Sixteen Candles

Tonight my little (well, if 6-3 can be called little) brother will celebrate his sixteenth birthday. It wasn't that long ago that I passed the same milestone...and I still remember it well. Our parties will be completely different: mine was a small sleepover with four friends at my grandma's house, while his includes about 50 kids in our shop in the backyard.

It seems fitting that it should be that way...Caleb is "Mr. Popular" who thrives in large groups, while I prefer an intimate relationship with fewer people.

It's amazing to me how time has flown. It seems so recently that we would be found most often playing dress-up, Lincoln Logs, Playmobile or Legos in the rec room...but now we've grown up and he wouldn't be caught playing dress-up with me. :-) But in some ways he's still the little kid with the crazy white hair riding madly around on Grandma's deck with me in a tricycle built for two. He still has crazy hair...although now he spends time to make it look that way. He still loves to tease me...and he still does it well. But most of all, he's still my little brother who I laugh with, cry over, and have the time of my life with. Time has changed so much--I no longer am inches taller--but not the fact that I love him with all my heart. Caleb, I hope you have a birthday to remember...and I pray that you will have a blessed seventeenth year. Don't kill yourself on the roads, now!