12 Year Old Trip

It was an icky occasion, but the death of a high school friend, Jeff Thompson - the brother of one of my dearest friend's, Joyce, gave T and I the opportunity to take what has turned into a 3 1/2 week road trip, starting in Texas.

My 12 3/4 year old. Believe me a 1,000 mile drive gave us a lot of time to talk about really important things.

A couple days after the funeral we went mini-golfing with Joyce's daughter Ashley (blue shirt), her boyfriend, Nathan, and Joyce's sister - Janice and her family. This was the only outside activity we did in Dallas. We finished at 10:30 a.m. and it was over 100 degrees and humid! (I wish I could say that the humidity made my hair look like that - but alas, it always does).

We stuck around for 5 days longer, hanging out with Joyce, and just being there for her as she started the journey of living a life without her brother.

I guess this would be as good a place as any to say what an honor it was to be there for Jeff's wake and funeral and to be there with the family. Jeff and his wife DeeAn have 6 kids and 2 foster children. Their kids are wonderful - it was amazing to see how a man who grew up without a good role model for a father was such a good dad to his children. As you read this, please pray for the family. They belong to a good, bible-believing church who seem to be ready to take on their responsibility to care for the family. What is really cool is that Jeff was known for ministering to men in and out of the church, for witnessing, discipling, and holding them accountable for living godly lives. The very men he ministered to and invested in are the very men who will be caring for his family - fixing a daughter's car, working on the plumbing, helping maintain his business.

Back to the mall - We loved this dress made from wedding invitations.

The hugest Forever 21 we ever saw. Two stories, each one bigger than the largest store we have in Chicagoland.

Too cool. This reminded us of Kendell. Actually, a lot of things remind us of Kendell and the fam. Being away from Al and everyone else is the only bad part of this whole trip.

Friends for 35 years and counting.

A note: I never know how to order many posts. If you want to see the rest of our trip chronologically (and how Saige and gairette join us, scroll down to the post "Dallas F-U-N" and start there and read up. Also, I do not know why blogger is identifying some words as "keywords" by highlighting them in purple and underlining them, but it is, so ignore it.