Rosie just finished second grade, and we decided to throw an end-of-schoolyear bash for her and some of her friends from school. The party did not disappoint.
Above is an image of the dads from the party. Taylor had the idea of a photo-booth, and it was a blast.
Why throw an end-of-year party? Good question. She didn’t graduate, thats for sure- and there were a lot of graduation parties around the area during this time of year.
Rosie and our neighbor/Rosies bestie, Sydney, on their walk on the last day of school.
I think because Rosie’s first year of kindergarten was 2020 when things were locked down and we weren’t allowed to go into the school, and do all of the traditional things where there was a chance to meet Rosie’s friends and other parents. We should have been having get togethers all along, but there haven’t been many opportunities, so Taylor and I (mostly Taylor, let’s be honest), wanted to have an excuse to meet everyone from around the neighborhood.
Rosie and Taylor spent some time putting together THE ULTIMATE DANCE PARTY MIX. And these kids were WILD. They werent disrespectful, and they didn’t break anything (that is me sounding like an old man just now), but they were a wild bunch together.
The kids self-organized into a pre-planned wedding as well. This was planned and organized the last week of school.
The happy couple.
The selfie-spot was a hit as well:
Also, instead of a large, water-themed bounce house that would produce messy kids that would track mud into the house (I vetoed the idea), there was an option for a smaller bounce-house for the littler kids.
Our next door neighbor, Jimmy, came over with this three year old to try out the bouncy house.
It was not successful.
But he got it up and running again. 🙂
Maybe this will be an annual thing? Its hard to think how we can host many more people than what showed up this year, but it was pretty fun.
Swim Team
Rosie does dance, and in the summer, for her age group, there is a 6 week city-wide swim league (is league the right word?). Each of the neighborhood pools have a team. Each week, they compete against another pool: Sherwood, the Friendly Frogs, Bur-mil, and others.
These meets are a mad-house. It seems like there are over 100 swimmers between the two teams. And each swimmer has a family of 1-2 or more people attending with them. And the competitions start at 5 (be there early), and end whenever they are complete (around 10:30 or so). It is a LONG day.
BUT, Rosie is getting more into it.
Above Rosie is slow off the start, but still eeks out a win in the 25 meter breaststroke, in the lance closest to the camera.
Rosie also did the freestyle (above, closest lane) and the backstroke. It is cool how in the videos above, she was neck-and-neck with her bestie, Sydney.
Other things.
After the party, and before assessing the damage and cleaning everything, we took a breakfast break for pancakes at Tex and Shirleys. Its funny to see Rosie living some of the exact things I lived as a kid, when I went to tex-and-shirleys with my dad 30+ years ago.
Breakfast was good. Mercy smiles a lot, until you ask her to, like the image above.
During the school day, her daycare uses an app and can send us photos of her throughout the day. We see her do things like play on the playground, play with her friends, etc.
This image stood out this week as a reminder that Mercy is a little different than her peers.
It reminded both of us of this image:
Thats it for now. If you made it this far, take a moment and share: What are your plans for the summer? Do you have anything exciting planned?
This past weekend was Rosie’s dance recital. She has been working hard on these dances all year, and they look AWESOME now, compared with their first performances in the beginning of the year. So proud of her.
Rosie’s performance of “80’s Mercedes”
Her dance company is the new kid on the block. It was started by a single mom during the pandemic. And, because Rosie’s big cousins go there, the decision to attend Infinite Dance was an easy one.
Rosie’s other dance, “Wings”:
Like always, Taylor was a champ at getting her ready for the recital: doing rosie’s hair, and makeup is no easy task. But, Rosie looked great, and it was a little weird seeing her all grown up, but I am proud of her.
And it meant a lot to Rosie to have her family show up.
Cici is so proud to see her grand daughters dance:
Honestly, dance wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without seeing her big cousins there. In between the two parts of the recital, we got to get a quick, super-early dinner together; our first choice wasn’t opened yet, but this chipotle really hit the spot.
Also, as a side note, congrats to Lila on graduating from8th grade! Her school had a beautiful, catholic-mass and ceremony for the event. I didnt get many pictures of the event, but did want to give a shout out to Amelia for being such an awesome big cousin, and hanging with Mercy outside during some of the event. Mercy and Amelia have really bonded over the past several months and it is so special to see.
Mancala you say?
Do any of you remember Mancala? It is that coffee-table game you have likely seen all over the place, but never knew the name of it.
It usually is a game that exists on a coffee table, and never actually gets played. Unless you are Rosie Logan and Chad Lynam.
It really is a fun game. Last night (Sunday) we went to our favorite brewery place called Oden, and met with our long time friends Chad and Rachel. Rosie brought her Mancala along, looking for a challenge, and “Uncle Chad” stepped up. Why uncle? Well, he has been around for around 25 years (hard to say exactly). Was a college roomate. And groomsman. So, Rosie has only known her as “uncle chad” because he is like a brother to me.
