Meet My Family Part 1

     I started this blog a while ago and named it "Keeping the Holmes Fires Burning"  to be a reflection of my family and the things that are important to us.  As I have gone back and looked at some of my previous posts and some things that I have in my draft file, I realize that I just jumped in to the blog and never actually introduced us to you. 
     Today I want to begin again with those introductions. 

This is my husband Jonathan

 Well, at least this was him as a small boy.  The rest of the photos are much more recent and show different facets of his life. There are photos here of ventures of our family life, the part of his work life that we do together, and his leisure time activities.  There is one part of his career that I don't show for safety reasons, but know that I am proud of that part of his career as well.  There are photos of a serious nature, and of him being the goofy self that makes me laugh.   Some of these are of his raport with our community. 

To end, Jonathan.  Part 1.  I pose the question, can you tell me what is important to this man? 

My Newsy Christmas Letter in June......

     It was brought to my attention today that I have the tendency to forget to let people know what is going on, on this side of the Holmes Fireplace.  I have so many people swimming with me in this portion of the "river of life" that I think everyone should know what the important events in our family's life are.  This person was absolutely right to point this out to me and want to know what is going on, so I decided that I needed to catch up.  There are so many things that are happening that even IF I wrote a Newsy Christmas Letter to send out, if I wait till Christmas, it will be a VOLUME, not a letter, so here goes!!!

I don't tend to use actual names on my blog, for safety sake, but those who know us know what the initials mean.  

     Lets start out with L, her husband D and my 2 sweet grand babies!!!  Well, D has finished his 2nd semester at Seminary and is working full time this summer and preparing for the Fall Semester.  E. has gotten her enrollment done to start HER masters program at the Seminary as well, plus she is the Publicity Officer for the women's organization on campus.  They work in family ministry at a small church in the D/FW area as well.  My handsome C.  Just turned 3 and is becoming quite a little man.  His mommy is working with him on all of his preschool items as well as taking care of sweet little RL who just became a whole year old.  It is just amazing to me that a year ago I was there for her birth into this world!!!!  She is trying to walk, negotiates the stairs in their townhouse quite well and both of the kids LOVE to play outside in the courtyard with their friends.  They have had some car trouble in the recent times s we are trying to help them out with that situation, but at the moment they have our pickup truck to get them by till we have time to make a wise decision on a vehicle for that blessed little family.  C knows which is the go petal and which is the stop petal  in Grandma's white truck and the go one should have been painted green while the stop ones should be red.  Yep, he is one smart little man!!!  L and D are wonderful parents. 


     A1 and her husband A2. are out for the summer.  A just graduated with her bachelors in Elementary Ed and has passed all her state tests to get her license in this state.  She has had one interview on the western side of the state but we are hoping for somewhere closer to where they are currently living as A2 still has a couple years of school to go before he graduates.  Each summer he has an internship with the Dept of Game and Fish and thank God this summer he is working where they live.  This week A, has been over here helping me at work and generally hanging out with me.
A2 still struggles with his days in the Air Force and his 2 deployments in Afghanistan, but things get better every day. 

     This brings me to kiddo 3.  S is finished for this semester as well.  He is working toward his EMT Basic certificate.  He is also working with the volunteer fire dept here locally.  He is on a job search to start paying some of his own bills while he continues his path to become an emt and maybe enter the Navy in about a year.  He is definitely his Dad's son as he is finding his niche in caring for others in need.  He is going to be a wonderful emt or medic in the navy, which ever he ends up choosing.  He also helps me out when I need it. S is a real surprise to most people as the surface that he projects is what he THINKS the world expects and wants to see, but there is a much deeper, more compassionate, and very very smart person hiding behind some uncertainties about what is really expected to be a man in this world.   

