Mom and I lived in Baltimore, Maryland, for a few years.  My Aunt Linda was a nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the staff of the Neurology Department took very good care of me during those years.  

Although I was in the hospital a lot of times during my early years, the tumor didn't come back.  I spent my time doing things to keep Mom on her toes, like the morning she woke up to find an entire box of laundry soap piled high on a towel on the dining room table because I wanted to play with the box!

 

In July, 1984, Mom loaded all our stuff into a U-Haul truck, put our car on a tow dolly, and headed for Tacoma, Wash.  If Mom's computer wasn't partially on the fritz so that she can't scan in pictures,  I'd show you one of me riding in the U-Haul, which I called a "fire truck."  Who knew?

 

Mom met Bill at church, and he came out one time when I was sick and prayed for me.   And you can guess how this story turned out.  Yeah, yeah, they got married on July 14, 1985, four days after my 11th birthday.  I already had a sister, Ellen, and brother Ralph, but I gained a new sister, Purple Dawn (purple because she was wearing a purple coat the first time I ever saw her!)

I also have lots of aunts and uncles, cousins and grandmas.  Daddy Bill's Mom is "Gwamma Twudy." (Trudy)  And our family's best friends "Gwamma Wobin" (Robinson - I was named after Grandpa Clint Robinson), and "Gwamma Cawwie."  (Callie).

 

Fortunately for me, all my siblings were old enough to be out on their own, so I still had Mom's total attention!  I've been accurately nicknamed "The Prince" for most of my life and I wear the title well, having trained Mom and Daddy Bill to be my servants.
     I should mention that, before Mom and Daddy Bill got married, I had to have a BIG surgery at Children's Hospital in Seattle.  I was in the hospital for two weeks with my hands and feet tied to the bed.  The staff thought that would keep me from removing my stitches.  But they didn't know me!  By time I left, the nurses were calling me "Little Houdini."
     Daddy Bill loves to tell everyone the story of our lunch at the Chinese restaurant the day I was discharged from the hospital.  I had a great big bandage on my head.  The waitress set the warm "empty" plates in front of us before bringing the dishes of food.  I looked at the drop of water on my plate and said. "More....." 
    When Mom and Daddy Bill took me in for a checkup with the doctor a month later, they were told I had not been expected me to pull through the surgery.  But God and I have been fooling doctors for a LONG time now!  They didn't know that God had a plan for my life, and that He meant for me to touch a lot of lives all over the world before I go "home" to live with Jesus.

 

One time we went to a grocery store and I liked to pick up things off the floor and hand them to the checker.  I used to jabber a lot while doing this, so a nice little old lady ahead of us in line asked Mom and Daddy Bill what language I was speaking.  Daddy Bill replied, "Clintonese."  Before she left, the nice lady said, "Oh, I didn't think it was English."

 

In 1989, we moved to a house in the country outside Gig Harbor.   That's why Mom picked all these "woodsy" graphics for my journal.   Both my Dad, Ralph, and Daddy Bill are outdoorsmen, so  I have enjoyed seeing deer, bear, coyotes, pheasant, quail. rabbits and other things that have ventured into our yard over the years we have lived here.

    

I became an uncle when Purple Dawn's daughter, Reign, was born five years ago.  This is me and Mom with Reign on her first birthday, 12/28/99.