Miriam Visits UC Davis With a Different View

With her brother having studied and now works at UC Davis, Miriam got to know UC Davis from head to toe.  And yet today we brought  her to the university once again but this time Miriam had a different purpose - to visit her future school.  That's right, this girl will be going to study at UC Davis for her college education in Music.  In fact, I may say that she was sought after because the university offered her scholarship and invited her to join the university's Honors Program.  Needless to say she feels welcome and is very happy with the prospects of the next chapter of her education.

Brahms gave her a thorough tour of the campus to satisfy her curiosity.  There is nothing better than having your own brother as your guide - he gives the scoop that you need to know.  (Shannon also offered to give her a tour of UC Irvine if she had been accepted and chosen to go there.)  The only thing that would have made the tour better was if Tim was feeling better.  He was quite under the weather but he joined part of the tour anyway. 

UC Davis was photogenic today and so was Miriam.  In as much as she decided to join the honors program, she has the advantage of knowing early which residence hall she'll be living at.  She was particularly glad to know that the Music Department and her future dorm are not far from each other.  Many things were fascinating to her such as the size of the library, the bicycles, and the student union that looks like an airport.  :)  She has yet a whole new world to discover when she will actually live there but for now she can only imagine college life.

What that means to Tim and I is that we will soon be without a child at home.  Life for sure will be different.  We too will have a whole new life to discover ahead of us.  :)

We Praise God Always.

Preaching Like a Pro

Today my son preached at the University Covenant Church.  It is very exciting but as his mother, I was concerned in the last two days and even waking up at three o'clock this morning wondering how he was dealing with the pressure of writing and delivering an appropriate sermon to a relatively big church - three times. 

When we saw the video later today, my husband and I were not only relieved but delighted. He is engaging with a good amount of humor. He has the characteristics of a good teacher. 😊   

The unexpected effect of seeing my son preach is the reminder that my husband and I are growing old - really growing old.  And so we must now consciously take on this journey with grace...😉

Mattole

The Lewis Cousins

With the exception of Shannon, I think all of the Lewis cousins have never been to Mattole before.  If not for the 90th birthday celebration of their Great Grandmother Lois, they probably won't have gone together to visit their ancestral homestead. Thanks to Carl and Paula who hosted and encouraged us all to survey the beauty and grandeur of the place.  My kids in particular really liked the place that they started imagining their next trip back. 

Tim has many fond memories of Mattole when he and his brother were younger.  In fact Tim and I spent our honeymoon in the older Mattole property.  The whole place to ourselves for miles away.  It was very romantic for sure!  

And now our kids have been introduced to the place...

Miriam always manages to fins a stick

Two Sisters

All the members of the Lewises are in this picture except for me who was behind the camera.

Tim looks like a very proud dad.

There will always be a water fight whenever they are in the water together.

Saskia models the blue kayak.

Who needs a floatie when you have a brother.

Brahms was entertained by the sight of his cousins trying to pull their mom into the water.

Type A people

Free Lewis Style Diving

Lunch Date in Davis

The obligatory selfie and Brahms' self-prescribed facial expression.  

Tim and I went to have lunch with our son today.  Although we have seen him recently when we went to watch a Soccer game in Sacramento, we really did not have time to talk to him in depth.

Thank God is doing fine. One of the things he talked about were those that pertains to his college Christian group - Catalyst.  (Which means that it is one of the things that occupy his thoughts currently).  Just today he was interviewing candidates for the position of Small Group Leaders.  Catalyst is very serious about choosing the right leaders - and so should every organization. Brahms plays a key role in the leadership of this group at this present time.  That is where most of his social life revolve. Being his mother, I like it because he gets to think about life and God with other people.  It is a good exercise for him to be exposed to the emotional pressure of being in leadership.

It is comforting to see a child make plans - not just for the distant unforeseen future but for the next month, next quarter or next year on his own.  Work, housing, summer internship, and even spending time with his sister.  To an outsider there is nothing to glean from such conversations but to a parent it is completely different.  There is hope for this child to be able to run something beyond his own affairs with wisdom!

