Keal Family Letter, August 2005

Hello Family and Friends! It's August already? Life is a fast ride!
We are all doing well, and we hope that you are too!

Cirdan took his first steps just last week! I think it was Wednesday
July 27th. Since then, just about every day, he takes a few more
steps. He can take about 6 or 7 steps until he has to plop down.
He's having a lot of fun being a little more like the big people
(including his sister). He's constantly watching Thea and trying to
copy her, or do exactly what she's doing (sometimes to the annoyance of
Thea). Cirdan has also been teething a lot lately, so he flip-flops
back and forth between really happy and really sad.

Cirdan loves books! I mean he really loves books! It's usually the
first thing he reaches for in the morning, and the first game he wants
to play after breakfast, and the last thing he wants to do before bed.
Tirah and I can't sit down in a chair anywhere without feeling little
tiny hands slowly place a little tiny book into our laps, and then he
stands there grinning and shaking his hands like he's going to explode
with excitement, until we pick him up and read him a book. When
reading him a book, he has the cutest, most captivated expression on
his face... eyebrows way up high, and a little "o" for a mouth.

He's also got a thing for hats. Whenever he finds a hat, he puts it on
his head, and looks really pleased with himself. Sometimes he doesn't
get it all the way on so that it's covering his eyes, and he goes
crawling off and bangs his head into the wall, but he doesn't seem to
care. He also thinks that any piece of clothing can be a hat, so
we'll often see him crawling down the hall with a dirty sock wrapped
around his head.

I'm loving the stage of life that Cirdan is in right now. It's so
wonderful to see a little boy in the purest basics of humanity;
without the warped coverings of the stereotypical masculine person.
The other day, Thea asked me to hand her a flower, which I did. Cirdan
then proceeded to tell me (with much waving of hands, and pointing of
fingers, and rapid breathing) that he wanted one too. So I gave him
one too. Thea proceeded to pull all the petals off and chuck the
bare stem onto the ground. Cirdan sat there for probably 15 minutes
just staring at this beautiful flower. It's so sad to me, that in
this world, Cirdan will grow into a bigger little boy that thinks that
flowers and rainbows and hugs and kisses are "sissy" rather than the
beautiful wonderful things that they really are. And I know it's all
part of the process that we men have to go through, but it makes me
treasure these moments with baby Cirdan all the more.

Thea loves to talk and sing. Her favorite songs include: the ABCs,
Horsey Horsey, Swinging Swinging, Old MacDonald had a Backhoe, A Man
had a Hundred Sheep, This is the Day that the Lord has made, and many
others. Oh yeah, and now a funky blues song by John Fogerty (of
Credence Clearwater Revival) called Blueboy. She can say the entire
alphabet (thanks to the song) and she can say some of her numbers,
although in her brain it goes: 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,12, and sometimes she
throws a 6 in at the end.

Tirah is working full-time at Jo-Ann Fabrics in Allentown. She is one
of the four managers of the store. Everyday she feels more confident
about her abilities to do the job. She's starting to have a lot of
fun.

An interesting development just came up yesterday. Tirah used to work
at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, and Scott (the bookstore manager there)
there just gave notice that he's leaving. Since Tirah was essentially
the Assistant Manager of the Bookstore at Hawk Mountain, there's a
slight chance that she could be eligible for the Manager position. It
puts Tirah in a very interesting position of either getting a new job
at Hawk Mountain that could pay a lot more than I ever made in
construction, or telling Jo-Anns that she's had a job offer and could
she please get a raise. Hawk Mountain has some good pros: Hawk
Mountain is only about 15 minutes away, while Jo-Anns is a half and
hour away. She's more familiar with Hawk Mountain than Jo-Anns.
Hawk Mountain would have more regular hours. And it would very
probably pay more. Both stores are in a position to possibly really
need her, which puts her in a good position, but a hard one because she
might have to tell Jo-Anns that she's leaving after only about a month.
And we still have to weigh the benefits packages of each. And this
is all still very much up in the air, because Hawk Mountain might find
somebody else. We'll keep you updated if she ends up getting the
job. We're all crossing our fingers here.

If Tirah did get this job, we could maybe stop living in survival mode
of paycheck to paycheck. The Famine could Finally be Finished! This
could Facilitate a Fabulous new Faze of Financial Freedom For the
Future of the Fair-haired and Freckled Foursome of the Keal Family.
But it really is still up in the air, so we're trying not to count our
Fluffy Feathered Fowl before they've Freed themselves From their tiny
Fragile Fortresses. (O.K. I'll stop now)

Tirah had a long three day weekend this past weekend, so we took
advantage of that and got as much of a summer vacation as we can afford
these days. We were invited up to Lake Wallenpaupack on Friday to
visit Gordon and Jen McQueen at Yodelheim (the cabin where we had our
honeymoon.) That was fun. I got to go sailing (which I haven't for
about four years!). We took Thea on her first motor boat ride. She
loved all the "bubbles" coming out the back of the boat. We had fun
playing in the water and visiting with friends and I got a bad sunburn
to round out the day. Then on Saturday, Tirah and I went to Dorney
Park which we haven't done since before Thea was born. That was a lot
of fun, and we both got bad headaches to round out that day. Tirah and
I felt like we were getting old. You know you're not a kid anymore
when your mind is going: "Dorney Park or a nap, Dorney Park or a
nap..." But it was still a lot of fun.

My music business is still slowly moving forward. It's nice to think
that we might be in a position soon where it can take as long as it
needs to to get off the ground. We're still working on getting my
Christmas CD "Advent" ready to be available by this Christmas.
Remember, you can pre-order it for only $13.00! Send me an email if
you want to pre-order it.

Well that about captures our life at this moment. Tom Hanks, in the
latest Reader's Digest, summed up life pretty well: "It's just one
darn thing after another." And as long as we recognize that, accept
it, and have fun with it, life is a joyful ride.

May the Lord bless your lives.

Love,

Solomon - Stay-at-home Papa, Husband, and Struggling Musician (28)
Tirah - Amazing Working Wife and Mother (25)
Our Marriage (4)
Thea - "The Talker" (2 and a half)
Cirdan - "The Walker" (1 and a month)