Happy Birthday big brother...

My big brother when he was deployed...taken by my sister-in-law.

Today is my big brother's birthday. I usually try to call him and wish him a happy day, but I can't do that this year. He was deployed last week. I don't know if he is able to see this either, but I wanted to do something special to remember his birthday this year. I can't even think about him lately without crying. I have never gotten to see him as much as I would like since we got married and had families of our own. I wish that could be different, and maybe it will someday. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the things we did when we were younger. I thought I would share a few memories.

Probably my earliest memories of him involve G.I. Joe dolls (is that an appropriate thing to call a boy toy?). We spent hours and hours playing them when we were younger. Not personally my favorite. I would rather have played Barbies. My brother was a good sport though, and would play Barbies with me once in a while. He always liked to play the baby. We would be playing along just fine, and then all of a sudden the baby turned into ninja baby and started attacking people. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.....

We had lots of fun playing other things too. We use to build forts out of the boxes in our basement. The trick was to make it look like there wasn't a fort in them because my parents didn't like us playing in them. He built a fort once and put his blankets and stuff in it to make a house. He was going to sleep in it, but I don't remember if he did. I just remember that he took a sandwich in there and forgot about it. I think it might have been tuna. It sure stunk when we found it.

We also played marbles until our fingers were sore. We built castles in the sand box. We had this green rocking swivel chair. If you turned it onto it's back it looked like an airplane with a propeller in the front. We had lots of fun with that. In the wintertime, we would be watching t.v. and during commercial breaks we would run outside and climb up onto the the rabbit hutch....with no shoes or socks on, and jump off into the snow. Then we would run back inside to see who could get to the heater faster. We had lots of fun sleeping out in our back yard in the summers.

I had lots of fun with my brother, but he also tormented me like crazy. You know those things that boys seem to be great at doing...burping, farting....that kind of thing. I think he experimented with every kind of grossness on me. He even threw up on me once. Even though he tormented me I still loved him dearly. He ran away from home once. He was only hiding in our dog house, but I was sooooooo sad. I missed him like crazy and he was only gone for like 2 hours.

It wouldn't be the last time I would miss him. Between his junior and senior year of high school he went to boot camp. I missed him tons that summer. Before he came home they shaved his head. This is his senior class picture. He's not quite as skinny these days, but he does have more hair.

During high school he was busy with his friends, but still made time to do things with me. Like play nintendo, or watch a basketball game, or talk me into doing his homework. I got pretty good at imitating his hand writing. After high school he went off to Military school, and things were lonely without him. He came back different....he grew up I guess you could say. He came back with big muscles and could walk on his hands. He wasn't home long before he went on his mission.

When he came back we were on the same turf. I had graduated from High School, and so we ended up going to college together. Some of my fondest memories come from those college days. We drove to school together sometimes and had some of our classes together. He had a night job, and had a hard time staying awake in school. I would hold up his head in Physics class, and elbow him if he started to snore. We took a sales class together too. He would often get home from work about the time that I was getting up in the morning. He would climb into bed with me and we would talk. We went on double dates together. We did a lot together during those two years of college before we got married.

This is a picture of us at my sister's wedding. Most of my pictures of him are in storage, or I am sure I could have found something good to embarrass him with! We ended up getting married 3 weeks apart from each other. It was a crazy busy time. My hubby and I drove all night long to get to CA for his wedding, but I ended up not being able to go in. I sat in the lobby and cried. I wish I could have been there.

Since then, my memories of my big brother have been from family camp outs, family parties, and watching him with his own little kids and his wife. I will miss sharing these memories with him over the next year while he is gone. He and his family are in our thoughts and prayers everyday. I love you big brother!