he's 23 now. what?!?...

So...after a wonderful time
with new grandson, Grayson Michael Simmons,
as well as Josh and Meggie
(sorry guys...little man takes top billing now)
I'm back home with Sweet Husband...
exactly where I love to be.


I took lots and lots of pictures
which I will share in due time.


But, today...


I wanted to send a special birthday shout out
to our youngest son...


Andrew Josiah Simmons


Drewbie...as we have affectionately called him
since he was knee-high to a grasshopper...
is 23 years old today.


That makes me...hmmmm...
let me see...oops!...ran out of fingers and toes a long time ago...
maybe a calculator will help...hmmmm...


Yep...here we go...


That makes me...OLD!!!  


Drewbie went with me to see baby Gray
and even though I about drove him crazy in the car...
I'm a beyond-terribly-annoying passenger,
and he had to drive us through Manhattan at rush hour,
which he did like a champ!!...
I will remember the past nine days with him
with a smile, a full heart and a little knot in my throat...
the kind that tightens and makes my eyes get moist.


But...it's not been just the past nine days.
It's been the past 23 years.


They've been full...
of Curious George and Clifford the Big Red Dog,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers,
Harry Potter (all of them...books and movies),
soccer, baseball, basketball games, and many rounds of golf,
choir concerts and one play with a particularly cute skunk,
the MCHS "Golden Angels" (I think that's what they were called),
Saran-wrapping cars, road kill passed between friends,
"man nights" with Sweet Husband, Josh, Jake and now Peter, too,
learning to home-brew and shoot guns,
twelve years of public school, four years of university,
and, as of July 5th, gainful employment in the "real world."


There have been smiles, tears, joy, pain, triumph and defeat...
all contributing to who Drewbie is on this his 23rd birthday.


Yet, the greatest moment in all of Drew's 23 years
was when God opened the eyes of his heart to his need for a Savior
and filled him with faith to believe that
Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life...
replacing Drewbie's heart of stone with a heart of flesh,
removing his sin as far as the east is from the west,
clothing him with garments of salvation and robes of righteousness,
sealing him with the promised Holy Spirit.


So...today we rejoice with exceedingly great joy
because though it's hard to believe Drewbie is celebrating 23 years,
the real celebration will go on and on
even when we've been there 10,000 years!


Happy Birthday, my precious son...