Sunday, September 21, 2008

Sibling Chronicles: Chapter Three

Chapter Three of my Sibling Chronicles is devoted to a trio of brothers all born in the month of September.

First, my sibling number four is Christopher Shawn Fleming, born September 12, 1972:

I remember waiting and waiting for Chris to be born.
I was with my cousin Lisa at her house. It was getting very
late and Aunt Babe (George's sister) made us go to sleep.
We made her promise she would wake us up the minute the
baby was born. Chris was born some time in the middle of the
night and Aunt Babe did NOT wake us up. We were pretty
mad in the morning, but well rested. Even though my Mom
had had me and my sister before Chris, she was in serious
labor, he was breach and somehow she managed to
deliver him without a C-Section. When I went to the hospital
to visit my new baby brother, all I remember was that he
was a cone head--a major cone head!
Obviously the cone head part went away and
he turned into a pretty cute kid.
How classic is this 1976 picture with the
Bicentennial backdrop. Chris was 4 years old.
Chris really was about the sweetest little
kid. I honestly cannot remember him doing
anything naughty when he was little.
It was really great having a much younger brother
on Halloween because even though I was way too
old to go trick-or-treating, it was fun going out with
Chris and he was very generous with sharing his candy.
Vintage Chris in elementary school...
already the preppie with the Izod Sweater
and turned up collar

Our family at Timberline. This would be the
summer after my freshman year at ASU. George
kind of reminds me of Chevy Chase in this picture.
I threw this one in because it is at my first apartment
away from home and away from the dorms at ASU.
The apartment complex was called Palm Tree Village
and my blue Toyota Celica is visible in the parking lot
below. Chris came to visit the summer of 1984.
I ended up selling that Celica to Chris when he was a 
senior in High School.
Senior Picture

Chris & Akiko on their wedding day, obviously.

I had to get really creative here because I asked
for some wedding photos, but Chris has not sent
them to me yet. Thanks to Byron and Michael, I know
how to take a snapshot of anything on my screen and Chris and
Akiko's wedding photographer was kind enough
to still have their photos up on his website
over a year later... Akiko got married in
a traditional western style dress (below) and then
changed into traditional Japanese Kimono for the
evening reception (above).
Wedding Day, May 1, 2007

(no point in feeling guilty, Chris, about not
sending me the pictures... although I would
like to have a better quality version of these
two photos to put in frames--I guess I could just
order them from your photographer :-) 

Chris & Akiko, last month at the top of Mt. Fuji

Chris is a pretty great brother and brother-in-law and Uncle
and we miss him lots when he is at his home in Japan. We
really look forward to his visits and hope, some day, he will
choose to live in the US. But if he doesn't, we understand and
we still love him anyway.

And... then there were twins....

My youngest siblings, siblings number nine and ten, were born September 15, 1981. So, since I am not doing these Chronicles in order, this is not the last post about my siblings, but these are, indeed, my last siblings:

The whole Loy and Karen Godsey bunch:
clockwise from baby on the left... Benjamin Scott,
Kimberly, Byron Gene, Jill Marie, Andrew James,
Sarah Jane and Elizabeth Lynn.

I believe the story goes that the doctors were calling the babies:
Baby A and Baby B. Baby A was born first and then Baby B eventually
followed his brother. The ironic part was that Baby "A" was named
Ben and Baby "B" was named Andy. Not sure why...
Ben on the left and Andy on the right
(on the kitchen counter in Grandmother and Grandads
little rental house that the Godsey Bunch lived in for a short
period of time before moving to Caballero Circle... the house that Betsy
doesn't have any pictures of and that had something called
a "Swamp Cooler" which didn't keep things very cool)
again, Ben on the left and Andy on the right

this time Andy is on the left and Ben on the right
(the caption on the back from Karen reads: "must not
have been going too fast--still had one hand free
to suck thumbs.")
Still love the bathtub photos... I took this one
myself on their first birthday after they made huge
messes of themselves with their cakes. This is a personality
picture to me... Ben's personality "I don't care if you are six
times bigger than me, you can't keep me in this bathtub if I
don't want to be in this bathtub!" Andy's personality "Poor me,
poor me, poor me... come on Kari, don't I look pathetic enough for you!"

Benjamin Scott Godsey, born September 15, 1981

Ah, one of my all time favorite
"dirty kid" pictures and who doesn't love
ET, a classic, just like Ben.
There really wasn't another Godsey kid
like him. Ben always had a very assertive personality.
He had a little temper for a while and liked to chase
his siblings around and throw things through windows,
but when he wasn't doing all that, he was very very sweet.
By this point, 2nd grade, Ben had developed
a much more focused outlook and I really thought
he was going to be a policeman.

Ben didn't become a policeman, but
he did marry the girl of his dreams, Nicole.

And they have a beautiful little family:
Ben, Nicole, Tyler & Madison Godsey
and two great jobs, a beautiful house they built themselves and
a pretty impressive life for a couple of "kids" still in their twenties.
Good job Ben!


Andrew James Godsey, also born September 15, 1981

Andy... so quiet, so sweet, so gentle....
so thoughtful

just always looking to have a little fun....

okay, a lot of fun (he and Byron have
this in common, I think... ). So what happened to
that sweet little kid, well, he became a pretty sweet
big kid and even though he is just in Salt Lake City, we
miss him a lot too. 
but he has Lindsay to keep him company, so
we don't feel too sorry for poor big Andy... (sorry
Lindsay, I had to "steal" your photo too, but it is so
gorgeous so I hope you don't mind sharing just one
with my friends too!)

So, I must say, I feel pretty proud of all my brothers...
They turned out real good!

(Don't worry Byron... you will probably get a sibling
blog all to yourself because you are the "special" child... well,
maybe that is not the right word... "golden" child--something like that).


7 comments:

Andy said...

Cool post Kari. I definitely think you should do more about this topic. Specifically me...j/k

I do take issue with two things though:
1) your comment about me trying to cultivate sympathy by looking pathetic.

2) your blatant omission of one of my proudest accomplishments: my soon to be 3-0 start to the first annual company fantasy football league.

Blackberry Bratt said...

Oh poor Andy; poor, poor Andy...

Unknown said...

Okay Andy, I take issue with your issues:
1) you cannot remember how you behaved when you were one year old, so you could not possible know what your motivations were... you were the best at pathetic! Still are actually.

2) You are going down Prior Art, so you better pick a prouder accomplishment...

Betsy said...

Hmm... I like these comments. I always thought (from what people have told me) that I was the best at pathetic. Thank goodness that was cleared up.

Andy said...

In the interest of not continuing to seem "pathetic" I will not whine about how I thought this post was supposed to be how cool I (and the other two blokes) am.

I guess I just did. Dang.

Unknown said...

I'm sorry... did I ever use the word "cool"? Sweet, yes. I believe I used sweet for all of you, but "cool", that is stretching it a little. Also, I don't think sweet and pathetic are mutually exclusive. Boy, you are a whiner Andy Godsey! I am going to sick Piranha dog on you when you are in town... she will chew the pathetic right out of you!

Lindsay said...

Don't worry Andy, I don't think you're pathetic. But I do keep having to come back to this post to look at the cute pictures! My favorites are the bathtub photo and the one with Andy in the blue shirt sucking his thumb. :)