Skip to main content

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Image
By
This week, I asked Ethan for a couple of pictures of himself.  He doesn't regularly send any photos to us, and yet I know he's taking them.  He happily agreed, and one of the photos (shown below) says so much about him and encompasses so much of his life:


I love, Love, LOVE this picture!  Like, I want to look at it everyday because it makes me soooo happy!  This photo was taken at the Poland/Germany border.  Ethan lives just 30 minutes from the border, and he says it's taken some adjustment to hearing all the German spoken around him (yay!)

Anyway, looking at the photo, here's what I can see that makes me unbelievably happy:
  1. He looks happy.  There's a reason his Uncle Mike gave him the nickname of "Cheeser" so many years ago--that cheesy grin shines through.
  2. He's standing on the Polish border.  Poland has been his home now for over a year.
  3. Behind him, I can only assume, is Germany.  Germany was his home for most of his childhood.  Six formative years spent there, and he speaks German like a native.
  4. He's wearing a Michigan shirt sent to him by his loving mother, inspired by his now Wolverine brother.
  5. He's wearing a Michigan FOOTBALL shirt.  The University of Michigan football team is our favorite, and he's showing our family's true colors.
  6. He has his missionary badge on!  Yes, look closely, and you will see that even on P-Day, Ethan doesn't stop being a missionary.
  7. He has red hair.  I don't know what this means, or why he did it, but being Irish, he certainly doesn't look bad with the red hair.
  8. He looks skinny.  Okay, this doesn't make me happy.  I told him a couple of months ago that he looks like he's losing weight, and he told me that he's dropped about 20 pounds.  Don't they have any food in Poland? Or maybe it's all a consequence of walking so much....
I love this photo, more so, I must admit, than the pictures of him at his most recent baptism.  It reminds me that my boy is still out there, and I can't wait for him to come home!

Comments

  1. John KennedyOctober 19, 2011 at 3:13 PM

    He looks good on his mission and sporting his teams colors. We love the cheese!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 19, 2011 at 6:07 PM

    Me too, me too!! I absolutely LOVE everything about this photo! I cannot wait until the day he'll be home again!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sarah MoranOctober 20, 2011 at 1:40 AM

    I love this pictures for all the reasons you listed above and because he's being obedient and staying in Poland even though he might wish he could go to Germany. Ethan is always so good and such a great example!

    ReplyDelete
  4. LarisaOctober 20, 2011 at 11:50 AM

    Oh my goodness, you are so RIGHT, Sarah! I completely skipped the "obedience" reason for loving that photo. Thank you for reminding me!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SURPRISE!!

By
When the pizza guy came to the door last night, here's what John saw: It took a few seconds for John to process who the pizza delivery man was, but when he did, he was incredibly happy (and couldn't stop saying "heeeeyyyyy....".  It was Jared Moran, John's best friend. And me, I just knelt down, right then and there, and began repenting of all the lies that I have told over the last four months, hiding this most amazing surprise :-)  I told Sarah the other day that I was glad to see the light at the end of the falsehood tunnel, because if I kept this up much longer, I was destined to end up in liars' hell... Jared ran the Air Force marathon with John last year.  It was his first marathon, and from what he told us, his last.  However, he called in June and said he was coming again, but I was supposed to keep it a surprise from John.  I'm not sure what changed his mind, but we sure are glad he did.  John hates runnings marathons alone, and ther...
4 comments
Read more

Trail Run

By
Since Anna's blog is private (and inaccessible to most), I copied her post about her recent trail run.  She wrote about it much more philosophically than I did, and I love it. I'm so grateful that I have a body that allows me to run. Running has proved to work wonders for my stress, and for my physical and mental well-being. I've evolved into a new "Anna" through running and training for races.   This past weekend, I ran my first trail race. Going into it, I had NO idea what to expect. I actually thought it would be a nice path through a wooded tree area. Boy, I was WRONG! The trail included running through rivers, up and along such narrow pathways on the side of mountains, and through legit mud holes. It didn't help that I forgot to wear my Garmin GPS watch. Not only was I clueless to where I was running, I had no idea how far I had run and how much longer I needed go. The race became a total mental feat.   I could hear myself breathing heavily. I cou...
3 comments
Read more

A Quick Trip to Mackinac Island

By
 Allow me a pity party for a paragraph.  As much as John is earning buckets of money for us and for our retirement, his weekend calls have been infringing on our time together.  Like I said, it's a complete pity party, because my logical mind reminds me that I should be happy he's making so much money, but my heart feels rather lonely at times as I reminisce about trips we have taken that we don't have time to take again. I love John.  I don't need him around all the time, but I find that the best quality time with him is when he doesn't have other distractions like work, and call, and hospital credentialing. Anyway, I guess that was two paragraphs, and I don't need to take it any further than that, because I don't want the body of this blog post to be about me and my loneliness. I've been wanting to go to Mackinac Island for two years now (I can hardly even believe that it's been that long since I was there).  With Lake Michigan getting colder and t...
Post a Comment
Read more