Taiwaneers

I’ve been thinking about my second family lately. The Pippers took me in and let me live in their basement in exchange for a little babysitting during my year-long, unpaid, internship with Student Statesmanship Institute (SSI). They welcomed me back to sleep on the hide-a-way several times after that whenever I was in town and let me stay back in my old room for another 6 months right before I was married last year. Without a doubt they are a huge part of my life and I miss them.

Dennis is in fact a big reason why this site exists. He, along with Robbia, gave the taiwaneers.com domain to Emily and I as a wedding gift and has been webmastering and hosting this site on his server since it started. A great guy who I always enjoyed talking with, sitting around the kitchen table sipping beer and making wisecracks while the kids were swimming or bouncing on the trampolene. The camping I got to go along with the Pippers on is still with me. Higgins lake with the empty campground, and Luddington! Great times that I wish I could do over.

Robbia was our connection to summer jobs this past summer which was incredibly wonderful, taking the pressure of finding the dough-re-me for the plane tickets off of our shoulders. I cannot forget how her and Dennis included me in the MSU workers/friends cliqe parties, not to mention her own contributions to the beer sipping and wisecracks around the table. I loved those parties, which seems strange to me now since everyone was either married with kids or the kids themselves, and I was the 20 year-old guy who tagged along with the Pippers. For some reason those parties made me feel like I had a group. I was away from home but it was okay because I had a group. I haven’t even mentioned the food. The mushrooms Robbia can make are out of this world (did I mention Dennis’ homemade beef jerky?)….I’ll leave out the entire list of food that I miss from the Pippers because it would just be too long. The kind of hospitality Robbia and Dennis have is amazing. They basically had me over to dinner about a month into my internship, and towards the end of the meal Robbia asked me when I wanted to move in. A few days later I did and I’m so glad.

Abi, when I first met her was only eight years old. Now she’s a beautiful, talented, young lady who can razzle dazzle you with a piano and can make anything from cookies to dinner. She’s a fantastic young woman who loves God and seems to have limitless potential.

Noah, the former six year old now hockey/baseball/everything player, is someone you better not ‘let win’ when it comes to the basketball hoop in the drive way because now he really will beat you! He is definitely special to me. In my own family I’m the younger brother and now I finally have someone that I’m bigger than!!! He’s a great guy.

Emma, that four year old who was so crabby that first night at dinner, having just woke up from a nap, is now so grown up. She is basically a FIREBALL. I never used to understand it when I was younger and adults would describe certain people as FIREBALLS but now I do and Emma is one of them. She such a cool person and doesn’t let being the youngest in the family get in the way of anything.

If I listed out all the ways the Pippers have given to me (like helping at my wedding, giving me shelter, giving me sage counsel when I was hung up on Emily, taking me camping….) we’d be here forever.

I miss them and wish them a Merry Christmas!

PS- Some of you may wonder if this post reflects a bad relationship with my own family. On the contrary, I believe my incredibly good relationship with my natural family has made creating relationships like this one with the Pippers even better and I doubt my natural family will feel hurt or diminished by this post.