Westmoreland Asays

My oldest son, Aaron, has turned 11 years old, so we sat down for our yearly interview of irrelevancy (see video at end of post). To celebrate his birthday, Meg let him invite five friends for dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, Catching Fire at one of the larger cinemas, and a sleepover at our house. After they came home from the movie, I wowed them with how easy and fun it was to Chromecast videos onto our TV. Having so many kids over, however, contributed to a headache and illness that besieged me for the next couple of days. Aaron continues to grow physically and develop his mind and hone his talents. He is responsible enough to manage his brothers for short stints and for getting to and from various places in the neighborhood--almost always by bicycle, his preferred method of travel--whether going to school or a friend's house or to the grocery store or the bank. He still likes going to Pokemon League, loves playing Minecraft, thrives at building complex creations with Legos, and ...

The last few years we have gathered in Dallas, Oregon, for Thanksgiving with the Booren family, but with these families planning activities with their non-Booren side of the family, and with no Asays nearby, Meg began thinking of how we could celebrate as a single family. She found a seemingly great hotel in Seaside for a reasonable price; the suite had two bedrooms, living space, a kitchen (which we didn't use at all), and two bathrooms. Meg made the reservation, and we purposefully hid the idea from the kids, so they had no idea what our plans were for the holiday--they probably figured we'd just stay home and have a boring dinner that only Meg would want to eat. I was surprised that Meg was able to hide the trip from them up until we loaded the van on Wednesday afternoon, at which point we said we were staying at a yurt at the coast. Aaron groaned while Ian and Edward cheered and began plotting what they would do when we first arrived at our campsite. Eventually Meg figure...

Grandpa as I remember him best It's been a tough 15 months for my grandparents. I lost my maternal grandmother at age 15, but all the other grandparents kept on living for decades. My paternal grandparents died within six weeks of each other last fall, leaving behind the lone straggler, Grandpa Hanna. But on the morning of November 4th, this generation had officially exited from my world. About 36 hours before making his final departure from this life, I was able to visit with him for about three hours. He slept for the duration of my stay so I was not able to share any final words or memories or news from the family with him (he always enjoyed hearing reports from what my siblings were up to). But as I read the hours away in the corner of his room, interrupted by periodic visits from hospice and other officials, I was able to reconcile the reality of what lay before me. This helped soften the blow that came with Monday morning's announcement. Grandpa and Aaron in 200...