Ann, Jay, and Dave Jordan have fun with IKEA

It's always touching to see parents on the floor surrounded by nuts, bolts, pieces of wood and Ikea cartons.

Sterling welcomes Jay to Isaiah House

The U-Haul was in the front yard, the new Rancher was being greeted with whoops and hollers by his housemates, and mom and dad had that special look on their faces that said, “We can do this.”

Don't know if they actually did do it, because I got busy with the Ranch game of musical furniture: this stuff comes out, this goes to cabin five, that goes to the craft room, and this other is consigned to oblivion.  Then I needed to make supper.

Jay, right, enjoys a Tex-Mex dinner with his buddies

However, I'm sure the room was occupied last night one way or the other because Jay was not leaving the Ranch!

We first met Jay in 1995 when he came to Ranch Camp for the very first time.  He was one of our younger campers, and we were a young camp, with very few facilities of our own, so we spent a lot of time borrowing those of the City of Taylor, driving our 13 campers to town to swim in the municipal pool and picnicking afterwards in Murphy Park.

Jay disappeared on one such mission and we finally called the police to help find him.  Luckily we found Jay before the police found us, so we were able to cancel the call.

As for the years off my life, well I guess that remains to be seen.  Jay's grown up and so has the Ranch, and it seems to be a match.