The gift finally arrived

Here is Shawn with his birthday present. His birthday was last Monday (a week ago). His present arrived on Thursday. Here he sits in the blue chair in the family room, wondering what is in this package.

Here Shawn is opening his gift. He has the wrapping paper off, and he is reading the box to see what he has received.

Oh my! It is the total collection of Star Trek The Next Generation. Seven seasons, 179 episodes. This is quite a surprise. He was certainly not expecting this!

We have watched the pilot episode and the one after it. The kids think the special effects are really hokey--kind of the way we felt about the original Star Trek. It really takes us back to those early days of being married in college. We had a bedroom barely big enough to hold our bed and wedge a TV between the foot of the bed and the wall on a homemade TV stand. We made that TV stand out of two by fours and painted it "dusty blue"--it was the eighties, after all. We propped ourselves up in bed and watched STNG during its weekly broadcast slot because, you know, there was no such thing as tivo back then (and we didn't even have a VCR). STNG made a nice study break. After all those years, playing these old shows and listening to the theme song gives my heart a nostalgic stirring.

In those days, we watched on a TV we bought used for $25 and kept running by sticking a plastic knife in the back of it. We also saw the Twins win the 1988 World Series on that TV.

Reading the box, Shawn saw that it said, "20th Anniversary Edition."

"What?!" he exclaimed, "Star Trek isn't TWENTY years old!" Then he said, "Oh, wait. I HAVE been married for over twenty years."

Glad it doesn't seem that long, honey.