Giberson Birthday Run

You have heard me complain about my birthday run in September with Ben, Gary, and Jena and now Elessia (on Jena's birthday) and Carter and Alex on September 30--but my mom had Mike--October 16, Todd--October 18, and her birthday on the 19th--which makes 3 in 4 days.  I am sure my mom often had leftover birthday cake for her birthday after celebrating for my brothers.

I thought I would share a bit about my brothers in this blog:

Todd--whose birthday is tomorrow:

Todd last year in our sibling retreat in Amarillo

Todd is 16 months younger than me so most of my childhood memories Todd shared with me.  He can remember which car we had when we went on the trip to Canada and the names of our neighbors as we were growing up.

me, Dad and Todd
on a Sunday in front of our Longfitt home in Richland, WA

Todd loves games and many hot summer days, we spent playing war and other variations of rook.  He was bright and funny.  He was brave.  I remember one year when he dressed in my ballerina tutu for a Mutual Halloween party--before that became a thing NOT to do.  I remember he once took part in our Stake Speech Festival and had to do an improv speech based on a picture.  I think his photo was of an orange--he will probably remember.  He gave such a clever and funny speech.  I was so proud (and a bit surprised, I think)--to be his sister.

This was the picture of Todd and I
which was in our grandparents' home and our aunt's house
and our uncle's house until we were teenagers--it seemed like

One day, when I was in ninth grade and he was in 7th, I was working as an office aide one period of the day.  I was walking down the hall and saw Todd opening up the door of his classroom.  Later, when I walked back, he was still in the hall holding the door open.  When I asked him what he was doing there, he said that the teacher had told him to go open in the door, but he couldn't find the door jamb to keep it open, so he was just holding it open.  Of course, the whole class knew he was out there and was highly entertained by it, but the teacher had apparently forgotten all about him.

Todd grew up to be a very great man.  He served a mission to Brazil and graduated from Southwest University in San Marcos, Texas (now called Texas State University). Todd first married Joann who we loved.  Together they had six children--three who were adopted all at once.  A few years after her death in 1996, he married Lea who also won our hearts.  I remember how much she and her family surrounded Todd and his six children as their own and made them all feel as part of the family.  I was so grateful for that.  They added three more children to make a total of nine.  They are now grandparents to nine.  He works for the State of Texas as a geographer--taking our family's love of maps and made a career out of it. 

Todd loves sports of all kinds and is always up to shoot basketballs or attend a game.  He has played softball--I am not sure if he still does.  They enjoying traveling and make trips visiting family and beautiful places along the way.

Todd is a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has served in many callings in their Buda Ward.  He can also be found blogging on different religious blogs in defending and describing the principles of the gospel.

After I was born with brown eyes like my dad, Todd came with definite blue eyes- 

Mike--His birthday was yesterday.

Mike with my sister, Valerie last year

He was born just two days short of one year after Todd---He had the "honor" of this baby picture being in everyone's home next to the one of Todd and me until we were mostly teenagers.

Mike had green eyes like our mom.  Mom always said that she felt so "clever" to have three children with three different eye colors. Mom also said that Mike was one of the most good-natured babies ever.  (I don't know what that says about Todd and I since we were her only comparisons at the time!)

As our family worked out, Mike, Todd and I became the "three big kids"--along with the "three little girls" and the "two baby boys."

Growing up, Dad would often play catch, ping pong,  or badminton with the "big kids," so the three of us learned these skills together. He also took the three of us to baseball games--most notably to the San Francisco Giants in their home field. 

Mike also likes games and he was often a part of those war/rook summer afternoons.  Mike's sense of humor was not as flashy as Todd's, but always worth hearing. Mike was easy-going and good natured.  He did join Todd in the "climbing out of the basement windows to ring the door bells" when we had a baby sitter, but some how it always seemed like those things were Todd's ideas and Mike was more the innocent bystander.  You will have to ask him if that was really the case.

I remember in ninth grade my friend's mother was one of the junior high counselors and she asked me if I had another brother, Mike, coming into the junior high the next year.  I said yes and she told me that Mike had scored the highest score of all of the incoming seventh graders. It made me reconsider the whole power structure--I mean I had felt like Todd, Mike and I were all smart--as the same.  It caught me a bit off guard to have to consider him smarter than me.  I got over it.  Mike is brilliant.  He ended up with a PhD in economics from  George Mason University and has been a professor at Texas Tech for many years.  When he posts things on Facebook or makes comments on economic issues, I may have to look up a word or two to understand what he is saying.

Mike was great with our younger brothers and sisters, especially Rick and Scott.  I can remember all four of the boys playing "football" together with Mike and Todd on their knees running back and forth in the family room.  Mike played football for a year or two in junior high as well although nowdays he is more of a soccer fan.  He loves jazz music as well.

Mike is married to Andi and they share four kids--a yours (Mike's two kids from his first marriage), mine (Andi's son from a first marriage) and theirs--Kyle.  The oldest three are married now and Mike and Andi have seven grandkids. We love them all and feel so grateful to have them each in our family.

A few years ago, Mike was working up in Logan during the summer and we had the chance to spend a couple of days together with him and Andi.  We had SO much fun being together.  It reminded me that in all of these years, our reunions had been centered around our children and all being together, but we had missed out on having the more grown-up interactions with each other and our siblings.

    HAPPY BIRTHDAYS, MIKE AND TODD!

THANKS FOR BEING MY BROTHERS!

YOU ARE THE BEST!