Time flies

It is hard to believe that time goes so quickly and that the older one gets the faster it flies.
Today our oldest child, Kelly, turned 42! He is now a man with a family of his own. I'm sure he is already beginning to understand that the years wait for no-one.
It seems like only a moment ago that he was little guy, chasing the beagle puppy his Uncle Bob and Aunt Dana brought him on his first birthday. Squealing for the sheer joy of living.
Then a moment later, pulling a big red wagon down the sidewalk in front of our house in Joplin, MO and still another moment later riding the turquoise trike up and down that same sidewalk.
One, two, three years gone already. He is now a big boy and also a big brother.
The year was 1972, we left Missouri in March of that year and moved our little family to Ohio. Daddy had gotten a much better job working for General Motors when Kelly was 3 1/2 and April was 15 months old.
It wasn't long until he was experiencing more new things. He learned to ride his bike with the training wheels off the ground shortly after his 5th birthday and started kindergarten with not one but 2 very black eyes, the result of a hard fall the day before his first official day of school.
The following summer a police officer came knocking on our door right in the middle of his 6th birthday party! The criminal??? Kelly, along with another little friend a few houses down from us had decided to uproot another neighbors garden (just to see what was growing!)
In second grade he missed his bus home and had the school and his parents in quite a panic for over an hour while he casually was window shopping on his way home.
He once collected wet girlie pictures from a puddle and hung them up to dry over the branches of a tree until Mom came to check up on him and told him he couldn't keep them, even if they were for a friend!
Time continued and our teen found himself facing new challenges and unfamiliar territory. It wasn't always easy for him but, it's a fact that most of us must sometimes deal with tough times.
We became foster parents when Kelly was a teen and now he had to deal with, not only one little sister, but, several other little ones that were in and out of our lives.
Jeannie and Jodi were probably the most special, being here for close to two years. We all loved them like they were our own. Kelly, was 2 year old Jeannie's "special big brother". She followed him around and always wanted him to "babysit" her.
Next came graduation and then several years serving our country in the Marines. It wasn't so very long after his return that Wendy came into his life, then baby numbe 1, Jessica and after that, our little tornado, Storm.
Now Jessi is about ready to get a drivers lisence and Storm just turned into a real teenager earlier this month.
As I said before, time goes quickly, it dosn't crawl, it dosn't walk, it flies!!!
Happy Birthday Son, May you have many more happy, healthy years!