A Life After Death

I mentioned this man about a year ago, you can find his full story at this website:
http://presenttruthmn.com/the-ministry/youcef-nadarkhani/

To sum it up- he's a pastor from Iran who is facing the death sentence for apostasy (changing religions from Islam to Christianity). He's been imprisoned since October 2009. He has a wife and two sons (7 and 9).
He's up for re-examination on the 25th (in Iran, but in America it'll be the 24th).
So would you please pray for our brother tomorrow- Hebrews 13:3 "Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body."

My little sister Emilee turned 7 on Wednesday and basically April and I pulled together the coolest super hero party that ever existed!

Super Em getting ready for her party!

Em drew her own invitations- april got them photocopied with all the information for her super guests!

This was our Super Hero HQ (that's what my brother said is what all the cartoons call the super hero headquarters!)  Notice that april spelled "telephone" wrong- I almost killed her!

April made Em's awesome Happy Birthday Banner. We set up the table so the kids could make their own masks to protect their secret identities!

Hailey made Em's cake with her "Super Em" logo and personalized cupcakes for all the Super Friends!

Some of our props for the photobooth and also one of our games (x-ray vision of course!)

Super Guests arriving! (is there anything cuter than batgirl and Super princess fairy (what was that kid thinking?) being reunited!?)

Highlight of their day- chasing chickens! Why did I bother to plan any games???

So these were our super villains- The Evil Dr. Birthday Basher and his henchman...Jo Jo. Anyway- we made a super video maybe I'll put up later where the Evil Dr. Birthday Basher threatened to destroy Emilee's birthday party by planting a bomb (i know...violent!) somewhere at Em's birthday party. The bomb was really a pinata that we made to look like a bomb!!! I know- too cool!

Our Super photobooth!

 

 So the kids did end up saving Em's Super Birthday party and destroying the fiendish plan of the Evil Dr. Birthday basher (after Joe Joe and Jesse broke a window...but what's a birthday party without a little drama?) And I did test the super powers of all of Em's super friends and found that the majority had super flexibility (limbo!!), one had super speed (musical chairs), and all of them had x-ray vision (our guessing what's in the box game)!!! And of course, they couldn't have broken our pinata bomb without Super Strength!
So I would say, all in all, it was a Super Party and that it really ended with a blast ;)

p.s. yes, I might have had way more fun with this party than the kids...i have no life :)

You know it's an exciting birthday party when you have to call 911, right?

Anyway, my grandmom turned 81 on Thursday and we celebrated by eating salmon and chocolate cake- a few of my grandmom's favorite things!

So Saturday night we invited over some of my dad's side of the family who, over the last few years, have grown  closer to my grandmom than her side of the family since her daughters and their kids live out of state (very different than my dad's insane Irish-catholic family with the 30 grandkids who are basically over my house every other weekend)...

Anyway we were having a great time partying it up with lunch meat and cheese and crackers (a few of my grandmom's other favorite things!), when we moved onto dessert. I fed her some her famous cream puff cake and had given her a bite of coconut cream pie when I look over and notice her not breathing and her eyes all unfocused and what not.

Well of course my grandmom would choke in the middle of her birthday party!

Anyway, my dad (recalling the incident  a couple of weeks ago) sprang into action and pulled her out of the wheelchair (with my uncle grabbing her legs and getting tangled in her birthday balloon that was tied to her chair!!!) Next thing I know, my aunt is screaming "Oh God no!", my other grandmother is throwing Lourde's Holy Water on her (while her and my grandpop continue to eat dinner), and we're screaming for the kids to leave the room because my grandmom is like dead on the floor and it didn't look like she was coming back this time...
 I, with my intensive medical training from my responding to emergencies class, go to grab my CPR mask (which totally makes sense when someone is choking- not! there are many reasons I am not going for nursing), meanwhile my dad and mom have my grandmom laying on her side on the living room floor while April calls 911. I'm ready for them to bring the body bag when next thing you know my grandmom starts chewing...to wrap up this death defying tale, my grandmom lives on! The paramedics came just to check her out and the party continued (my grandmom did seem to have more life in her after that, though the rest of us were exhausted!)

And so we've learned that my grandmom really knows how to kill a party (que drum and cymbal corniness)

I had a little mental goal of having 100 posts by my grandmom's birthday, but since i'm at like 96 posts or something and today is her birthday...eh, oh well? Maybe I'll pull 100 by 100???