One of the perks of living close to your folks is that they can bring you some barbecued ribs when they come visit.  :)

My Little Boy

Nineteen years since he first saw the light - Sir Lewis at UC Davis.  :)   

2014

1995

Birthdays are vivid markers of God's goodness.  With these pictures, no words are required.  

Brahms Moves to UC Davis

My son now attends the University of California in Davis to take a double major:  Anthropology and International Agricultural Development. 

JB Agustin is his roommate who happened to be a son of someone from my hometown in Abulug.  I know he comes from a good family.  It is a good thing!  So far they are getting along quiet well.  

It was a rainy day when we brought him to his school for the first time.  

The Guy Who Rides His Bike

 Brahms is awesome.   He likes penguins, hamburgers, and cheese - that's what he tells me.  But as far as I know he is a hard-working guy who consistently gets up very early. He is consistently one of the most interesting teenage boys that I know, and always excited to share some of what he has found. Last year, I remember that he had a new interesting fact or crazy story to tell the bus driver every day. The question is: What will he do next? Now, it seems, buses are boring and bikes are cool. So, each morning he rides to school. Soon he will be doing the car thing (with me in the passenger seat).

Brahms is fun.

Brahms is Sixteen Today

It is hard to believe but it has been sixteen years ago when a 10.4 pound baby was born to us.  Now he is a young man with so much energy and enthusiasm to learn.  As a junior in high school, he is taking five AP (Advance placement) classes and an engineering class.  He is a hard-working student.   When he is not studying, he would be reading, working as a tutor, writing a blog, playing bass in youth band, helping in children's ministry at church,  taking pictures, making YouTube videos, learning to play banjo, reading John Piper's "Think", planning his next trip, mowing the lawn, telling us what he just read, playing MineCraft, writing, making mazes, looking for food from the fridge, and many more.


 Brahms is a kind, considerate, and self-controlled guy. I am very proud to be his mother.  I thank God for He gave us the greatest son we could ever have. 

Tonight we are going to celebrate at his favorite hamburger place - Mels.  (We are just waiting for Tim to arrive from helping the Neff family move from Rescue to their new house in Coloma.) Instead of a cake Brahms requested for homemade apple pie.  I made a ten-inch apple pie and it will be served with vanilla ice cream. 

Great America

We left the house at 7:30 this morning on a mission to have a thrilling experience at Great America.  Brahms asked the family to do this to pre-celebrate his 16th birthday.  It was a brilliant idea. 

It has been a long time since we went there as a family -  Brahms and Shannon remember all their earlier experiences of the place but Miriam was a little girl she could not even remember going there.  Now she's tall enough to be able to go into all the rides.  She had a blast.  During the course of the day, she had thanked us (her father and mother) many times for bringing the family to Great America. 

Shannon and Brahms took the ultimate thrill ride - the 'Xtreme Skyflyer' together.  Bundled and strapped together, they were attached to this thin string.  They told us later that as they were being raised up high into the sky they were telling each other their regrets for dying so soon.  

Shannon:  "I would have loved to have gone to college..."

Brahms:  "I wished that I had turned sixteen before I died." 

Fortunately, they made it down safely. 

This is the first time that we had gone to Great America when I went in almost all the rides.  (I skipped the 'Demon' because I was a bit scared looking at the very twisty tracks.)  All those years, I was with a small child who could only ride the children's ride like the Carousel.  My kids are grown up now.  The rides provided me a chance to let my adrenalines flow in dramatic doses.  I realized that I had not screamed so loud in a long time.  I must have screamed during the whole course of every ride.  Sometime I had my eyes closed because I did not want to see what was coming. 

