Canada

We flew up Friday to Buffalo, rented a car, and came to the Canadian side. Our room has a lovely view of the falls. We got a little lost, and I was cranky, but we didn't get as lost as others.

Yesterday we went to Paul and Nadia's wedding in lovely Niagra-on-the-lake, a quaint and lovely little town. After the beautiful wedding we had a few hours before the reception, and we walked around it. The reception was lovely. We didn't stay for the whole thing, but I don't think it went on much longer. I'm not going to plug all the places and create links because this is a blog about the boys, not link for link sake. William broke two glasses, but someone told me to lighten up, they're an Italian family who likes children, so I tried to. I'm aware of how tense and pressured I am, hoping the boys will be more obedient, less rowdy. Not the way it is. The trick is to stay in the game without numbing down and tuning out.

The boys are obsessed with their godfathers. Paul being William and Ray being Andrew's. Ray doesn't come over as much (he's a Yankees fan, and I invite Paul over for Mets games and as busy as he is, he often comes). So to make up for it, I told Andrew that he has a shadow godfather, because when John first came to NYC, they called him "Boston Ray". He was perhaps the next Catholic on my list to ask to be Godfather if Ray decline. Ray and John are good friends. So anyway, I call John the shadow godfather, to make Andrew feel better, and they liked that. It was cool to see Bill and Paul as well, plus Billy, Mark and Mat. I met other friends I'd only heard about. Paul is such a good guy and has lots of close friends.

So today we went on the maid of the mist. We went to the IMAX theater to see a dinosaur movie, but they only show it at 1pm; Wish we would have known that. But the boys found some dinosaurs they liked in the gift shop, so they perked up. Right now they're running back and forth in the room, and whacking me underneath the table.

I think my favorite moment of the trip so far, was when Andrew saw Diana in her dress for the wedding, he said, "mommy you're a princess."

After seeing everyone, another favorite moment was when I was reading Naked by David Sedaris. I was reading his essay Naked, and I was just laughing out loud for the first two pages. I had to read it to Diana. There's nothing so precious as a belly laugh. My friend Tony just read his last book and really enjoyed it.

So here's Sedaris on Letterman, reading a short essay.



Sedaris by the way has nothing to do with Canada, that I know of.

Photos to follow when we get home. I took about a million.

here's another video I found:

End of summer

Here's an article about how to cope with bullies.

It's the end of summer. The boys went to the 16th last Mets game at Shea. Here's a photo. Pelfry pitched a complete game and Delgado hit out 2 three run homers.

Tuesday William went to Splish Splash on Long Island and today they went to Jones Beach.

Shadow godfather

My boys have 2 godfathers, Paul and Ray. If Ray would have said no, I might have had to ask John, who stars in this video with a lovely lady.

Planets by William

facebook link

Does this link work? It's public photos from my cell phone that I sent to Facebook.

So I think it works, so here's another one.

Thing one and thing two asleep.

So I'm just picking out the best from my mobile uploads on facebook. You can't see my double chin on this one.

This one is one of my first on my cell phone, you can see how young Andres looks, I don't think he'd had a hair cut yet.

They're in a good mood getting back from Florida, sharing a pop.

Here's another early one of Andres.

Andrew's first hair cut.

I call Andres, "Andrew" because that's the name I wanted. Here Andres/Andrew has ice creme on his face.

Sunglasses William.

Perhaps my favorite. William fell asleep in the shopping cart, while Andrew looks on.

Mother's Day 2007

Track suit boys.

I love William's smile.

Cute kids.

One of Andrew.

tats

Andrew came in and said, "I saw two tats." Diana pointed out earlier to me that he puts a T with the C.

We had tickets to the Mets game, through family, but the Andrew said he was scared, and then William didn't want to go when I wouldn't take a whole backpack of toys. So I went with Jose and had a good time, even though the Mets lost. It's the last season at Shea, and perhaps it's just hype about the history of baseball, but I like going to Shea in it's last year. We took the boys last year, but they haven't been this year, the last year.

William had scratches on his face, Christian scratched him, trying to get a bat from him, at Nati's 11th birthday party on the weekend, for the larger family.

We just watched The Pursuit of Happyness, an intense movie. The boys are back from Aida's. Diana is sick, so Aida took care of the boys for a while, when I went to the Mets game.

spider pig

The boys saw the Simpsons Movie and Andrew likes to be held up high and walk on the ceiling. They call walking on the ceiling "spider pig".

William said to Diana yesterday, "You're so normalize." That's derived from Spongebob Squarepants, who says, "that's so normal," sometimes.

We went to visit Erin Grace Kelly, the newborn daughter of Bill and Jessica, Diana's cousin. She has a step brother Joseph, from Jessica. Josephy was a baby when I met Diana. Jessica came from Ecuador to have Joseph in America. He's going to be 15 the 19th of August. Bill is Woodside Irish, thus the non-Hispanic name.

There was a lot of debate about the name. Grace Kelly would be a notorious name. So they put it in the middle.

Erin is a wee little lass, with dark hair and the newborn leg twist that is suggestive of being inside another human being, scrunched up.

Jessica seems to be doing well, though she's occasionally weepy as she readjusts her hormones back to not carrying a living being inside her, just hormones for one normal adult female.

Today is our 11th anniversary, and Grandpa Zane's birthday. Aida is going to watch the boys so we can spend some time together without others. When she wakes up. She's become addicted to Battlestar Gallactica, and stayed up late watching it, and slept over.

I feel so wanged out from the responsibilities, overwhelmed. I just got Diana a birthday present. I got Natasia finally a graduation present. Natasia's birthday is next week. Diana and I keep asking each other what we want to do. It's hard to come up with some high activity idea. It seems to be what people want from us. But I think we're just going to spend some quiet time at home. I really just want to talk with Diana uninterrupted. It's so hard to have a conversation with the kids and everyone around. I look forward to spending time with her.

Disappeared photos

People have requested photos not be made public of their children, so photos have been removed from the blog. On the one hand, I must respect the wishes of parents. On the other, I think it's silly because I just put first names, and it's not like it's searchable in a web search, nobody would know who the people are. Birth announcements are another thing. Well, I'll celebrate the extended family in text. I really should have gotten permission to put photos of people. I suppose this is such an obscure blog that it's not really public, but really it is possibly. So I've learned I need to ask to put a photo on the blog, which I did have a haunting suspicion about and feel embarrassed.

in case text becomes unavailable

Parks' service in WWII and Korea propelled him into the pulpit
Date July 19, 2008

By ALEX McRAE

At the height of the Great Depression, Ralph Parks was happy to find work. But when his pay started coming in promises instead of cash, he knew he had to make a change.

Instead of hunting a new job, Parks joined the Navy.

He never dreamed his decision would land him in the middle of two major wars and propel him to a life in the pulpit. But through it all, Parks never doubted his decisions were the right ones.

"I realized later the Lord's hand is on everything," he says. "And I think it all turned out pretty well."

Parks was born in 1922 in Sugar Grove, Va. When he was 5, his dad gave up farming and took a job in the coal fields near Beckley, W. Va. Parks helped tend the family garden, and when he was lucky, made 50 cents a day hoeing corn for local farmers.

His mother and father were active in the local Methodist church, but in the small, rural community, services were only offered once a month. When he was "8 or 9" Parks gave his life to Christ at a revival.

"I vividly remember asking God to forgive me and wondering how He could do that," Parks says. "I didn't think I was worth it."

Parks' church involvement deepened with each passing year, but he learned that being a church member didn't always mean living an upstanding life.

After high school, Parks didn't want to work the coal fields. The Sunday school superintendent at Parks' church had a small farm and offered him a job for $15 dollars a month plus room and board. For the first few months, things were fine. Then the man quit paying Parks, promising to do better but never coming through with the cash.

Parks finally left and never collected his past due pay.

"He was head of the Sunday school, but he certainly wasn't filled with the Christian spirit," Parks says. "It was a big disappointment."

Other jobs were still scarce. So Parks joined the Navy in July 1940.

He went to Norfolk, Va., for basic training and machinist mate school. In March 1941, Parks headed for the Miami Naval Air Station as an aircraft mechanic. Just months later, America went to war and the Miami situation grew considerably less laid back.

"We all thought we could be under attack any day," Parks says. "You didn't know what was happening and had to plan for the worst."

While in Miami, Parks resurrected an old dream. Soon after high school, Parks paid $5 to a traveling pilot for a plane ride and had always wanted to fly again. In Miami, he started taking private flight lessons and earned a pilot's license.

"I felt like it was really a step forward," Parks says. "I was really proud."

While Parks was getting his private license he was also getting Navy flight time in the back seat of torpedo bombers. A few times, Parks was allowed to fly the plane, sometimes when it was doing simulated torpedo runs just 8 to 10 feet above the ocean.

"The more I flew the more I liked it," he says.

Parks finally applied for Navy flight training. He was accepted and became a cadet in the Navy's Enlisted Aviation Pilot Training program. Parks' training took him to Dallas, Tx., Nachitoches, La., Athens, Ga., Memphis, Tenn., and Pensacola, Fla., where Parks was awarded his wings in June 1945. One month later, he was commissioned as an Ensign.

Parks stayed in Pensacola and flew scouting and observation planes, then headed back to Norfolk for fleet training. By then, he wasn't traveling alone.

In 1942, while still in Miami, Parks met a young lady named Elizabeth Goodson at a roller skating rink. Elizabeth was from Attalla, Ala., but had moved in with her sister in Miami after her mother died.

Ralph was smitten with Elizabeth, but he was already dating two other girls. It made Christmas shopping a nightmare. Parks solved the problem by purchasing three identical heart-shaped lockets for his lady loves. He suspects two of the girls were turned off when their lockets turned green. Elizabeth stuck with him, though, and they were married on Aug. 21, 1942. The date was not a coincidence.

"We got paid on the 5th and 20th of every month," Parks says. "Lots of marriages happened on the 6th and 21st. That's the only time we had any money."

World War II ended before Parks was sent overseas. Not too much later he got a big taste of faraway places when he was assigned to a 13-month goodwill voyage aboard the cruiser USS Helena.

Parks flew to England, boarded the Helena and sailed for parts unknown. Every few days he flew missions in his Curtiss SC-1 scout/observation plane to keep his flight status current. He also got to see some extra sights. All were memorable.

The Helena stopped in Scotland in time to see Edinburgh residents get their first taste of ice cream since the war started. The ship also stopped in Toulon, France, and Naples, Italy, where some postwar resentment clearly lingered. One night as the crew of the Helena watched a movie on the deck, a man felt a sting in his shoulder and realized he had been shot by a sniper on shore.

"That was a tense moment," Parks says. "We were always a little more careful after that."

Parks cruised through the Suez Canal and remembers looking out to see nothing but sand on either side of the ship. He recalls Ceylon, where oxen plowed the fields and women beat their laundry on rocks. In Hong Kong, he stayed aboard a British ship and took his first hot bath in months.

But the highlight of Parks' cruise was Tsing Tao, China. Not because of the spectacular sights, but because in Tsing Tao, Parks learned his first son had been born.

When Parks returned home, Elizabeth was waiting with the 9-month-old baby.

"I was glad to see him, but I was more excited about seeing her," Parks says. "It was a great time."

Parks went back to Pensacola for a three-year stint as a flight instructor. But after 1,000 accident-free flights, he began to get bored.

"I was tired of it," he says. "I needed a change.

He transferred to photo reconnaissance and spent six months learning how to take, develop and print aerial photos. He also got to fly the F8F fighter.

"I loved that plane," he says. "It was the hottest thing I'd ever flown."

The flights were fine, but the landings were tricky. The recon planes were catapulted off the deck to begin a mission, but landed in the water, supported by a large central float and two smaller floats under the wings.