And of course it was amazing to see Rosie explain the game:
Word was that Chad squeaked out a win.
It was fun, but we missed seeing Uncle Houston last night. Maybe next time?
Prayer
Taylor and I have really enjoyed the church we have called home for about 8 years now. I won’t go into the details about the church here, but Taylor and I are both involved in different ways. She is on the vestry, which is like the “board” of the Church; and I am on the prayer team.
The prayer team does two things: Pray for people on Sunday mornings, and pray over the weekly prayer list.
Weekly, reading over the two page list, written in very small font, of things to pray for in the congregation, is just a sobering experience. It is a list shared in confidence, so details can’t be shared here, but the pain that people in our church body are experiencing is so palpable. There are people recovering from cancer, have widespread cancer, some have lost newborns, surgeries, family-deaths, finances, bacterial infections that require hospitalization, etc. It is so sad. There is so much brokenness, and so much sadness that people carry around.
Why am I sharing this? Because the joys that are shared in this blog are not something I deserve. Things could change at any minute. However, they are things that I celebrate now: family, fun, and failures. Life is good at the moment. It will change at some point. The prayer list, for me, is a sobering reminder of how precious these memories are.
If it doesn’t sound like a blink-182 song to you, maybe it should? Sometimes when I look back at the past couple weeks, nothing MAJOR has happened; there haven’t been any large events in our family; just a lot of small things.
In no particular order:
Taylor went to BOONE to see her little cousin Kenna graduate from Appalachian State University (our Alma Mater). It would have been hard to take the kiddos up to the college-kid festivities, so for this trip, it made the most since for the kiddos and I to sit this one out.
2. While Taylor was away, the girls and I went STRAWBERRY PICKING at Freedom house. If you don’t know about Freedom house, read about it here. I don’t have the space to go into all of the awesome things God is doing through the ministry, but it is well worth the time to read.
The strawberries were at peak while we were there. It was an awesome experience.
While picking berries, we met with Hadley and John, and they showed Rosie a little bit of farm life. Rosie had a blast.
4. We went to the lake for Margaret’s 50th birthday. Happy Birthday Margaret! She is our awesome neighbor; in the mornings, her husband (Clint) and I meet 1/2 way to school, and alternate walking the kids the remaining part to the school.
The kids had a blast. Mercy did awesome.
A lot of Margaret’s family is from Chicago, and Clint did an awesome job planning this big SURPRISE party for margaret.
The food was amazing all weekend; this one thing stood out. Tell me, would you try this?
A pickle beer? I did, and it was… unique. I would try it again; with a salty pretzel, it was pretty good.
5. Taylor went to San Diego for a work trip. She had to leave the lake early to get there, and we missed her. Here is a pic of her with her co workers at the dinner they had.
It was a long couple days. But we managed OK in her absence:
Mercy being busy
When Taylor got home, the girls couldn’t wait to see her. This is my favorite picture of them. They couldn’t even wait for her to get out of the car. Even Mercy smiled 🙂
6. Taylor and Rosie saw Frozen. The Tanger center is still getting through its first couple seasons here in town, and some awesome shows have been coming through.
Taylor managed to get some free tickets, and they had a blast going with Margaret and Sidney.
7. Sleepover this past weekend. Rosie had her friend/our neighbor over for a sleepover this past weekend for the long Memorial Day Weekend. Instead of the typical trampoline place, or the children’s museum, we opted for something a little different, and took the kids to a do-it-yourself pottery place, and the girls painted their own pottery pieces.
Mercy was able to focus
All these things happened. It isn’t significant, but it is the ebb and flow of our daily lives.
There is so much to be thankful for. Things could change at the drop of a hat, but for now, these days are special.
We spent the first four days in the jungle. The second four days we spent on a beach on the Pacific Side, in a Marriot Hotel called The Mangroove.
I made an error while packing. If you know me, you know over the past few years that wearing tank-tops when it is hot out has kind of become my thing. I don’t do it to show off muscles, because there aren’t any muscles to show. But, in my excitement for the trip, I packed tank tops, but only 2 t-shirts, and only 2 collared shirts. By this time of the trip, those were getting dirty, and I didn’t know what to do.
There were two options:
Buy some new shirts. This would be expensive, as a shirt that I would wear more than once would be $30 or so.
Do the hotel’s laundry service. This would be expensive too, since it was about $8/shirt.
If you prefer to watch the video of it, here you go.
In short, I created a third option. Why not just wash the clothes in the shower, then let them dry in the Costa Rica sun for about an hour? It was almost 100* outside, surely it wouldn’t take too long?
So I did. I washed a good portion of my clothes with the large dispensing bottle of shampoo and body wash. Some of my clothes I washed with a bar of soap instead. Then, I wrung them out, piled them into a backpack, and walked, with a dripping backpack, down the beach to find a suitable tree branch to hang my clothes in the sun.
