The Violence Worker!

There Can Be Only One

Today is a very happy day in our family.  One of our daughters (Stephanie Ann) had a healthy baby boy, little Ryan James.  Ryan has a sister, Zoe Ann.  Altogether, we now have nine grandchildren., Ivy, Lucy, Aiyanna, Leah, Amy, Zoe, Sadie, Roman and now Ryan.  We love them all and enjoy spending time with them. 

My Dad would be so proud.  All of his grandchildren and great grandchildren called him Papa.  He loved being a grandparent and later being a great grandparent, but he was always just Papa.  My mother would have also enjoyed all of them as well.  Sadly, she passed away back in 1989.  She got to see all of the grandchildren in this life except one, my sister's youngest son.

But Papa lived to be 81.  He passed away August of 2008.  I'm sure he sees them now, but it's a shame they will not get to see him in the flesh.  As I thought of the birth of Ryan, I thought of how proud Papa would be.

At times, some of our kids have tried to get their kids to call me Papa.  I always gently correct them and tell them to call me Grandpa.  They start out, of course, saying Papa because thats how babies talk.  But as they get older and able to form the words, I insist on being called Grandpa.  Papa was my Dad. There can be only one.

So welcome Ryan, to this world, and know that Papa and Great Grandma are smiling down on you.

VW

Update On My Sister UPDATED

UPDATE:  She is doing better.  She can talk and be understood although she is still stuttering and repeating words.  There is a definite improvement and she is expected to fully recover from the stroke.  The cause, unfortunately, is more to do with heredity than anything else.  Yep...We share the same set of parents - scary for us.  The weakness in her side is gone and she is allowed to continue normal activities.  The U of M Doctors determined that her bleed is is not constant and that is why they haven't found it.  They have determined a course of treatment until they can isolate it at some point.

A Couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that my sister was having some fairly serious medical problems.  She has an internal bleed somewhere that they just can't seem to find.  I also mentioned that she would be traveling to Ann Arbor today to the University of Michigan Medical Center in hopes they can find the bleed.

She should be on her way as I type this, or already there.  The problem is that her condition has worsened.  They believe it caused her to have a stroke over the weekend.  It affected her speech and she has some weakness on one side of her body.  They call it a transient stroke because there are no visible blockages that traditionally cause strokes.  We should know more today once a bunch more test results come back

The prognosis is fairly good - if they can find the bleed.

Please keep her in your prayers.

VW

Happy Birthday

Today is Mrs. VW's Birthday!  Since I'm still in Doha, I can't be with her.  I called her this AM to tell her happy birthday.

She is without a doubt the best thing that has happened to me since I started sucking oxygen.  She is the sweetest woman God ever put on this earth. 

Happy Birthday, Steph!

VW

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers day to all you Dads out there.  In honor of Fathers Day, I offer up this little video to help you to celebrate this day with your Daddy!  Enjoy!

Dads:  Enjoy your day!

VW

HT:  Knowledge is Power

The New Officer Reynolds

Mrs. VW and I have eight children between us.  I have four and she has four.  Half are girls and the other half, obviously, are male.  We still have one at home, he's a 15-year-old autistic boy.  He's my wife's youngest, but I've been "Dad" to him for that past 11 of those years.  So far, all the rest of our children have turned out pretty good.  We don't have any criminals or drug addicts.  They are all productive citizens.  Our girls that are married, chose good honorable men.  We are proud of them all.

Today, one of our sons-in-law was commissioned as a County Corrections Officer.  We attended the small ceremony and watched as my youngest daughter pinned the badge on her husband's shirt.  The little girl in the yellow dress is their three-year-old daughter, Zoe.   The lady in the background taking a picture is Mrs. VW.  He was one of five young men commissioned today.

Here's a shot of me and the newly minted Officer Reynolds.

 

One with Mrs. VW.

Another with wife and daughter

Congrats to the new Officer Reynolds!

VW

A New Grandchild!

While I was away dodging some rather vicious looking spiders Down Under, I got the news that our daughter gave birth a little earlier than expected.  This past Monday, February 9th, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy - Roman Joel!  He weighed 7lbs 7oz, and was 20 inches long.  We expected him at the end of February.  In any case mom, Dad and son are doing well.  The poor kid is the only boy amongst a plethora of sisters and  girl cousins.

We will be going to see him and the rest of the family this evening.

VW

Christmas Day 2008

I hope you all had a good Christmas.  We here at the International Headquarters of the violenceworker.com celebrated in grand style.  We went to the 11 PM candle light service at our church Christmas Eve.  Mrs. VW is one of the musicians and she and her associate really make the service worth attending.  Before church, we feasted on Mexican food.  Each year we choose a country or region and base our Christmas dinner on their cuisine.  It's really kind of fun planning the menu and shopping for the ingredients.

Christmas morning we all exchanged gifts and had lots of fun.  Because we have our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, Christmas day, we can relax and not worry about a big dinner or clean-up.  I made apple pancakes for dinner.  Quick, easy and no big mess.

After dinner, Mrs. VW, Ben (our autistic son and the one in the black tee-shirt in the picture) and I sat down and watched a movie Ben got for Christmas - Journey to the Center of the Earth.  So a fun and relaxing day was had by all.

What did Santa bring me?  I must have been a very good boy because I got a lump of coal!

I also got a set of Kershaw Shun knives and a TomTom One XL GPS display.  I also got some other assorted stocking stuffers.  All in all, Santa took care of me!

On to the new year which I hope will be better for all of us.

VW

Sadie Pauline

Sadie Pauline was born this evening, Granddaughter number 8.  We have no grandsons, but we are expecting one in February.

That's me holding the little cutie.

It's where I've been all evening.

VW

I'm Back Home

Thank you all again for all of your prayers and kind words.  Some of you expressed your experiences of losing a parent and I understand your loss.

Me, my siblings and our families are very close and we were able to draw closer to other family members during this time.

It was also a time to renew old friendships and make some new friends.

The Old Buffalo is home with the Lord and his beloved Jeanie.  It's time to get on with our lives and tend to our families as he and Mom taught us to do.

It's also time to get back to blogging.  He enjoyed the blog and read it every day.

VW

The Funeral And Last Goodbye

My family and I thank you for your messages of sympathy and support.  As you can imagine, it's been hectic the last few days.  Sunday I few from Sea-Tac to Detroit.  Monday was the viewing.  The second viewing segment was the the Masonic memorial.  My Dad was an active Mason and Shriner.  A large number of his fraternal brothers showed up for the service  which was appreciated.  The funeral and internment was Tuesday.

After the funeral, we all met near the grave site.  There were two soldiers there to play taps and present his widow with the flag.  Dad was a WWII era veteran.  Those two soldiers were the epitome of professionalism.  Dad was a great patriot and it was certainly a fitting end to the services.

We sadly watched as his casket was lowered into the ground and the vault cover put in place.  We said our last goodbyes and left the site.  I turned around to see the cemetery employees as they started the process of closing the grave. 

I will not be posting regularly until next week.  Lots of family catching up to do and remembering The Old Buffalo.  For those of you who don't know, "Old Buffalo" is a name he was given by some truckers about 30 or so years ago who saw him in the car with my younger sister.  They wondered over their CB Radios (Look it up young'ns!) who the "old buffalo" was next to the cute girl.  It stuck.

Again our sincerest thanks for your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

VW