Eighty-one. yup! I never would have imagined her making it another year, especially after this last year we had, but I guess God has some reason that my grandmom is still alive!

So Happy Birthday Lydia Dora Roach! I love you!!!!

My grandmom is 80 today! Who ever thought she'd make it? not me....
Happy birthday grandmom!

This is our only complete family photo ever-
From left to right
Top Row: Hailey (15) Jeremiah (17) Dad, April (22)
Middle Row: Micah (13) Me (20) Jesse (7)
Bottom Row: Nanny (79) Mommy, Emilee (4)

This is also in the hospital- full story later- but we did have a great party there!

Today is my grandfather's 80th birthday.
Well...i mean, it would be today, if well, you know, he was still alive. But this post is not to be all "grandpop reflective;" it is instead a post about nothing much- just wanted to comment that my grandmom did not once mention that it was his birthday today. She has forgotten.

She wrote the date on her check at CVS.

She mentioned multitudes of times that tomorrow is my birthday (we've shared a birthday for well...the last 20 years) and even bought me a card and wrote out a check for me

She had mentioned for weeks before this that her husband's birthday was coming up...and yet today she has forgotten. I'm kind of sad and kind of glad she did...

I was a little nervous she'd catch on when the guy from Peruzzi's called and left a message on the answering machine "to be one of the first to wish you a happy birthday" for my grandpop, but instead, since Peruzzi man did not mention grandpop's name, she assumed he was calling to wish me a happy birthday.

Go figure...I've got Peruzzi men, whose car I don't even own, wishing me a happy birthday. Cool!
It's not that she didn't mention my g-pop today (she mentions him everyday), but it never clicked that today was his day.

Last year at this time I was in England.

I called my grandpop from the phone in the hallway. It probably cost me 5 pounds to call him the way that those phone cards ate my minutes and my money. I'm really glad. That was the last time I heard his voice. Weird. He hadn't realized it was his birthday when he woke up because he had thought it was only the 22nd. I know how it is to forget which day of the week it is...that's why I missed a Spanish assignment last week. My grandmom took the phone to talk to me and yabbered endlessly about how her garden this and dinner that and blah blah blah...but then my grandpop took the phone back with his usual "dear..." and "she probably has to get going- it's long distance" and then I wished him a happy birthday and he wished me a happy birthday and then I said I love you and he said I love you and I would see him in a few months...little did I know...little did I know.

But I knew. I knew. In the back of my head I had that bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as I walked down the steps and sat on the leather couches in the living room of Flat 10. I knew. I knew my grandmom was going crazy...we'd seen it already the summer before when she started saying things like "is Jeremiah (my brother) Owen's (my father's) son?" (how funny it is that having to answer that question is so normal to me now, whereas, when she said that at this time last year, I felt sick to my stomach). I knew something was going to happen. But I kind of rubbed it off as you always feel that way when you go away...but something (some many many things) were going to happen.

And then I really knew...I really really knew something was wrong when I got my grandmom's birthday card in the mail. My grandmom always had beautiful cursive handwriting ( i mean, she's German- obviously it must be perfect). The chicken scratch I recieved in the mail was not her handwriting "Tiffie (below a scribbled out "Debbie")" and some ramblings about my call and coming home...it scared me...I remember clearly, being so excited to get mail, and then holding my card as I walked back into one of Ed Major's classes, shaking a little.

It's strange this was all a year ago. Life was different a year ago. There were marzipan cows and pigs and sheep on a blueberry cake a year ago. A carefree fall day in England...a year ago. Coffee with my friend English Hannah and a day of yarn shopping and getting a cute green top a year ago. A surprise party with all of my girlies a year ago. A magic apron...a year ago. And now...I don't know. I'm not sad or depressed that that isn't my life anymore. That was a season. This is a season. A time to laugh. A time to cry.

Tomorrow, I won't wish for things to be how they always were. I don't want them to be. I'm thankful for every single aspect of this last year. Even the horrible, scary, utterly painful parts of it. I'm thankful for who this year has made me to be...and who God has shown me He is. I wouldn't give it up for all of the yum yums or kinder buenos or marzipan animals York has to offer...

So...I better go figure out what to do with my last fifteen minutes of being a teenager...hmmmmmmmmmm...bye!