Timmy Limmy

My older brother Tim celebrated his birthday today!
{Well, it was today when I started this post :) .}

Unlike my brother Chris, Tim was not known as the Golden Boy in the family.  He gave our mother a run for her money.  Which drove her insane at the time, but really makes for great stories now.  These tales are quite amusing & I love to hear about them.  

A [not so pleasant] memory of Tim is when he used to chase my friends & I through the house, out the back door, & into the backyard [anywhere we could escape] with a staple gun.  I don't think I ever got hit, but my friends sure did.

One of my favorite memories of Timmy Limmy happened when we were landscaping around our pool at the old house.  Tim would shovel dirt into a wheel barrow & balance it across a 2x4 beam to get it across the unfinished concrete pool deck.  My dad & I were happily swimming when one of the loads didn't quite make it across the beam.  Imagine, in slow motion, a wheel barrow, full of dirt, tipping towards you, & then a dark cloud of mud enveloping you in the pool.    I remember swimming with goggles (like it helped) to fish out BIG rocks from the bottom of the pool.  It took a good amount of time to clean up that mess.

I loved watching Tim play video games.  I liked to watch him play Zelda or Street Fighter, anything really.  One day, right after Tim got home from Slovenia (where he served a church mission for two years) I stayed home from school because I was feeling under the weather.  Tim & I played Mario Kart all day long.  He taught me how to perform a shortcut on one of the levels (Wario Stadium).  I remember when I finally, after many, many tries, got the trick, I was so pleased with myself.  I enjoyed the time he spent with me. 

My very favorite memory occurred after I had made a batch of Marble Cheesecake Brownies.  I was removing the brownies from the oven when the glass dish slipped from my grip & crashed on the tile floor.  I must have let out a scream because my Big Brother immediately ran into the kitchen.  There I stood, in shock, in the middle of the shattered glass with 350 degree shards of glass in my legs.  Without saying a word, he scooped me up & carried me to the bathtub where he washed my legs.

We are all grown up now & alas, we don't get to spend days playing video games anymore.  Tim is very busy with his ever growing family.

I am so grateful families are forever. 

 I love you, Timmy Limmy (even though you terrorized me with staple guns) & I hope you had a marvelous birthday!