Murray's Musings

By now this is old news (but still exciting), but I thought my post was too good to simply delete, so I’m publishing it here for history’s sake.

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I *really* wanted to publish this on May 7th, however I wasn’t allowed to.  Read below to find out why!!  

What a weekend it was (May 5/6)!  Confusing, crazy, and exciting all at once!  My head is still spinning.  Here’s a synopsis:

• Friday (May 4th) started cloudy and foggy and went to sunny, and then went to Windy.  The wind was incredible and it knocked out power all over the province, including our home at around 5:15pm.
• Woke up Saturday, and the power was still out, and Hydro One was telling us it would likely be until Sunday night, 11pm, before power would be restored.  Numerous trees and hydro poles were down in the area and crews were working furiously to restore things as quickly as they could.
• As you know, Bethany is getting married in a few weeks, and a wedding shower had been arranged at the church for her connections there.  The only problem was, because we had no power, we have no electricity to the well pump, which means we had no way of getting ready (Bethany, Nancy, Ty and I) — showers, hair, etc.  This was ‘solved’ by going to a friend’s home in Stouffville (who had power) and showering etc., there on our way to the church.

Keep reading or you’ll be sorry…

• In addition, we had decided to celebrate Mothers Day a week early, at our place, and all the kids were due to come home after the shower was over and stay overnight.  Cooking wouldn’t have been a problem (BBQ and gas/propane stove), but we couldn’t envision 10 people in the house with no way to flush. 🙂  So after sending text messages to all the kids saying “I think we have to cancel”, our two oldest sons figured out we could move it to Barrie to Tim and Rachel’s home instead.  So that’s what we did — after the shower, came home and packed everything up and head north for a wonderful family time. (More on that below.)

• Sunday we got up and headed to church — 6 of us — and celebrated our Lead Pastor’s 20th Anniversary at the church, went out the lunch (since we STILL had no power, and they were now saying it would be noon Monday before it would be restored) and then headed home.  When we got there, it was starting to rain, BUT the power was back on.

The shower was lovely!  Bethany’s bridesmaid, Moreen, and her family, put SO much work into it, and we had a great time.  The displaced Mother’s Day was a load of fun, and the celebration on Sunday at church was SO well done!  But it was such a crazy weekend.

“So why couldn’t you tell us this that weekend?” you ask?  Keep reading…

Mother’s Day.  A day to honour the ones who brought us into this world.  A day for family.  A day for fun together.

Well, as you’ve read, ours started off quite weirdly.  Having to pack up the food we’d prepared to cook at home was not on our original plan.  The wind storm made that necessary, and in fact we were quite ready to cancel/postpone, but with all the wedding plans upcoming we knew it would be hard to find another weekend when we could all get together.  Jordan insisted, and Tim and Rachel agreed, that we should just move the party to Barrie.  So that’s what we did.

After a great dinner of steak, chicken, shrimp, grilled veggies, roasted potatoes and a fancy grilled cheese (“Halloom” or “Halloumi”), Jordan announced that before dessert we were going to play a new game that he’d backed on Kickstarter that was to be released in November (but he had a pre-release copy).  He had cards that he was going to hand out that had character names on them.  Some were the bearers of a secret, other were trying to determine the secret, and others were trying to prevent you from finding out the secret.  He dealt them out and then told us to all look at our characters.

I looked at mine and it had my Dad’s name on it.  My thought was, “Cool!  A personalized game!  This should be fun.”  Nancy did the same, and thought, “Oh that’s nice.  It has Murray’s Mom’s name on it.  I wonder how this is going to play out?”

BUT… there was starting to be excitement from across the table where Bethany and Ty, and Daniel and Jessa were sitting.  It wasn’t until Bethany flipped her card onto the table and I saw that it read “Aunt Bethany” that my card wasn’t referring to my Dad, but it was referring to ME!  “Grandpa Lahn”!!

Seconds later (actually quite a few seconds later), Nancy came to the same realization.  “Grandma Lahn” was her.  There were screams and hugs and much merriment for the next little while. 

It turned out, Jordan and Rachel are expecting a little sprout in late November.  The ‘game’ was going to be released on November 27th!!

“But you said TWO somethings!?!  What’s the 2nd thing?”  Keep reading…

After that excitement had died down it was time to open Mothers Day cards and gifts.

Now, at this point, I need to back up about 5 years or so to when we lived in our old house in Scarborough.  Jordan and Rachel had been over at our house and when they’d left one morning, Jordan had left a card on Nancy’s computer in the kitchen that was addressed… “To Grandma… That’s You!”  It was to be dropped off to Nancy’s Mom who was living (and still is) at Shepherd Village just a few blocks away, and Nancy was going to take it to her.  Tim came down, to go to school, I think, and saw this in Jordan’s writing and thought “OMG! Jordan’s left this on Mom’s computer as a way to tell her that they’re expecting!!!”, which of course turned out to be totally wrong, but made for a good story, and a great ongoing joke.

Flash forward again…

Nancy starts to open a card in a nice red envelope that reads “Happy Mother’s Day”.  When she opens it, it’s a custom card, and it has a cute picture of two cats holding hands with hearts and it reads “To Grandma. (That’s You!)”  We’ve been, of course, talking constantly about the wonderful news of Jordan and Rachel, and she’s thinking the card is from all of the kids (they often do a group gift or card) and they were all in on the news.  Alternatively it’s from Jordan and Rachel.

I’m still laughing with the rest about the previous news until I look up and see both Tim and Jordan with their phones videoing the card opening.  That’s when it hits me.

When Nancy opens the card, it reads “We’re buying a cat” (which was another inside joke from when Daniel and Jess thought we were being invited to Tim and Rachel’s so they could announce they were pregnant.  Instead they fooled them into believing that “we’re buying a cat” was a code word for “we’re pregnant”.  In fact they weren’t pregnant, nor were they buying a cat!)… and there’s a picture of an ultrasound.  Underneath it reads “Only the best parents get promoted to grandparents!”  Nancy’s still thinking that it’s from J & R, until she sees the last line… “Happy Mother’s Day.  Love, Tim, Rachel and Baby Lahn“.

Oh… My… Gosh… !… !… !… !… !

Turns out this card wasn’t from Jordan and Rachel, it was from Tim and Rachel, and they are expecting just less than 1 month before Jordan and Rachel (October 28th)!!

Screams galore!  My ears and hurting!  People are trying to climb over the table to hug!  Hilarious laughter all around!!

It turns out that neither Rachel knew about the other being pregnant (they both knew they were trying, but…)!  The surprisers were themselves surprised!!

So why couldn’t I tell this until now?  Because part each of the other sides of the family hadn’t been told yet, and won’t be told until the real Mother’s Day, and Jordan and Rachel wanted to wait until their 2nd ultrasound to be safe.

We’re expecting twins! (Well, not really, but close enough.)  If all goes well (and we’re praying daily for each of them), #1 (aka “Bean”) on Oct 28, and #2 (aka “Sprout”) on Nov 27.

 

<<< Bean <<<

>>> Sprout >>>

 

 

 

 

 

We’re all very excited, as you can imagine.  1 wedding, and 2 babies all in 1 year!

God is good!!!  So very, very, very, very good!!!

TTFN!

[ Videos to follow later. ]