Butchie Boy

We had Ben’s birthday party the other day and when I started to write it up, I realized I had not done the same for Rachel. So here is a summary for each of them.

Rachel
We had Rachel’s party on September 20. Her interest on this birthday was a Nintendo DS electronic game machine. Her folks got her that and our contribution was one of the games, a winter pet game. She also specifically requested I make her a cake with a Corgi on it. I chose to depict their dog, Nora.

She was concerned that the cake was a little heavy to hold. You can see she is starting to experience a little strain holding it up. When I was taking the second picture (not shown) she was worried she was going to drop it. She didn’t.

Ben
We had Ben’s party last Sunday, November 8. Ben’s cake featured Lightning McQueen, the race car from the move, Cars.

His folks got him a Darda racer set. We have had an old set around here from the time Lance was a kid and it is one of the most popular toys at Grandma and Grandpa’s. Our gift to him was a scooter and helmet.

He started off fairly slowly but Lance got on our other scooter and showed Ben how to go fast. He pretty well got the hang of it after that. In the weeks to come, I’ll bet he becomes a champ.

Wyatt and Augie
We have two other grandkids whose birthdays deserve mention too. Since they are half a continent away, I have to rely on their mom for pictures of those events. She kindly sent me these…

Here’s Augie chowing down on “something” delicious.

And here is Wyatt taking care of all 5 candles at once.

Some of you will have seen these pictures in other blogs or had them emailed to you directly, but in case you didn’t, here you go.

We had Rachel and Ben up to our house to trick or treat on Halloween evening and I asked Wendy to send me a couple of pictures of our California boys. Each family kinda had a theme going. Lance’s kids were pirates and Wendy’s were Batman and Robin.

So without further ado…

Rachel insisted she was a pirate captain, not a pirate queen. I think she is a perfect Grace O’Malley, Granuaile, of Elizabethan fame.

Lance said he was having a hard time getting Ben to keep his outfit on. He seemed OK at our house but keeping the hat on was a bit of a trick.

Wyatt was the Caped Crusader once again. You can feel safe with this crime fighter on your side.

Augie was Robin, the Boy Wonder. It’s hard to think of a cuter sidekick.

No word on whether Wendy and Zach wore their Batgirl and Alfred outfits.

Just before school started I watched Rachel for a couple of days. One day we went to see the 3D movie, G Force, but the big deal was what we did on the second day.

You may remember that Rachel liked the murals that Dick Pinney made. The first one she saw was at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. After that we did some research to see where others were and visited quite a number of them.

Last year the flood forced some of the locations to close so the murals were unavailable for viewing, but that is starting to change now and we saw some more when she was here.

There used to be a mural in the Iowa Electric tower, now called the Alliant Building. That mural hung in a bar named “Osgood Shepherd’s”. Shepherd was the first settler in Cedar Rapids and reportedly also a horse thief. His cabin was not far from where the bar was located 125 years or so later. The establishment has long been out of business and few people knew where the mural got off to. Research indicated it was acquired by Harold Becker of Guaranty Bank. But that was one of the buildings impacted by the flood. So, I called and they said I could have a look at it.

When we got there his secretary showed us where it was and we took some pictures. Then she said they had some more. Bonus! Mr Becker had a personal one that Pinney had made for him specifically. It was in his office. He is the bank president and his secretary just ushered us right in. He was interested in our project and asked Rachel about it. While I was taking pictures of it Rachel was looking around and inspecting this and that. Egad. But it was OK. He has quite a number of interesting momentos.

As we were finishing up there, the secretary said there was another one downstairs, maybe 2. Double bonus. The third one had been done for the bank as a piece of corporate art. She said she was trying to locate the fourth one, but wasn’t able to. She thought it may have been destroyed by the flood waters.

Sue Hawn also told us about one she knew of. It was the Wall of Honor at Kirkwood Community College. This one was not quite a mural. It is a place where people are honored for their contributions to the school, but Pinney decorated the framing so it kinda counts.

Here is a detail of the central section.

We still have a couple to visit yet so keep your eye out in the future.

Today is Wendy’s birthday! All those years ago we were trying to figure out what to name her. We hoped she would be a girl for any number of reasons, one of which was we used up all our boys’ names on Lance. We knew we wanted to name her Wendy though. That was a little problem. I like children to have the long form of a name, then call them by the nickname. In Wendy’s case the long form is Gwendolyn and I could just hear her teachers calling her Gwen every year the first day of class. So, we shortened it to Wendolyn and her being called Wendy was assured.

But what about a second name? I liked the names Laura and Laurel. One of those would do nicely. So when I went up to the hospital to visit right after our girl was born, Karen had been looking through the book of girls’ names and asked how I liked the name Lorelei. Wow! That was it. A Rhein siren, sailors being dashed to death on the rocks. How much more exciting could you get? Besides, it had 3 syllables so it went with Wendolyn more melodically. Lorelei it was.

Little did we know what would come of that!

Our next door neighbors when we lived on 21st Avenue, Ron and Charlene Brooker liked the name too. They liked it so much, when their daughter was born they named her Sayde Lorelei. Sayde has been to the scene of the crime so to speak, the actual Loreley Rock on the Rhein in Germany.

Then my sister Judy and her husband Bill Hierstein named their daughter, Jessica Lorelei.

It should come as no surprise then that my brother Ray and his wife Marilyn named their first daughter, Jennifer Lorelei. Lord help my poor sister Lisa. If she ever had a girl, the pressure would really be on to make Lorelei her middle name.

But it was a big surprise that our son Lance and his wife Cherise named our granddaughter, Rachel Lorelei. I didn’t see that one coming in a million years. I have to say I was quite touched when they named her that.

And finally, keeping up the tradition but giving it her own twist, Jessica (see above) and her husband Brian named their daughter Lorelei too. But Lorelei had now graduated to first name status, Lorelei Alexis

Well, there you have them, our 6 Loreleis, bless their hearts! And Happy Birthday, Wendy!