When pilots returned from missions they had to walk out on the plane's wing and attach cables from the ship that hoisted the plane back aboard."

"It got tricky at times, and it could be dangerous," he says. "But that was the job and you learned to do it."

After his training ended, Parks was qualified for aircraft carrier landings and went to the Naval Air Station in Miramar, Ca., to begin work as a combat photo reconnaissance pilot. He also started flying Grumman F9F jets.

In 1951 Parks was assigned to the aircraft carrier Essex and went to fight in Korea as a combat recon pilot on an F9F jet.

The Essex split its time between Yokosuka, Japan, and battle stations off the east coast of Korea. Parks made a total of 100 carrier landings, including 64 photo recon missions. His efforts earned him three Air Medals. Parks says he was only hit by enemy fire once, but it wasn't for lack of effort on the Koreans' part.

On one mission Parks was assigned to photograph a crossroad where top Korean officials were expected to gather for a meeting. Parks usually took photos from 5,000 feet, but this time he had to fly within 1,000 feet of the target to get more accurate pictures.

As he neared the target, Parks was bothered by the noise from the plane's heater and switched it off. As the heater noise died away all he could hear was the sound of guns firing his way.

"As soon as I heard that I turned the heat back on and kept going," he says. "I didn't need to hear that gunfire."

In Korea, Parks' recon plane was sometimes accompanied by a fighter flown by Neil Armstrong, who later became the first man to walk on the moon. Parks and Armstrong went to Japan together three times, and Parks followed his former buddy's career with interest.

"When I saw him walk on the moon I was very proud," Parks says. "He was a good man, and I wasn't surprised he did so well."

While he was overseas, Parks' second son was born. Seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren followed.

After duty in Korea, Parks taught instrument flying in Texas. After a brief stop in California, he was sent to Georgia Tech to get a college education like most of the other pilots he flew with, many of whom were Naval Academy graduates.

While at Georgia Tech, Parks' life began to change. He and Elizabeth were active at First Baptist Church in Avondale Estates, and the more Parks talked to his pastor and fellow church members, the more he felt like he was being called to the ministry.

"I had always studied the Bible and tried to live a good Christian life," he says. "But I felt like I needed to do more."

Parks resigned his Navy commission and finished his Georgia Tech degree, then enrolled at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He was ordained a Baptist minister in February 1960 and accepted a call as pastor of the Bethsaida Baptist Church in Riverdale, Ga.

After stops at two South Carolina churches, Parks earned a Master's of Divinity degree and, in 1973, came to First Baptist Church of Newnan to serve as Assistant Pastor and Minister of Education.

"It was all as fulfilling as I had hoped," he says. "I knew I was doing what I was meant to."

In 1981 Parks was called as pastor of First Baptist Church in Hogansville and stayed until 1988, when he retired. For the first time.

After two years, Parks felt the urge to go back in the ministry. But this time he went back to his Methodist roots. Over the next 12 years he pastored four Methodist churches in the LaGrange District of the North Georgia United Methodist Church Conference. Parks finally retired for good in 2001.

"I had some frightening times in the military, and even after I entered the ministry, some of my church experiences were unpleasant," Parks says. "But I always knew where to turn when I had trouble. Some people wait until the last thing to turn to the Lord, but that's the first place you need to go. I knew that was the place that always furnished the answers."

Read article about Ralph Parks

Click on the name to read an article about Ralph Parks, my paternal grandfather.

retro photo

Left to right: Bill Bell, Ginger Bell, Kathleen Bell, Stephen Parks, Ralph Parks, David Parks, Elizabeth Parks.

1,000th Post

W, Nicole and A

Happy 4th Birthday Nicole

Andres

santikara asleep

william & ashton

dinsoars alive

William was taken to Madison Square Garden to see Dinosaurs alive:



I had a lovely evening with Andrew. He tried the bike, even though for a little. He's really getting into his trike. We kicked the ball around and hung out, had a nice evening of it. I felt less overwhelmed by just having him. I think we need to have these dates more often.