Happy Birthday, Emily!

Today is your birthday!  Do you remember all the details of your birth?  I do – here are the stats: We go to the hospital at 5 AM on July 26, Emily is born at 2:17, weighs 6 lbs, 13 ½ oz and is 20 ½ “ long, she comes home on July 30.

Exciting stuff, right?  Have a great day of celebrating.  In keeping with reviewing the past, here are highlights of July from 1982, 1992 and 2002.  Enjoy.

1982:  We go to the movie ‘ET’.  Emily starts walking the day after her 1^st birthday.

1992:   Emily and Adam take tennis lessons. We go to NE. We go to the Omaha zoo (part of Laurie’s 20 year HS reunion) and to Oceans of Fun & Worlds of Fun in KC. We also go to Lindsborg, KS. While we are gone, Jazz ate M.C. Hampster. Emily has a fancy birthday party and has Adam and Scott serve the guests.  We go to Grisanti's.

2002:  We go to Nebraska. Cousin Lillian from Michigan is there. Larry's Dad has hip replacement surgery. We drive Laurie’s parents Oldsmobile back to Denver to sell.  Laurie and Adam cut down 4 aspen trees in the back yard.Adam moves to NY and begins working at Lehman Brothers.  A hummingbird flies in the cabin and I catch it in a bag. Emily enjoys a birthday lunch at the Brown Palace (Sen. Bob Kerry is there too) and a birthday dinner at Sevilla.  Em & Rosie see Kenny Chesney at Frontier Days.

Here are some highlights of world events from 2002 and 2007, courtesy of Dave Berry:

July, 2002
Two pilots scheduled to fly an America West plane from Miami to Phoenix are ordered from the cockpit at Miami International Airport and found to be drunk. The pilots aroused suspicions when they made a preflight announcement asking if any passenger ''happens to have a corkscrew.''
In financial news, Congress, addressing the corporate accounting scandals, approves the death penalty for anybody convicted of exercising a stock option. As the market plunges 128,500 points, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, in a move that fails to bolster investor confidence, announces that from now on he wants to be paid in gold.
In sports, baseball immortal Ted Williams dies. His son says the body will be frozen, so it can be revived in the future. A court approves this plan, on the condition that the son be frozen at the same time, so he can be revived in the future to explain everything to his dad. We wish.
In other science news, archaeologists announce that they have discovered a skull that is believed to be more than six million years old. Tests show that the skull does, indeed, belong to Sen. Strom Thurmond.
In political news, the U.S. House of Representatives votes to expel Rep. James Traficant (D-Sopranos) after a House Ethics Committee investigation shows that the thing on his head is a diseased weasel that has eaten nearly 80 percent of his brain. The vote to expel him is 420-1, with the lone dissenting vote coming from . . . Iraq.
Speaking of victims, Michael Jackson tells a New York rally that -- we are not making this up -- he has been oppressed by his record label. Concerned fans from around the world send donations of money, food, sequins and facial implants.
But a month of bad news ends on an upbeat note when rescuers break through to a collapsed Pennsylvania mine shaft and free nine miners who have been trapped 240 feet underground for more than three days. Also rescued are 157 lawyers who have burrowed down there to offer their services in the filing of lawsuits.


JULY, 2007
President Bush undergoes a colonoscopy; congressional Democrats immediately pass a resolution condemning the procedure, while maintaining that they ''fully support the colonoscope.'' Vice President Cheney serves as acting president for two and a half hours, during which he performs what his office describes as ''routine executive duties,'' including ''signing some routine papers'' and ''ordering some routine bomb strikes against Iran.'' France immediately surrenders.
In other executive action, President Bush, on the eve of July Fourth, commutes ''Scooter'' Libby's prison sentence, on the grounds that, quote, ''Hey, c'mon, it's Scooter.'' Congressional Democrats are outraged, but the public is more concerned with the issue of whether to go ahead and have that fifth beer.
On the environmental front, the big story is Al Gore's ''Live Earth,'' a massive rock concert in which more than 150 music acts perform at 11 locations around the world to fight global warming, which is swiftly brought to its knees.
In the arts, July is dominated by the release of the seventh and last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter Spends Half the Book Camping, which enthralls the nation as nothing has enthralled it since the release of the iPhone. The book is generally well-received, although some fans are troubled by the ending, which culminates in the death of Harry's longtime nemesis, Tony Soprano.
In sports, suspicions of doping continue to plague the Tour de France when the grueling 2,200-mile race is won, in a stunning upset, by Barry Bonds. Pro basketball also suffers a blow following reports that NBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on games that he officiated, which could explain some of his questionable calls in critical situations, including fouls for ''bad posture'' and ``dribbling too loud.''

Larry Writes it Down is BACK

It’s been almost a year since I posted my first blog entry, Father’s Day, 2011.  And, it’s been almost 10 months since I posted my last blog entry, our Wedding Anniversary, 2011.  I think I’ve figured out a way to post entries more frequently.  My plan is to draw from previously published accounts, via the big letter, to list important events from the past and remind everyone what was going on 30, 20 and 10 years ago.  I think it will be fun to remember these things and reminisce.  With this in mind, let’s go back to 1982, 1992 and 2002 to see what the Thede family was up to.

June        1982:  We attend Laurie’s 10-year high school reunion.  Adam attends VBS, draws picture of our house and lists the occupants as Mommie, Daddy, Emily, Adam and Fido – the teacher asked Adam if he had a dog and apparently he thought we did so put it in the house.  On the way home, he asked Laurie if we had a dog . . .

June        1992:  Laurie and Emily go on an overnight scout camping trip. Laurie’s parents visit and bring us Nebraska peony plants.  Laurie’s hip bothers her. She gets a cortisone shot. We see ‘Sister Act’ for her birthday.  Larry gets a leaf blower for Father’s Day.

June        2002:  We host an end of year potluck party for the Meistersingers. Emily begins working at the Spanish TV station. Rosie takes a job at Park Meadows.  Larry begins a new job at Quovadx on June 10 and goes on a trip to Detroit, Milwaukee and Minneapolis on his second day on the job. The biggest wild fire in Colorado history starts – the Hayman Fire. It burns 138,000 acres and 133 homes.  Laurie and Adam go to Omaha and move her parents to Brighton Gardens. They bring the trailer home with furniture, etc.  Emily and Rosie clean the house, mow the lawn and wash both cars for Larry’s Father’s Day present, and Rosie makes a strawberry rhubarb pie. Adam attends a Semester at Sea reunion in Las Vegas.

In addition to family history, I think it’s important to highlight significant world events in my blog.  With this in mind, here is an account of June 2002 and June 2007 from Dave Berry:

June, 2002

. . . Britain's Queen Elizabeth II celebrates the 50th year of her reign at a star-studded gala concert featuring performances by Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and Ozzy Osbourne, who, in the dramatic highlight of the evening, bites the head off one of the Queen's Welsh corgis.

But the mood is not so jubilant in the Middle East, where, following a series of Palestinian attacks, Israeli tanks again surround the headquarters of Yasser Arafat and slowly press against it until it is the size of a twin bed. The crafty Arafat escapes again by claiming he has a dental appointment.

Speaking of close calls: On June 14 a giant asteroid, discovered only three days earlier, passes within 75,000 miles of the Earth. Congress immediately holds hearings, with the Democrats charging that the Bush administration should have known about it sooner, and the Republicans noting that the asteroid had been heading this way during all eight years of the Clinton administration. The CIA acknowledges, under questioning, that at one point it was tracking the asteroid, but lost the file. In the end, all parties agree that airport security needs to be tightened.

In another alarming story, wildfires rage out of control in Colorado and several other western states, burning thousands of acres and destroying dozens of homes. Investigators searching an area where one of the largest blazes originated find a Zippo lighter bearing a thumbprint belonging to . . . Iraq.

The nation's Color Code Security Status is quickly raised to Maroon (''Dark Brownish Red'').

On Wall Street, the bad news continues. First, WorldCom announces that it has improperly accounted for $3.9 billion and has ''at least six'' movies seriously overdue for return to Blockbuster. Next Xerox, under pressure from investigators, admits that its second-quarter profits were actually a copy of its first-quarter profits. Next Martha Stewart is linked to a string of bank robberies. The stock market drops 11,600 points.

Ann Landers dies, but continues to dispense common-sense advice.

