Confirmation

Andy's confirmation was very nice, even if we were having heavy rains outdoors.  

 

Mom and Dad sent some lovely flowers for his confirmation. 

Pastor and Andy 

The Next Lutheran

March 30th will be Andy's confirmation.  I told him that means we must watch the Luther movie.  I'm probably more excited then he is, but he's a good sport about it.    

 

 

What pole?

Well, at least it wasn't me who hit the pole that you couldn't see in a parking lot.  Sometimes it feels good not to be at fault and let the husband take the blame.  :)

 

Lt. Gen. Hsueh Yen Lee

Today, Andy and I went to the funeral of Lt. Gen. Hsueh Yen Lee in Princeton, NJ.  This would be the father of Andy's Aunt Shirley.  Some of you know her as Uncle David's wife.  Grandma, Shirley is the lady you sat next to at my wedding rehearsal dinner.  Gen. Lee was 103.   

The funeral was more a memorial service, but this man was so special, I just had to share his story with everyone else.  Apparently, he was something else in China when he was younger.  There were flowers everywhere sent from people.  I've never seen so many flowers at a funeral. We had to go up and bow at the casket.    The President of Taiwan sent a special flag with Mandarin written on it to be hung over the casket and he also sent a representative of Taiwan who resides in Washington D.C. (Maj. Gen. Hsien-Sheng Li) to be present.  There was a flag ceremony with Taiwan's flag.  You have to understand, he was a General in China, but he became Taiwanese when China became communist.   The stories everyone was sharing were just amazing and touching, so much so that I found myself crying buckets over a guy I had never met.  Here's his story.  I thought you might find it interesting to read.

Lt. Gen. (retired) Hsueh Yen Lee, was born into a rural merchant family of Hakka descent in Meshian, Kwongdong Province in southern China.  He was the third of five sons.  When he was fifteen, he escaped apprenticeship as a tailor and went to Nanking to attend high school supported by his eldest brother, a military officer in the Nationalist Army.  He was accepted into the Central Aviation Academy and became a Chinese Air Force pilot in 1934.  In Kunming in 1938, he married Tzu-Ching Chang.

From 1937-1945, he was a bomber pilot fighting against the invading Japanese forces during World War II.  In 1943, as the commander of the first bomber group of the Flying Tigers, he led the successful bombing of the Japanese-held air field in Hsinchu, Taiwan.  As a highly decorated flyer, he flew over one hundred-fifty missions during his Air Force career and survived two airplane crashes.  He went on to become a senior Air Force officer in China and then in Taiwan.

Retired from the Chinese Air Force in Taiwan in 1967 after serving as the Superintendent of the Air Force Staff College, he began a second career as a professor in the Chinese Cultural University in Taipei where he taught history for seventeen years.  In 1985, Gen. Lee and his wife moved to the U.S. to be closer to their five children.  Mrs. Lee died in 1988 as a result of a brain aneurysm.  At the age of ninety, Gen. Lee wrote his autobiography entitled “Blue Sky and Flying Tigers: Memoir at Ninety.”  The book was recently reprinted in Taiwan as a part of the official celebration of the 70^th anniversary of the Hsinchu bombing. 

On Dec. 23, 2013, Gen. Lee suffered a stroke and was hospitalized.  He died of heart failure in Somerset Medical Center on Feb. 9, 2014 at the age of 103. 

Gen. Lee is survived by his five children, Wei-li, Sophie, Shirley, Margaret, and Andrew, their spouses, and thirteen grandchildren and five great grandchildren.  For the last twenty five years, he further enhanced the life of his children by living with each of their families periodically, and became a loving grandfather to all of his grandchildren and great grandchildren.

A Man Hard At Work

Ideas for Dad

In two years, dad could be the proud owner of a used satellite.  (I prefer to call them satellites, though people today try to make them sound better by calling them dishes).  Anyway, here are some of my ideas to recycle a used satellite.  No need to put them into a trash dump. 

 

Shade satellite. Colored green, you hardly noticed that it was once a hideous monstrosity in someone's yard.   

 

 

Swing satellite.  Nothing better then to be rocked to sleep by the gentle swinging of your used satellite. 

Chicken coop satellite covering.  Nothing better for the outdoorsman who wants to collect his own fresh eggs. 

 

Potted plant satellite.  Who wants to go out and lug a huge pot home when you have a used satellite hanging around.  Just flip it over on a tree stump and there you have it...a homemade pot. 

Art satellite.  Take all those little pieces of glass hanging around your home and glue them on your used satellite and then put it on a stand in your garden.  No one would even guess it was your old satellite. 

Satellite hat.  Now you might think this is silly, but how many times have you been outside and wished for a little shade on your head.  Well, here is your chance.  Just attach your satellite to some headgear and you have a reversible umbrella for your head. 

Hero satellite.  What would impress your grandsons more...a used satellite in the garage, or grandpa's own hero shield?  I think I've proved my case for the future use of your new satellite.  Cheer up!

Don't worry Dad. It could be worse...

 

100 Days



100 days of school left....99 as of the end of today...that isn't even half way done with the school year though....sigh

 

Fear the Turtle

Andy and I got the chance to spend the afternoon on Saturday at Maryland's Comcast Center to see a basketball game. 

 

We were rather early.  This is not all the people that were there obviously. 

There is the turtle! (Also known as a terrapin, even though they are technically turtles and on several caps you will see the words "Fear the Turtle" as you see on the hat that I'm wearing on my head in the previous photo.  By the way, that explanation was mostly for Dad who likes to make fun of that fact that I call them turtles instead of terrapins as he feels I should.  But if you look up the word terrapins in the dictionary, you will in fact see that they are defined as turtles.  Even Maryland sells caps with the words turtle on them in their shops on campus.  Therefore, I can and will continue to call them turtles.)

Get the crowd pumped up.

It begins.

We won!  Of course, Andy had to say that we won because the other team is usually bad.  But that doesn't matter in my mind, we still won.  

We asked a very nice older lady to take our picture after the win.  After taking the picture, she did say she thought she got most of us in the picture.  I didn't really understand what she meant until I looked at the picture later.  Oh, nice!  I'm still trying to figure out how she thought that's what we really wanted. 

 

Andy got his picture next to the 2002 ACC championship trophy.  It happened the year he graduated from Maryland, so it's special. 

My Family - I love the all!

Christmas at Church

A Day with Uncle Andy

Time for Sundaes at McDonalds.  Uncle Andy loves ice cream! 

Christmas Lights