Keal Family Letter, August 2007

Hello Friends and Family!

Tirah is now full term, so the baby could come any day now! However,
both Thea and Cirdan were 10 days late, so we're trying not to get
our hopes up too much. Tirah is VERY ready to be DONE being
PREGNANT! Fortunately she is now on maternity leave, and we've been
enjoying spending all of our time together as a whole family. She's
been on maternity leave for one week now. The baby is head down,
and every thing is looking good, thank the Lord!

Cirdan and Thea are as cute and wonderful and difficult and
intelligent and strong-willed and angelic as ever. Parenting them
is a continual learning process, and great for spiritual growth. Our
kids have already claimed the roles of "children" in our family, so
the only jobs left for me and Tirah fall into the category of "grown-
up." It's kind of interesting how spending all my time trying to
communicate with toddlers is helping me to become a better adult.
The Lord is very wise.

On July 13-15 we were able to get away for the weekend; up to the
Catskills of New York state for a Marriage Retreat led by Lori and
John Odhner. It was wonderful! There were 9 couples there (so 18
people, although John Odhner kept referred to it as 19 because of our
baby). The whole weekend was filled with friendship and wisdom and
music and laughing. It was very rejuvenating!

The trip up was a bit of an adventure though! We drove up with
Calvin and Maggie Odhner, who are very good friends of ours. The
trip was like a comedy of errors. We were supposed to get to the
Retreat by about 7:00... well we didn't get there until almost 1:00
at night! First we got off late, and then we forgot some of my
music equipment. Then we got stuck in stand-still traffic. Then we
took a wrong turn and ended up heading into New York City. THEN...
the car broke down! So we ended up stuck in a place called
Tarrytown New York, and we got some pizza (having missed our dinner
reservations) and searched for a car rental place, but the closest
place to rent a car was the airport, but it took forever to get there
because there was a man-hunt on the highway, and the only available
rental car was almost too small, etc, etc, etc. But all in all, it
was a lot of fun to spend that time with Calvin and Maggie!

Jori and Abbey and Malcolm, meanwhile, were back at our house
watching our little kids, which we are very grateful for. It sounded
like a good weekend was had by all.

On the 17th we had the last meeting of our second Marriage Support
Group. Many of the people involved in this group were interested in
continuing! So after the baby is old enough and we start it up
again, we might turn it into an on-going thing (instead of just an 8
week session) which would be great!

On the 19th we went out food shopping, and came back having bought
our minivan! We hadn't intended to buy the van on that trip, but we
though we would drive through the car dealership near the grocery
store and see what they had. Well, they had exactly the right van
for us. It's a 2002 Toyota Sienna. It had 87,000 miles on it. It's
only had one owner. And most importantly... it's a nice color blue
and it has a CD player! ;-)
It was a price we could afford, and the salesman was not at all
pushy. So we were able to buy our minivan before the new baby
came! Now we will all fit into one car. We've been having a lot of
fun on Tirah's maternity leave, just driving around in it.

On the 21st, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" arrived in the
mail! We spent the next week reading it together, which was another
nice thing to be doing on Tirah's maternity leave. Great book by the
way! I don't know how many of you have read Harry Potter, but Tirah
and I are pretty big fans. The last book in the series definitely
lived up to our expectations for sheer entertainment as well as
philosophical and spiritual value.

I've sort of been taking a vacation since Tirah's been on maternity
leave, so I don't have much to report on the music front. Although I
almost have my next piece of sheet music available ("Surrender" from
the "Peace of Heaven" album). I'll keep you posted.

Coming up soon... I will be reporting the birth of our third child!
Stay tuned for that!

Have a great day!

Love,
Solomon, Tirah, Thea, Cirdan, and Baby.