In legal news, a Dayton, Ohio, jury, in a unanimous verdict, orders five cigarette companies to pay $128 billion to a 67-year-old man, despite the fact that the man (a) is not a smoker; (b) has not sued anybody; and (c) is in fact on trial for littering. The American Trial Lawyers Association hails this as ''a major victory for our Porsche dealership.'' In California, a federal appeals court rules that schools cannot compel American schoolchildren to say the Pledge of Allegiance, on the grounds that ''allegiance'' has too many syllables.

JUNE, 2007
. . . the nation is riveted by the drama of Paris Hilton, who, after a string of motor-vehicle violations including driving with a suspended license, driving at excessive speed through a nightclub, driving over the young of an endangered species and driving with the brain functionality of a cabbage, is ordered to go to jail, then is released from jail, and then -- in what many observers see as an unfair punishment, based solely on resentment of her celebrity status -- is burned at the stake.
No, seriously: Paris is sent back to jail for several brutal weeks, during which she is repeatedly subjected to a harsh generic hair conditioner. Somehow she survives this ordeal and, upon leaving jail, adopts a low public profile, except for appearing with Larry King, who does a fine job once he realizes, about 40 minutes into the interview, that she is not Goldie Hawn.
In other June TV highlights:
• Cuban television broadcasts an interview of Fidel Castro, apparently intended to prove that the ailing dictator is still alive; cynics note, however, that the interview was conducted by Edward R. Murrow.
• The hit HBO series The Sopranos comes to an ambiguous end when, in mid-scene, the screen goes black. Many viewers at first think this is a technical problem; cable-TV companies log 3 million complaint calls, nearly 30 percent of them from the White House.
In other government action, the U.S. Senate discovers that its comprehensive immigration reform bill, despite having been painstakingly crafted behind closed doors by veteran bill-crafters, is unpopular with a segment of the U.S. population defined as ''the public.'' The Senate responds swiftly, dropping the immigration issue like a bag of rat sputum and returning to its traditional role of funding large unnecessary projects in West Virginia named after Robert Byrd.
In sports, the Anaheim Ducks defeat the Ottawa Senators in a Stanley Cup playoff series watched, worldwide, by most of the players' parents.
But the biggest story in June, as well as the history of the universe, is the release of the Apple iPhone, which, in addition to enabling you to make phone calls, has all kinds of brilliant and innovative features, including AutoFondle, an application that enables the iPhone to fondle itself during those times when you are unable to fondle it manually because you're sleeping or undergoing surgery from wounds you sustained when friends or co-workers finally lost it and beat you senseless to make you shut up about your freaking iPhone already.

Happy 35th Anniversary Laurie!

Today I raise a cup of coffee to toast my beautiful, amazing, wonderful wife, Laurie, in honor of our 35^th wedding anniversary.  Thirty five years ago on a hot, steamy Omaha afternoon, our wedding began at 4 PM.  Luckily we were in the air conditioned comfort of the Church of the Cross.  It’s odd that I really don’t remember much about the ceremony but I’ve seen the pictures and know that it happened and that it was a glorious affair.  Laurie (apparently) walked down the aisle on her dad’s arm and looked radiant in her amazing wedding gown and beautify hat (which she could wear at a future Kentucky Derby).  I was in ‘tails’ and looked possessed since my eyes were very bloodshot, not from a night of drinking but from eye surgery a few weeks before the wedding.  After spending 23 ½ years with ‘crossed’ eyes, I decided to have them fixed, which is a whole story in itself, i.e., I loved the anesthetic so much that I stayed out for hours, leaving Laurie to wonder if she’d participate in a wedding or, instead, attend a funeral.  Luckily, for me at least, I did wake up and the wedding went on as planned.

Following the ceremony, we formed a ‘receiving line’ and, as the guests left the sanctuary, we shook hands with each person and they wished us well, yada, yada, yada.  Following this, we walked down the hall to the fellowship hall where we enjoyed cake and punch, a wedding tradition that lasted for hundreds of years, but may have now ended (I don’t remember the last wedding I attended that had punch). The pictures show us cutting the cake but I don’t remember any toasts, so perhaps that is a very recent tradition. 

