My Boy Is Turning 21

Where the heck does time go? I swear it just seems like yesterday that he was on my shoulders and we were at the state fair.

I miss him so bad. He turned 21 years old on Wednesday. That will be the last B-Day away from us. He comes home from Australia on the 12th of October and we are counting down the days. Kelli and I are going to go down there and pick him up.

There is no way a dad could ever be more proud of their son than I am of Tyler. He has been such a great young man. He was easy as a baby and Lord knows I needed that. I had him by myself when he was just 9 months old. I was working construction and oh so tired when we would come home.

 We would drive right by a Little Caesars Pizza place on the way home. Tyler's first words were "PIZZA, PIZZA".

 When we got home he would sit in the middle of the floor and play for hours and when it was time for bed he would go straight to bed and sleep the whole night until I would get him up at 4:00 am to go to the babysitters.

 We would drive in the orange jeep with him still in his pajamas and he would never fuss. The babysitters loved him and he had many. 

He was easy as a toddler and took right to school when he got old enough. He has been a great big brother to his sisters even if him and Amy have had there moments. 

As he prepared for his mission he was such a great example of how a young man should be as he worked towards that goal.

 And now as he gets ready to come home after serving for 2 years, it is amazing to see the further growth in him as a man. He as grown right before our eyes as we have read his emails and spoke to him on the phone.

 The young boy with great potential has grown into a man with the world at his feet. The maturity that he has gained along with the experiences of living on the other side of the world, will serve him forever.

 I  cant wait for him to bring his love and testimony back into our home. His sisters are out of their minds with missing him.

50 days and counting

One of my favorite "me and Tyler stories"

This one is from "Astro Camp".  Tyler was 9 years old. If Cory Peterson is reading my 'blog', and he should be, he will definitely remember this one.

I was asked to go as a chaperon by the G.A.T.E. teacher, I thought it was because I was good example for the kids, but Kelli says it was because the teacher had a crush on me. I will go with that one, how could she help herself ?

 Anyway so up to Big Bear mountain in California we go for a five day camp. The second day was called "face your fear" day. The kids had to climb a 30' tall pole that had handles on both sides like a telephone pole. They had to put a harness on for safety and when they got to the top there was a round plate that they needed to stand up on and then scream something encouraging to the crowd below and then jump off. There was no way that Tyler was going to do this, he could not even stand on a chair to change a light bulb, he was so afraid of heights.

 So you can imagine my surprise when he comes to me to say " Dad, I am going to face my fears and climb the pole." "What!" I exclaim, as the feeling of pride is replaced by my worry of his humiliation. He insist though and off he goes to strap on the harness. I'm nervous, but a little bit of the pride is coming back as he marches right to the tree and starts up. Higher and higher he goes, he is going to do this, he is going to face his fears. 

I am truly swelling with pride now as Tyler reaches about 25' off the ground and then......... Tyler does what every person who has ever been high in the air and scared of heights does, he looks down! Big mistake! He stops climbing and grabs the tree in a bear hug. He begins searching for me on the ground, I decide to hide so that the professionals can deal with this. They begin coaxing him to continue climbing to no avail. He wants to climb down, but you can't climb down, he is in a harness that has tension on it and he is not strong enough to push himself down, so they tell him to just let go and jump. "NO WAY!" He tells them and then proceeds to try and unhook his harness."NO!NO! Tyler!" the guy screams. "You can't unhook that!" 

My pride is gone and is replaced with fear for Tyler, both for his safety and for the humiliation of freezing up on that tree in front of all those other kids. It takes them a good 10 minutes to get him down. He left claw marks on the tree. The 'face your fear day' did not go so well.

Tyler is still scared of heights, but so what, he is scared of all most everything . Not a week goes by that we don't get a letter retelling a terrifying moment of bugs, bees, snakes, birds, lightning, wind, darkness, butterflies, puppies, kittens..........OK maybe he's not scared of all those things, but he is scared of most of those things.

But we still love him and miss him and can't wait for him to be home.

My boy is 21 years old. Man! That makes me old.

See ya