Birthdays

I'm very behind in my blog, obviously. And today is Lydia's birthday, so you think I would write about that. You would think, right? And certainly Lydia is very much on my mind, as always, but I covered that pretty well, here. What I have been just dying to write about, what I have really wanted to share with you, is a fantastic trip we took in February, for my father-in-law's birthday.

My father-in-law is an amazing man. And very much a man's man, without being a macho stereotype. He played football for OU. He joined the Navy. He was a fighter pilot. He married his stewardess girlfriend, became a father, and now he is a lawyer. And an amazing grandfather.

Trips with my in-laws have always been unabashedly about the grandchildren. We've spent a weekend in Galveston and Kemah for Lydia's birthday. We spent Thanksgiving in Destin, with the kids on the beach. My in-laws are the most generous people I've ever know, and they love spoiling my sweet kids, and I get to ride shot gun. And Buddy? He picks up the tab. I've watched that poor man spend more money on ride tickets in 30 minutes than I used to make in a month. And the whole time, he's smiling and getting in line for the next ride.

Well, this year at Thanksgiving Brit happened to ask his dad, "So what ship were you stationed on anyway?" And Buddy told him. The USS Lexington.

It took a couple months, but Brit looked the ship up. It's stationed in Corpus Christie. It's been decommissioned and is a museum. It's amazing. This was a little more than a week before Buddy's birthday, and a plan was quickly hatched. Hotel reservations were made. And Buddy and Susan (Brit's parents) met us in Corpus Christie for what proved to be one of the most enjoyable weekends in recent memory.

We stayed right on the beach. We ate seafood at every meal. (I even had crab cake benedict for breakfast). We saw jelly fish on the beach, and I even snuck in a little run in the morning, by the ocean, alone.

Of course, the very best part was the ship itself. Buddy earned his pilot's wings on this ship, and he clearly loved showing us around. Guides recognized the mark of the Navy Man about him, and said so.

When Lydia was asked about her favorite part of the trip, she said it was "wearing Grump's wings." Guthrie got a flight jacket. Brit got to know his father better.

We all got quite a work out on all those damn stairs. (Buddy and I took turns carrying Guthrie up and down all those narrow ladders....)

We saw where the officers and enlisted men slept, got their hair cut, their teeth fixed, and ate meals. We learned about the history of the "Lex" and the brave members of the US Navy who served her. The Lex made her name in WWII, as "The Blue Ghost" because every time the Japanese were sure they'd sunk her, she'd show up again, guns blazing.

It was an awesome, living lesson in history, touring the ship, and viewing the planes on the flight deck.

Right. The planes.

That was by far the best part. Standing on the flight deck with Buddy, talking about which types of planes he'd flown, and the sheer insanity of taking off and landing on that speck of a deck in the wide, wide ocean.

There was a great cartoon painting of the mechanics of taking off and landing, in one of the lower decks.

The very best part? For once, it was all about Buddy. It was his trip. His story. His ride. And it was amazing.