Following the church reception, we motored to 10221 Elm Street, Laurie’s childhood home, where we had a delightful Kentucky (second reference to Kentucky) Fried Chicken picnic with all of the wedding guests (I think).  Champagne flowed and a good time was had by all.  As dusk fell, Laurie and I made our grand departure, in our 1974 green Oldsmobile Cutless, freshly washed and free from any decoration, thanks to the Beebe’s, who let me hide my car in their garage during the wedding and reception!  Laurie had changed from her wedding gown to her ‘honeymoon’ outfit and we smiled and waved as we left for Iowa, one of the best places on earth to spend your wedding night.  Our destination that evening was Ankeny, Iowa, on the outskirts of Des Moines.  The next day we continued our journey, heading to our Michigan honeymoon spot.  We enjoyed Benton Harbor, Michigan.  As soon as I find the photos, I’ll blog about what we did there.

It’s been an amazing, astonishing, remarkable, miraculous 35 years.  Laurie and I have shared so many marvelous times – the birth of three incredible children (and participating in the astonishing events in their lives), wonderful vacations (including flying through the air in a metal tube), shopping for everything from diapers to trees, discovering the awe (and frustration) of the internet, raising cats and dogs, painting and papering house after house, planting and replanting dozens of plants, and then moving them and moving them again, and on and on.  While there may have been a few low points, those quickly fade to black and the good times stay in focus.  Each year somehow manages to surpass the prior year in joy and happiness; at least it has for me.  Thanks Laurie, and let’s keep this convoy trucking on . . .  Love ya lots, Larry

Happy Birthday, Emily!

I thought it would be fun, and appropriate, to blog about an event that occurred 30 years ago!  I’m going to rely on a document dated July 29, 1981 and quote it verbatim – here goes:

“Laurie woke up at about 1:30 Sunday morning (July 26) and was starting to notice contractions.  So right away both of us were wide awake.  We timed the contractions and at 5:00 AM they were about 5 minutes apart so we called the doctor.  He said to go on in to the hospital.  We called Laurie’s folks so they came over to watch Adam.  After we got to the hospital, the contractions stopped!  There would be one once in a while but nothing regular.  We walked around for about 45 minutes but that didn’t help too much.  The doctor looked at Laurie at about 12:00 (noon) and decided that she was too far along to go back home so he broke her water.  Then things started FAST.  They gave her some of the stuff to induce labor too.  At 1:30 the contractions got real strong and at 2:17 Emily was born.  Her full name is Emily Catherine Irene. She weighted 6 lbs. 13 ½ oz. And was 20½“ long.  She has some light hair, like Adam had.  Both Laurie and Emily are doing fine and will come home tomorrow.”

I looked at the letter prior to the one quoted above and see that I wrote I had finished painting the baby furniture (crib & chest) and we had the baby’s room all ready.  Our timing was pretty good.  Emily’s birth was at Methodist Hospital in Omaha.

Since this all happened 30 years ago, I thought I’d see what was going on 20 years ago for Emily’s 10^th birthday.  We had a party with 14 girls, plus Emily and Rosie.  And, Adam and his friend Scott attended and did a skit for the girls and made balloon animals!  We had pizza and an ice cream cake.  The girls played a lot of games.  Our gifts to Emily were a bike helmet and a lego set.  One of the gifts she got from a friend was the game ‘Scatch’ – we enjoyed playing that for a long time.  Also, 4 days after her birthday, Emily had braces put on her teeth!

10 years ago Emily was working at LensCrafters on her birthday.  She worked until 6:30 and some friends came to see her when she was getting off work and surprised her with balloons and a hat.  They went out to eat at Olive Garden.  We had an ice cream cake at our house later.  We went to the airport that night because Adam came home for the weekend from his intern job at Lehman Brothers in New York.  He was in a wedding for his friend Bill that weekend.  About two weeks after Emily’s birthday, Rosie had her wisdom teeth removed!

There you have it, good times and good birthday’s.  Happy Birthday, Emily, and have a great time tomorrow!

Love ya,

Mom, Dad and Mickey

Happy Anniversary, Emily and Rich!

Two years ago today we were at the most beautiful wedding ever at Lionscrest Manor in Lyons Colorado.  Yep, it was Em & Rich’s wedding and it went off without a hitch. The weather was ideal, the ceremony was elegant, the food was delicious and the reception/dance was rousing. 

