Double-Nickels Day

Yesterday was Kim's 55th birthday. He looks great too, don't you think? That title up there is a term that I only became aware of when I turned 5-5 last August. (Yes, I'm older than my husband.) I've thought it was a clever way to describe that age ever since. We should come up with more of those sayings for birthday milestones like the 5th decade b-day or the half dollar and dime b-day. Okay, I didn't say they'd be great sayings, but it's a start.

Anyway, we had a big family bash last night for Kim. His parents, brother, sister and their spouses come over. Two of our 3 sons were here, a daughter in law and both of our grandchildren. There was even a big, white canine family member in attendance, much to our cat's chagrin. We had a fun, loud house of family talking all at once. My grandson, Aidan, would try to jump into the conversation by yelling that he had something to say. You really have to be fast to get a word in edgewise at a Martin function.

One of Kim's birthday presents from me was a photo DVD that chronicled the many facets of Kim Martin's life. So, early in the week I began perusing my iPhotos, Flickr pics, plus those that I could lift off of the internet on my son's photo page and the Baytown Little Theater website. Next, I began going through our family photographs. There are literally thousands of pictures. So, I had to know what sort of pic I was searching for. It was also fortunate that Kim's mom had given him some albums with pictures of his childhood. Now the video project included baby and adolescent Kim photos. Then, I spent long hours during the day Thursday scanning photographs and setting up the slideshow using iPhotos on my computer. With the addition of what I'd call Kim's signature song, Seventy-six Trombones from the musical The Music Man, as background music, I could finally burn the DVD. (Kim performed in the show as Prof. Harold Hill in high school and again at the BLT.) Pleased with the finished product, I was fairly certain that Kim would enjoy watching his life parade by on the screen for all of 12 minutes. However, it surprised me how much the rest of his family enjoyed it too. I'd not thought about how much they'd like reliving some of the earlier family moments on the DVD. It was a lot of time and effort putting together a video like that, but well worth the pay off in the end.

Here's to the next 50 years of music, love and good times. Happy Birthday, Kim.