Tall drink of water...

J is definitely a tall drink of water. I like to tell people that he's proof that they do grow things bigger in Texas.

Around Thanksgiving one year, C (J's little sister who was in the third grade when J and I started dating in college) came home from school really upset. Her teacher had told her class that there are turkey farmers who feed their turkeys growth hormones. C was convinced that that's what had happened to J...their mom had been buying turkeys with the growth hormones. Mom reassured her that she was safe...but maybe there was something to her theory. C is almost 20 now, and is almost 6'0 herself!

J has been tall his whole life, as you can see from this picture when he was in Little League.

It was in high school and the first few years after that he had major growth spurts. When he was in high school, the Houston Chronicle had an article about basketball players to watch in the Houston area. J was one of them. He is still bitter about the article, though, because instead of leading with his basketball abilities, they lead with a sentence about "the rail thin 6'10" J.H. from McCullough High School." This is a picture of J and his mom on the basketball team's Senior Night. (Check out those stylish sports glasses / goggles!)

This is a picture of him and his two best friends (Mike and Mike) on their graduation day. J is on flat ground, and it's sort of hard to see, but the Mikes are standing on a raised wall. At graduation, he was 6'10" tall. Since then he has grown 2" and is an even 7'0" tall.

Here's J again with Mike and Mike (the first two on the left) at our wedding. Next to the Mikes is his dad and the bald one is his friend Tony.

People are ALWAYS staring at him. Often people will talk about him right in front of us. It's as if they think he's deaf because he's so tall. I'm not sure if they even see me! Or maybe they think I'm deaf too?

One of our favorite stories is when we were in college at WSU (Go Cougs!) and we went to a movie. When we were walking out, there was an older couple walking near us. The gentleman was tugging on his wife's sleeve saying (rather loudly) "Woman!! Woman!! Look! That boy is TALL!" While this was in and of itself amusing, what made us laugh right out loud was the young teen who was walking in front of us and overheard the comment. He continued walking, but turned to look over his shoulder at J. He turned back around just in time to walk straight into a door jamb!

At the Apple Cup in Pullman one year, it was snowing and about 17 degrees outside, so we were standing in line for hot chocolate at half time (turned out to be lukewarm chocolate...but oh well!). The people behind us kept bumping into me. I ignored it at first because it was pretty crowded, but it continued. I finally turned around to glare at them, and saw it was a group of guys who were trying to guess how tall J was by standing back to back with him! I said "He's 7 feet tall, and it would have been easier just to ask!" They at least had the good graces to blush. Then they asked him the usual litany of questions: Do you play basketball? Are you really 7 feet tall? How tall are your parents? While it gets annoying to him to be asked the same questions all the time, he's very polite and will talk to people. After all, he'd rather they asked him than just stare or talk about him.

I have pictures of J at school, and my kids (both freshmen AND seniors) are always totally amazed by him. They ask me if I will bring him in to class so they can see him. My response is usually "What, like show and tell? I don't think so. He comes with me to most home sporting events and plays, etc. You can meet him there if you'd like to." Unfortunately, most of them just stare at him or talk to me and completely ignore him when we do go. The few who are brave enough to come up to us and actually say hi to him, J is awesome with. He'll shake hands and introduce himself and answer any questions they may ask.

I affectionately tell J he is "freaky tall." It is with that same affection that I must say that my friend's mom and aunts are "freaky short."

The first time we met these ladies, the cute one with the red hair and purple shirt in the first picture grabbed my arm and said, "Honey, we don't know each other yet, but we HAVE to have a picture with your husband!" J is a good sport, so he posed. Unfortunately, people didn't believe that they were all standing on level ground, so we had to take another picture the next time we were all together.

Here's the first picture.

Here's the second picture.

Another one of the sisters came up recently from Texas where she lives, and wanted to pose with J because her grandson didn't believe she knew someone who is so tall. (Earlier I said that J is proof they grow things bigger in Texas...well, this sister is the exception to that rule! Though she was born in Minnesota, not Texas, so I don't know if it really applies to her anyway?) I'm so glad J is such a nice guy! He usually hates to have his picture taken, and rarely likes to be the center of attention. (He does like to tell a good joke, though...and the more people who laugh the better!)

And here's one of my favorite pictures of the two of us, just to be fair. He doesn't like that I keep posting all these pictures of him!!