Amy's 'momentary trouble'

1996, The year the Green Bay Packers not only went to the Super Bowl, but won it. 1996 was also the year we moved from Iowa to Wisconsin and lived in Green Bay where we lived in a small three bedroom ranch style duplex. Amy used to get SO excited because we lived within two miles of Lambeau Field and the blimp would fly right over our house on game day. Also on December 1st, 1996, Vincent Michael Howard was born. Today is Vinny’s birthday and it’s a big one! He goes from single to double digits as he turn 10! Amy always said that God gave her and I Vinny to make us laugh and that is SO true! He is a good sweet boy who has just enough ‘Dennis the menace’ in him to make him interesting, but not enough to make him trouble! Amy related a story to me once about after she had picked Hope and him up from Awana’s on Wednesday evening. It seems that our pastor was talking about our different missionaries and was showing the kids various currency’s from these places. Vinny was explaining this with great excitement to Amy and said ‘Mom, he even had one from eat!’ Amy asked ‘Eat??’ and Vinny said ‘Yeah, eat.’ And that’s when Trevor piped up and said ‘Vinny, don’t you mean Hungary?’ to which Vinny replied ‘Yeah, Hungry…Hungry, Eat…same thing..’ We have SO many what we call Vinny funnies there just isn’t enough time to share them all. Vinny is also a very caring and sensitive boy as I remember on a couple of occasions where he found himself being disciplined and he would look Amy and me in the eye and say with tears in his eyes, ‘I am SO, SO sorry!’ and seeing the depth of his regret, the punishment was minimized. Vinny worried me for awhile after his mother’s passing as he withdrew and became very quite, but over the past week, he has opened up a lot more and is much less withdrawn. Vinny, I am proud to be called your father as I know your mother was proud of you as well. You make it easy to love you and you have an infectious smile. My prayer for you my son is that as you grow older that you continue to grow in the Lord, strive to be the best you can be, do not sacrifice happiness or your soul for success, hang tightly to the memories of your mother and never, ever forget that she and I both love you very much.

May the worst day of your past, be worse than the worst day of your future…

For the love of Amy - V