     Last of the kiddos is M.   He is a pretty amazing human being.  It takes awhile to get to know him, but once you do, it is well worth the effort.  In the last few months he has become a licensed local minister in our local Church of the Nazarene.  Now along with his general high school classes, he is taking the first of his seminary classes as well.  He meets with the pastor once a week for instruction and homework assignments.  He also attends the church board meetings, as well as the communities Ministerial Alliance meetings once a month.  He is also still on the competitive Bible Quizzing team and his Dad and I had the privilege of going with him to Point Loma again this year to watch him compete in the Regional Meet as part of the huge annual Regional Youth event for the Nazarene church. As well as these activities, he donates several hours a week of his time working at our local museum dedicated to the investigation of the Shroud of Turin.  He has impressed several of the scientists who have done research on the Shroud with his knowledge of the history, the research methods and equipment used.   Several of his closest friends and mentors besides Pastor Rob include one of the local Lutheran ministers, and  the priest and deacon from one of the local Catholic Churches  These quite honestly are just the highlights of this kids life.  It is really hard to remember most days that he is 16.  

     The last part of our newsy update is Jonathan and myself.  Twenty two years ago he decided to jump into this great, big, fat adventure that I call my life and helped me bring about everything you see above.  Some days I still cant believe he decided to take a chance on what many others thought was a very risky investment, but here we are.  He has been there to help me walk through the loss of my grandparents.  Its hard to explain to people that because of being only a toddler when my sister came down with leukemia and subsequently died, my grandparents were more like an extra set of parents to me than most peoples grandparents.  Then, he was there to help me walk through the loss of my younger brother.  Little did we know that not too long after that we would face the loss of my dad, to whom we, both. were very close, and then only a few months later and very unexpectedly, he was there with me for the loss of my older brother and (next to Jonathan) my very best friend in the world.  Well, all of that is old news, to most who know me, but it brings me to say that in a few months Jonathan is now looking at retirement from the career that brought him to me from a place far, far away.  Retirement is something very new to me so I have begun a chart of all the things that are opening up to us.  We are looking at a number of new ventures that will benefit us, the community around us and take us further toward the goal that God has for us individually as well as together.  We have no idea right now just what our next big adventure is going to be, with you can bet your boots that with God in the lead, and us holding tight to each other, it will be just as amazing as life has been up to this point.   If we judge the future by our past, you can also be pretty sure that our future will be something that many people consider very unconventional and even down right ODD. 

I hope this helps to catch everyone up on the major highlights of our family circle, too bad Family Circus was already taken!! 

A can of dog food

     I will never be rich in terms of money.  I don't really want to be.  This thought confuses many people around me, it seems, but there it is.  I, however, will always be rich in terms of the Gifts I have been given by those who have gone before me.     
      My mother saw a snapshot of that this week.  She felt like she should point this out to me. 
     It started out with some people who had a sick dog.   The story was very simple.  I gave them a can of dog food. I knew this specific dog food would make a difference to this sick dog.   I didn't charge them as they had bought some other things but also had told me that the husband had lately been laid off from his job.  Then, as we talked, I realized that I had met this man one time before almost a year ago in a place about 10 hours from here. 
     We were at an exhibit of The Dead Sea Scrolls in Fort Worth, which was very, very heavily guarded.  We were not allowed to take my grand daughters stroller with us and we did not realize until later that we had left her bottle in the diaper bag in the stroller as well.  When she began to get hungry, we were told that if anyone left the exhibit to go back down the stairs to get her bottle, that person would not be allowed to come back into the exhibit, with out paying again and starting from the beginning, for security reasons.  We continued on with an increasingly fussy baby until my son-in-law decided that we had no choice but to give up and one of us take the baby back down the stairs to get her bottle and wait for the rest of us to get finished.  As he was getting ready to start through the crowd to head for the stairs, a guard came up to us and said that he was willing to escort someone down to get the bottle then bring them back.  Because of htat mans kindness and understanding, and willingness to help the rules along, everyone was able to continue through this amazing exhibit. 
     With out a conversation asking these people what brings them to our back of beyond, neck of the woods, I would never have figured this out.  I would not have found out that this family, in recent months, had moved here to take another job that almost immediately upon arriving was ended due to the sequester. 
     Finding out stories like this, I consider to be some of the biggest blessings of my life.  I can't say I was ever given verbal instructions in this way of life, but I was definitely given instructions by just watching my father and listening to the stories that have been told to me about both of my grandfathers.  This was the point my mother wanted to make.  I don't know how to do anything else.   Maybe, that is just part of the way I feel the vibrations of the world around me. 
    

Disney Land