Unlike me, Tim is always very quiet in all the rides.  He is always doing some daring things like raising his hands up instead of holding on tightly.  He is the expert on all these rides because he has been riding most of these since he was a young boy.  I still remember when we were newly married and we went in the Orbit (back then it was called the New Orleans Orbit).  He tickled me during the whole course of the ride.  I had no time to feel scared of the ride because I was too busy laughing.  From that time on I did not want him to ride with him anymore. 

We had all the fun today but we also lost one thing.  Tim dropped his eyeglasses while we were in the 'FireFall'.  Zippered bags were provided but he refused to put his glasses there.  So down into the water below went his spectacles.  Normally,  my reaction is to worry about them but this time I was suspended upside-down very high up above the water - I was more worried about surviving than anything else.

Overall, it was a very fun day.  We thank God for everything - experience, provision, safety, and lessons learned.  I learned that those thrill rides provide a taste of real life. Life is not always smooth-sailing.  Sometimes it gets scary and it seems that the world is coming to an end but then the direction of life shifts and your original fear is replaced by another one.  Right when you are getting used to and enjoying the sequence of these fearful events, the ride stops and life is over.  I also learned that when the rides are smoothly going, it is time to brace up.  That's what makes life interesting and fun.   :)

Commitment etc.

Brahms (April 1, 2011)

Today marks the day when Brahms played bass with the Praise Team at church as Brahms instead of substituting for someone else.  Denise Danberg, the Praise Team director, was telling me that it was his debut - which probably means that his involvement will somewhat appear on the regular schedule.    He played really well and I was very happy for him.  Mother's pride, I guess.  I continually marvel at his willingness to take on more responsibilities; he seems to love being able to do something or help others.  In that - I see his father in him.  However, my poor son took some of my negative genes - at times he gets overwhelmed by the amount of work that he has to do at one time.  When this happens I see myself reflected.  As I have learned over the years, he needs to calm down and list down his tasks bit by bit.  There is a sense of progress derived from knowing that one item is crossed out as opposed to waiting for the whole project to be done.  It's easy for me to say this when I am calm but the idea escapes me when I am stressed.

A week ago during the Robotics competition he was assigned to make the video for his team, "Circuit Breakers".  He planned his time well but as they say, the worst always happens at the worst time.   He planned to spend Thursday night to finish the video to be ready for the next day.  But then at four in the afternoon of that Thursday, one of his teammates calls him to say that the video was due that day at 6 pm.  So now he had to work on it in super high-speed.  That would not have been so bad if the computer was working.  The computer was not cooperating and usually when we have technical problems in the family, we have Tim to help us.  This time he was on his way home from a business trip from Seattle.  At this point Brahms was stressing like Armageddon was coming in the next thirty minutes.  Whatever we (Shannon, Miriam and I) said added pain to his struggle. All of us kept quiet as we watched him agonize over this deadline.  But his teammates kept calling him to ask about his progress.  He finished the video at 5:50pm but the agony is far from over.  Now he had  to send it to his team who are at that time at UC Davis by email.  His computer wouldn't send it.  At this point his hair looked like Albert Einstein's, he was sweating, and as if he was not breathing anymore.  Had we said anything at that time he would have bursted into tears.  The pain has not spread to us.  Shannon quietly suggested that he used her computer to send the file.  She also suggested copying the file into a USB then copying it into Shannon's.  All these things did not occur to him; hopelessness was the only reality that filled his senses.  Five minutes before six...tick tock tick tock... Then he finds out that he does not have the email address to whom he would send it to.  So he calls his team.  He gets it.  Sends the file...and it was sent. Whew!  Now he is done!  Wait...not quiet.  His teammate calls him and said that he will have to wait to see if they can get it in on time.  He sits, he paces back and forth - not knowing what to do and very worried. 

"Breath now.  You are done!" I said.   "Whatever happens now is not within your control.  You have been stressing your energy out and forgetting to depend on the ONE who can help you." As if he was awakened from a terrible nightmare.  It is hard to let go but when we think that we have done our best, the only thing left is to WAIT.

The good thing about Brahms is that he learns from his mistakes.  He is willing to go back and point out where he blew it.