Another birthday in a year of crazy

Just when you thought it was safe to wake up in the morning, 2024 continued.  I won't go into details, but among the ongoing torpedoes from life has been one reason among several that I've not been blogging.  Long and short, my eyesight has been impacted and it's devilishly difficult to see right now.  It should get better, and I'm slated to get things checked out in a couple weeks.  But for now it's tough to type or read, without a separate pair of temp glasses, which themselves are subpar.  That's one thing.  There were other fun trip-ups.  One thing on the less than serious side, but not the least of annoyances, was the end to our little World in Flames game.  Turns out something had a leak in our house, and the water dropped straight down onto the game board, soaking and ruining the game boards and pretty much causing things to be upended and removed.  Yeah, it's been that kind of a year. 

But the light still shines, and this time - in addition to shamelessly coddling our adorable granddaughter:

The  cuteness is strong with this one

the July light was our youngest's birthday.  Hard to believe he's already halfway through his teen years.  The year he was born was the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing hoax, and so we always try to bring something moon-like into the celebration.  If nothing else, chocolate Moon Pies - a guilty pleasure.  This year it was the 55th anniversary year, and a full moon to boot!  Hey, you take the good news how you can.

For his part, our youngest is our tech guru.  He's not sold on a career in tech, but we keep trying to nudge him.  After all, you could do worse than a career with technology or engineering nowadays.  And he is as passionate about tech and its history and workings as you get.

Anything dealing with technology, we hand to him.  His hobby is finding old, vintage technology and making it work.  For his birthday, his brothers pulled together and got him an old, used original Gameboy game.  The original.  It was clearly well used in its day. 

Unfortunately, as soon as he got it out and put in one of the games they got, it didn't work.  Our advice was to take it back and see if they could fix it.  Sadly, in most such transactions, it's caveat emptor.  They promise it works when they put it on the shelf and that is all.  After that, it's on the customer.  But they might be able to fix it.  At first he agreed, then he said wait a minute.  He got up, grabbed a screwdriver set, ducked into his bedroom, and in about ten minutes or so he came out and said he got it working.  And that's not the first time.  It's what he does. Pick almost anything and he can get it to work. So yeah, a tech vocation wouldn't do him badly.

Otherwise, it was a nice birthday time, and despite the crazy, hopefully was a blessing for him.  The dinner was a crab and crawfish boil with the fixins, and then some down home sparkler displays like the olden days.  As always, we pray for him this year and for blessings and grace upon his endeavors and future pilgrimage.  His has not been the easiest life of the boys, and he certainly has his ways, but what he brings, and his stunningly mature perspective on things despite his age, has always been an extra layer to the family that nobody else brings in quite the same way. 

Our equipment is lacking, but trust me it looked awesome

Had to adjust a few things, but he demonstrates his usual quirky

To account for multiple diet restrictions, he picked well 
with a crab and crawfish boil (baby and mommy being off camera)

And more firelights displays - it's still July

The boys, minus our 2nd oldest, setting the fun