Good Friday

A holiday! Something to do with Jesus and Christianity... or something. Whatever. It's nice to have a day off. Oh sure, you're saying, he hasn't been back to work for 2 weeks and now here he is wanting a day off. But it's how I am going to spend the day that's important.

10 years ago today on a very very stormy night, my first nephew, Parker Riley Saunders, was born, and my life changed forever. I would never look at some things the same again, and when I held this little life in my arms for the first time I couldn't help but realize how much he looked like my sister when she was a baby. As he has grown he has started to look more like his own person, although a lot of my friends who have met him all say he looks a lot like me, which I suppose makes sense as we do share a few genetic blocks somewhere down the chain. Parker has always been a very clever boy, making astutue comments here and there and surprising the adults around him. He's creative. He's funny. He's active. He's healthy. To this day I'd say 80% of what I do with my life is done with his and his brother's welfare in mind. I love those little kids and I am enjoying watching them grow up into smart little boys, and soon they will be young men looking at the world and trying to find their own place. And not only do I enjoy their love in return, but I also bask in the warmth of my sister's trust and my father's faith that if the kids are with me they are safe and I will never let anything happen to them.

Parker's plans for a birthday party on his actual birthday are a bit scuttled by Easter being this weekend so it has been postponed for 2 weeks when his friends will all be able to come and enjoy his day with him. Today, however, I have invited the kids and my sister to my apartment for a small scale birthday event that has also got an Easter egg hunt as part of the fun, followed by a mini-hamburger lunch, and then a trip up to the movie theatre to see Horton Hears A Who. I think it will be a fun day for them, and for me to see them enjoying themselves.

Speaking of enjoying, I was out last night with some associates from work. It was actually supposed to be a much larger scale event than it turned out to be; my fellow Canada Post supervisor, Steve, and I became the mainstays of the evening with a few other people flitting in and out, and a few others just not showing at all. So lesson learned, I'm not going to be trying anything like that again. Not that it was a huge problem; Steve and I had plenty of fun, even conducting a commando raid with one of my lightsabres on an unnamed location, but the people who saw us will remember.

I think I can safely say the "good" is in Good Friday for me today. Ahead after Parker's birthday event today comes an evening of visiting with my friend Dan, who is in town for a couple days, and tomorrow - ah, tomorrow - Warren's wedding!

So I should go get things rolling a bit more now. I'm going to get some laundry out of the way and tidy this place up a bit more before everyone arrives. I've got until 12 noon before they get here, which is ample time to prepare everything. The mini-hamburgers are indeed mini, kid sized, and I have french fries as well. Always a treat. If my sister brings her camera along I will eventually post some pictures of our day.

For now, that is all.