June, 2009, was a wet one with lots of rain.  We hosted a picnic on the Friday evening prior to the Sunday wedding and were more than a little worried that we’d need to move it from a back yard picnic to a garage gathering.  It had rained for many days but that Friday the clouds parted and it was a sunny, warm evening.  We had tables in the back yard and the 45 – 50 guests enjoyed a delightful picnic.  Saturday was another glorious day and the rehearsal dinner at a park in Boulder was a great setting.  Sunday was dry all day and the sun was brightly shinning in Rich’s face during the ceremony.

This is my first attempt at posting photos to accommodate my words – note the great photos from that terrific day, two years ago.  Congratulations, Em and Rich!

North American Visitors

We are enjoying welcoming visitors from North America this week. 

Yesterday Laurie’s cousin and family, Carl, Debbie and Justin from Atlanta, GA, stopped by during their Colorado vacation.  I think it’s been 8 years since we saw them so it was great to catch up on what has been going on in their lives. They were living in Denver when we moved here in 1984 and Debbie lined Laurie up with a doctor, who delivered Rosie in April, 1984. We looked at a picture from 20 years ago, June, 1991, and, although the kids in the picture have all grown up, the adult’s looks surprisingly similar, yea for all of us.

Today we had a delightful visit with a college friend of Laurie’s, Steve.  Laurie and Steve graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1976.  Steve has been teaching in Norfolk, NE and recently retired.  He continues to play the organ for two churches and is involved in other community music activities.  We found a picture from a previous visit with Steve from 1982 and enjoyed seeing how little those photographed had changed!  We don’t know for sure the last time we saw him but it was most likely well over 20 years ago.  He called us on Thursday evening from Ogallala, NE. He was on his way to a wedding in Keystone and we are so glad he gave us a call to see if we would be around during his Colorado trip.

Tomorrow I’m meeting a friend and former work associate, Bruce, for breakfast.  Bruce and I worked together at US WEST in the 1990’s. He worked for me doing investor relations and had an opportunity to take the top IR job at a Canadian telecommunications company around 1998.  Laurie and I went to his going away party and he has lived north of the border since then.  He currently lives in Toronto.  We’ve stayed in touch with email and an occasional phone conversation and have seen each other at NIRI events now and then.  It’s been four or five years since I’ve seen him so it will be good to catch up.

It’s always great to reacquaint with people we once saw daily or weekly or at least many times a year.  Colorado is a great vacation spot and we are lucky to live here and welcome friends when they visit it on holiday!

Happy Birthday Laurie!

The word on the street is that today is Laurie’s birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURIE!  There are many rumors about which birthday it is.  While I won’t divulge her age, I will say that it rhymes with “bifty beven’. 

I though it would be fun to see how we celebrated her birthday a year ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago and 30 years ago.  Last year, we were in St. Louis on day 2 of our 25-day road trip.  We enjoyed a delightful meal in an empty restaurant.  The waiter was very attentive and the food was great, even though no one else eats there.  It reminded me of what Yogi Berra used to say, ‘No one goes there anymore.  It’s too crowded’.

Ten years ago we celebrated with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.  Her gift was a sand hill crane that joined another one in our back yard (decorative, not live).  Rosie and Emily were at home and Emily was working as a frame stylist at Lens Crafters.  Rosie and Laurie played in a quartet for a wedding in Golden a few days after her birthday. Adam called from Central Park in NY where he was watching an outdoor opera.  The high temperature in Denver was 84 and it was sunny on Laurie’s birthday.

Twenty years ago we celebrated her birthday by going to see her Aunt Velma and Uncle Louie at their mountain home.  Laurie’s cousin Carl and family were visiting from Atlanta.  We gave Laurie an answering machine.  The day after her birthday, Laurie went to the wart doctor . . . she had laser surgery on her foot two weeks before her birthday and the doctor blasted off a piece of her foot and the place where he did the work looked like a piece of pepperoni.  She had previously treated the wart with beetle juice.  The wart was caused by a virus that her immune system wasn’t fighting. The high in Denver was 78 and it was a sunny day.

Thirty years ago we went out for dinner and left Adam with Laurie’s parents. She was pregnant with Emily and had a back ache quite often.  We spent time reviewing LaMaze books so we’d be prepared for the upcoming birth.  I gave Laurie a wooden egg crate for her birthday.  The high in Omaha on her birthday was 96 and the humidity was 97%.

I can’t go back any further since I didn’t know Laurie forty years ago.  All I can say is that the high temperature in Omaha that day was 86 and there were storms in the evening.