April 3rd

April 3rd is an important day in our household.

April 3rd 1982. My husband was one of 22 Royal Marines who under the command of Acting Lieutenant Keith Mills RM  defended the small island of South Georgia against an Argentine invasion force of hundreds for several hours before finally being forced to surrender.*

April 3rd 1999 was the day our son made his first appearance into this world. Within minutes he was in an incubator hooked up to wires and tubes fighting to survive in the Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit. He is now taller than his Mum & Dad and a typical teenager.

April 3rd 2016 and Liam's 17th Birthday. When he eventually parted company with his bed and opened his presents it was a mad dash to get to the car hire in time to pick up the dual control car for his first lesson. Once the formalities were taken care of, I drove him to the industrial estate just around the corner to start his lesson - not driven a stick shift for at least 5 years so I was able to show him how to stall the engine before we'd left the forecourt!

He was rather excited about being in the car and it was showing as soon as he got behind the wheel - I had to remind him to breathe on more than one occasion! Once we got the "Cockpit Drill" done and went over what all the different controls did it was time to have a go at actually getting the car actually moving He got it moving off first time but is going to have to learn not to press down so hard on the gas! There were a couple of stalls and a bit of "I can't do this" but I just reminded him if he keeps telling himself he can't then he won't! I also asked him if he had read what was on the Birthday card I'd made for him but apparently he had only looked at the picture - typical teenager! I told him if he looked carefully at the words he would see the line "You are . . . Smarter than you think . . ."!

On the way home driving my automatic transmission car I found that old habits die hard and much to the amusement of my boy I kept going to use the gear stick only to grab a handful of air!

For his Birthday card I used this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge sketch as it's base.

and came up with this:

I Used 

Cardstock:

Blue & Green - American Crafts, Summer

White - Fabriano 300gsm

Dies, Embossing Folders & Stamps

Bird Crazy - Sizzix/Tim Holtz

Star - Nellie Snellen

Bird Crazy -  Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz

Quintessential Quotes- Rangers/Dyan Reavely Dylusions

Dotted Chevron A4 Folder - EBosser/Theresa Collins

Inks

Promarkers - Winsor & Newton/Letraset

Tuxedo Black - Memento

* April 3rd 1982. My husband was one of 22 Royal Marines who under the command of Acting Lieutenant Keith Mills RM  defended the small island of South Georgia against an Argentine invasion force of hundreds. They holed a warship with an anti-tank weapon, downed a helicopter and held the Argentines off  for several hours before finally being defeated. There is a very famous photograph taken of them before the invasion began that was lucky to survive and only did so because the Argentine who took Lt Mill's camera couldn't work out how to open it! Below I've linked an interesting interview with Keith Mills given to the BBC for the 30th Anniversary.

Keith Mills Interview

Invasion - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly