Becky's Brazenly Braggy Blog

This is my younger sister, G.I. Johanna.



I wrote about her here, shortly after she got remarried and joined the U.S. Military.

She is one of those natural raven-haired beauties with blue eyes, but works a side job as a hair stylist, and so plays around with her hair from time to time. She recently went blonde.

It works on her though, what with her big blue eyes (though looking at the picture right now, I notice the right eye appears to be brown for some odd reason, which it's not.)

I know, I know. You're probably all wondering how such a beauty came from the same genetic line as FrumpMama.

I, too, have long wondered the same thing, thinking that perhaps all those stories my dad's older brother used to tell me about my folks trading me from the Gypsies for a couple of chickens and a basket of grapes were true.

But alas, the very strong resemblance to my dad's side of the family, particularly his mother-my Mamaw, are simply too strong to ignore. Even if she was a thin and fashionable Officer's wife that did a tremendous amount of entertaining and lived all over the world, where I'm a frumpy flip-flop kind of mom that has lived in the same area for nearly a decade.

I'll never understand the mysteries of DNA, because I was the oldest child, first from my mother's womb, and yet somehow managed to end up with the leftovers floating around in the family gene pool. Plain dark brown hair, brown eyes, and big bones. My three sisters all scored with dainty petite frames and beautiful big blue eyes. *sigh* Some girls have all the luck.

Even my brother ended up with these amazing hazel eyes and dark hair and a tall thin frame.

But me, I ended up the "big" sister. For years I tried to console myself with the fact that at least I ended up with boobs out of the deal. Unfortunately, I also ended up with a big bootie to even things out proportionally speaking.

But I digress (I love that word, even if it is getting a bit cliche'). This post isn't supposed to be about me.

Among her many talents and abilities, Johanna is a fantastic vocalist.

We knew this early in her life when she was singing all the songs she was learning in Kindergarten (like the ever popular "Five Little Ducks Went Out To Play") with a decidedly grown up 'sound', and folks would tell us she should be put on Star Search. She also belted out Sunday school songs like "Jesus Loves Me" with impressive vocal skill, her voice never cracking or getting off-key in places like the other children. And she could sing Rich Mullin's song "Awesome God" like nobody's business.

Things got a little dicey for a while, though, when she was strutting her stuff around the house singing "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna (and sounding pretty doggone good), even if it was a little odd hearing her sing, "I'm gonna keep my baby...oooh, oooh" at the tender age of 8 or 9.

And let me tell you, Papa would have preached if he'd heard her singing it. Secular music had been forbidden in our home for years. Lucky for her, we lived with our mom and not him at that point or she would have been sooo busted.

Nevertheless, Johanna grew up and began to pursue her dreams in singing, always doing a superb job wherever she was given the opportunity to perform, first as a member of an award winning Jazz Choir in high school and then as a member of the Jazz Choir during her freshman year of college. Then she took a break from her ambitions for a few years to tend to her duties as a Military wife and SAHM to her precious little girls.

But on opening day of MLB baseball season last week, she reached an unparalleled pinnacle in her career when she sang, "God Bless America" during the 7th Inning Stretch, in front of 24,000 Seattle Mariner's fans in Seattle.

Any time I hear that song, I get goosebumps, and my heart fills with a powerfully prayerful patriotism...but when it's your little sister that is singing? As our other sister Jami put it, "I was so proud I could just bust!"

Living in the Southwest, however, I wasn't at the game, and due to commercials during the 7th inning stretch, her song didn't air on national TV.

Thankfully my sister Jami's hubby Eric saved the day by taking a video of the whole thing and sending me a clip via e-mail so I could see it. It's a bit wobbly as they were sitting in the cheap seats and had to zoom waaaay in, but you can still hear her loud and clear.



And so now is my chance to be all obnoxious and big sisterly just like I would have been if I were at the game, by yelling things to the fans around me like "That's my sister!" and clapping my hands excitedly and smearing my mascara when I got all misty-eyed and blubberingly proud of her.

Fabulous job, Johanna!

:: :: :: ::

Then, as if that weren't enough to bust my buttons, the following evening our son Jericho competed in the annual AWANA Bible Quiz competition for our region. He spent hours and hours studying and memorizing for this event.

Here are a couple of pictures of him afterwards, wearing his 1st Place medallion!



Here he is with daddy and little brother. Yes, he was showboating there just a bit, for which he was scolded afterwards. *rolls eyes longsufferingly*



With some of his buddies.



With grandma and little brother.

Once again with the misty-eyes and smeary mascara. Which, incidentally, is also why my own picture with Jericho wasn't suitable for blog purposes.

A mother's heart is never so proud and full of Praise to the Lord as when her offspring chooses to love and serve the Lord of their own volition.

And this concludes my brazenly braggy blog posting.