with his mom.  He may have something else when they get home, but nothing after midnight.  We do ask however that you keep him in your prayers.  He is just a little guy and this is a big thing.  We know he will be scared AND I KNOW that Amanda will be a MESS!  Pray for her as well.

But for now, that’s it.  I am getting ready for the return of Ben and the arrival of Steph and Kara…..good times!!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, this was the picture right before he left for school.  My mother-in-law, better identified as Ben’s “Nanny,” not in the nanny sense, but in the Kansas grandma sense, left to return for Kansas after an almost 3 month stay.  And I need to confess that it was hard on ALL of us.

In all honesty, she came here about a month earlier than she had planned, and she came to help out amidst a situation for which we needed help.  It was truly a Godsend too.  But we never asked her.  She asked us if she could come early, and she even gave up a planned vacation to do so.  It was an unbelievable gift to us, and it made all the difference.

But more than that, during that last hug, she encouraged me to keep moving ahead.  It was more than significant, in that she and I actually said goodbye twice….she passed on the same thing both times.  I am not a moron, at least most of the time, so I really did pick up the message.

The fact is, she is devoted to us and to her family as a whole.  No one likes to have problems or struggles, but when they do it is always a blessing to see people step up and support you, particularly family.  And I will be eternally grateful for all she has done for us…and in fact, knowing her, I am sure that it is not done.

So by now she is close to Kansas, where she will spend the next few months with HER Father-in-law, and help him.  I am sure she will have fun.

But here, we will miss her, and here we will continue on.  Oh yes, we KNOW she will return, we just do not know when.  But we are thankful for her in our lives……and even as the son-in-law let me confess….YES, even me.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well I have been away from both Facebook and my blog because of some sort of “security issue” that Facebook identified.  They froze my account for over 2 days and had me looking for issues on my computer that clearly did not exist.  It put me WAY BEHIND…..but I am not bitter, NO STUPID FACEBOOK NO!

But tonight it all appears to be back up, and good thing too.  There are a lot of people who follow this blog (poor souls) and it has been missing.  For now however, it is BACK UP.  (Just like Notre Dame in the polls!) And everything in the world seems right.

As most regular readers will know, my mom and my grandma (her mom) died just weeks apart last year.  And yesterday, my Aunt Barb and Uncle Dave (my mom’s brother) along with my cousin Steve, came down for a visit and brought a box of PICTURES for me….some to copy and some to keep.

And as Amanda and I went through the pictures, all the memories of my life began flooding back.  No pictures of me existed between the ages of 10-22 except at my grandma’s, and many were in this box.  It was pretty cool.

And then today, I went to Nashville with Amanda, Ben, and my Mother-in-law, who leaves tomorrow since coming in August.  We stayed in town after not only a wonderful Homecoming celebration with the people of St. Matthew’s, but also after probably one of the worst sermons I have heard in years.  I only wish it were not mine, but it was.  So tonight’s gratuitous picture is of Ben and I outside the Fudge Shop (ALWAYS capitalized in Indiana)  He and I were goofing off as I was trying to forget.  It clearly has not worked!!

But more than anything, I am glad to be back.  I will have a pretty great post for everyone tomorrow, so please check back in……but until then, I am off until tomorrow!

Thanks for your patience….Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, given the choice, our son Ben would rather go into the hot tub with his mom over me.  Now to show you the level of dedication this boy has to her, she doesn’t even like the hot tub, nor does she like the cold or all the splashing.  Yet tonight when I asked him who he had more fun with, he answered, “my mom, because she is pretty.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not disappointed that anyone might think I wasn’t pretty.  Some guys may get wrapped up in that, but in all honesty I could never be one of them.  Yet I cannot deny that my feelings didn’t get a little hurt.  Ben and I had a BLAST the other night in the hot tub, and he played rough and I played rough right back.  We were laughing and goofing off and probably dumping more water OUT than we ever should have.  Yet he bagged me for the girl, and what makes it even more humiliating is that it was for MY GIRL too.

But Amanda was a great sport.  He WAITED for her to get home from work to get in there with him.  He could have been in there after school with me, but no…..he wanted to do it with his mom.  And good for him…..AND FOR HER.  She was not enthused, but she did the right thing and made a memory for both of them.  She let me take six pictures, none of them revealing, and afterwards laughed the whole experience off.  And Ben was so very happy.  He loves us both, but most of his best times are the ones he spends with his mom.

That of course is all about to change……..you see, she throws a football like a girl.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Today Amanda and I were able to take part in a program called “Kids Against Hunger.”  We gathered with a ton of other people at Lucas Oil Stadium (I understand it is where some sort of professional football team plays) and mixed these meals and boxed them for shipment.  Our shift packed over 180000 meals in just two hours…..and as I understand it, there were three shifts today.  Their website is http://www.kidsagainsthunger.org/  I encourage you to check them out!

But it also was a time to spend with my wife and some of her co-workers as they fulfilled some of their corporate service commitment today.  It is pretty impressive company in that it sees its global and community role as well.  Elanco is the Animal Health Division of Eli Lilly.

Now I want to be clear to all of you, I love my wife, but as I was there among all those women in hair nets, I was glad I didn’t have some type of “Lunch Lady desires.”  There were just too many of them.  And there were men there too from her group, and I would have included them in the prior joke if there were just something funny about men wearing hair nets…..but there isn’t.  I was just glad they were not Green Bay hats.

But the good news is that we had a great time and lots of people will be fed.  And if you didn’t take part today, please know you still can.  Get on their website and make a donation!  That’s right….they will actually take YOUR MONEY!  And I hope you give them some of it too.

And don’t complain…..after all, I am a MAN….and I spent the afternoon in a hairnet.  A bit of your cash is a much smaller sacrifice I assure you!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, he calls it the “hot tub pool,” and yes, we were in it tonight as he has been bugging me to get it up and running.  It always has water in it, but I often forget to keep up with the chemicals.  But with a 5 year old at you for a week, you learn to remember real quick.

So tonight we were in it.  It is a lot smaller than the hot tub I had at our old house which would seat 8.  This seats only two, and is very nice, but when a 5 year old is IN a hot tub he never counts as 1 of the 2……it is more like 9.  So in essence, 10 of us were in our 2 person hot tub tonight for about an hour.

But in all honesty, it was fun.  I am down 50 pounds and I was not embarrassed to be in my swim suit.  My mother-in-law took the picture and it did not phase me at all.  It actually was good to be in it.  And Ben and I had fun.

One thing I did discover, AFTER she had left to go inside, was that when I went to go get some eucalyptus out of the chemical bin I saw that my suit was almost transparent.  It would have made a hell of a story in Amanda’s family, so I am glad I didn’t goof up all that publicly.  Instead I got to enjoy myself with Ben in the hot tub pool.

And incidentally, since it is just a 2 person, I told him that mommy, and Stephy, and Scotty all may want to be in there too over the next two months.

He let me know I could watch……as he would ALWAYS be 1 of the 2!  Go figure!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+