The obvious question to ask is “What did Taylor do during all this?” That is a great question and I am glad that you asked.
Taylor sat on her butt by the pool like a normal person and said “Don’t associate your redneck ways with me while you do this.”
That is a very admirable position, and we spent the rest of that day by the pool, while I wore a shirt that smelled like a bar of soap.
Surely I am not the only one who would do such a thing, am I?
The beach
Taylor and I have been to beach resorts before. Several years ago, after a really, really hard season in our marriage (I don’t want to post the details here), we did a trip to Cancun. Two years ago, we did another trip to Cancun.
But this hotel was still amazing. Look at this image above: Notice how instead of cutting off a branch, they changed the line of the roof to accomodate the branch. This kind of respect for nature is what we saw all around the country.
The walk from our room to the pool
The hotel was amazing. Just like before, we tried to see what restaurant options were available. There was a really fancy restaurant called Ginger nearby, but by this point, we didnt really want anything fancy.
We took an evening stroll with our favorite koozie to a restaurant. Though the hotel “highly recommended” taking a shuttle, the 0.6 mile walk, across an empty (and completely safe) beach was the obvious right answer.
It took about 3 hours to get to the beach from the jungle. The drive was a fun one. It is always nice to look out the window to see what another country is like.
The drive from mountains to the beach
The hotel did have bikes available to use. Just like always, Taylor and I like to do some sort of physical activity before sitting around and really resting on vacation.
A friend of ours said that this is just the season we are in: with all the business of school aged children at home, our vacations have a lot of time set aside to rest. And we fully intended to take advantage.
Riding bikes on the beach
The beaches were so incredibly clean. It was just over a 2 mile stretch of sand that the hotel sat on, and there were only 2-3 little piles of trash in that distance.
The pools were amazing. In the distance are some boats, and across the water is a peninsula where the Four Seasons, Costa Rica sits. They do not offer day passes for common folk, in case you were wondering.
There were a ton of these little black and white squirrels.
One of these iguanas popped up beside Taylor while she was reading her book. She screamed, and the people in the chairs beside us had a laugh.
The iguanas were a lot different than the ones we saw in Mexico
We spent a lot of time in the pool, just 200 yards from the ocean.
For our final night, we went to a restaurant called Mar Azul, and it was a beach-bar kind of vibe. I felt fancy and got to order the grilled lobster, and managed to get this framer of a picture of Taylor.
Finally, all good things must come to an end. I hate that I am even writing that sentence, but that is the first thing that comes to mind early this morning.
Our final day was about 100* out, so I obviously wore my finest taco-cat palindrome tank top. And when you look like this traveling international, all of the security guards want to talk with you.
What’s next?
Taylor introduced the idea a long time ago, and it is something we try and stick with in our marriage: Always have something to look forward to. It could be our friend Brian Maness who emphasized it. So, we always try and have some trip to look forward to. Our kids are small, so this year we did a trip without kids. Then, if the stars align and the economy doesnt fall out and both of our jobs are still in a solid place:
2024: Disney World (with Kids)
2025: Taylor and I both turn 40, and our 15 year wedding anniversary: Italy (without kids)
2026: Luke’s Goal: Hike across Scotland on the Great Glen Way
What are your plans for travel? How do you decide where to go next? Do you have any fun places you would recommend? Leave them in the comments below.
TLDR: It was amazing, and the kids would love it.We spent 4 days in the jungle, then three days on the coast. These are a few fun stories from the first part of the trip.
Dinner Fail. Or success. Hard to say.
The place we were staying served a great dinner the first night we arrived. Taylor had something great (I forget what), and I had a steak, because we were on vacation.
But on the third night of our trip, we were curious about the “gastromic experience” that the staff kept recommending. The word gastromic makes me thing of something that belongs in an operating room, but I think it is a fairly common translation. It was also on their printed marketing for this meal.
Our “gastromic experience”
There were two options:
A Costa Rican experience. This option featured more local flavors, and came with an adult beverage for each course of the meal.
The other experience. This option was more meat-heavy, and you cook the food yourself at the table.
Guess which option we picked? Thats right, the second. Is it because we are closed minded and didn’t like local flavors? Not at all. We had many, many costa-rican dishes up to that point, and they were all delicious. With something like a Hibachi-style experience on my mind, Taylor and I got excited for our Gastromic Experience.
What a “Gastromic Experience” really was.
Sometimes a picture explains it better, and this is one of those moments:
What are you looking at in the image above?
A pound of sirloin
A pound of chorizo
A pound of ribeye
A pound of an amazing piece of marinated chicken
A pound of a great cut of ribeye.
Zuchini
Onions
To save space: Peppers, Plantains, mushrooms, home made tortillas, rice, beans, and something made out of potatos.
Taylor and I, as long as we have ever been alive, have never, ever eaten that much food in one sitting.
What was that meal like?
They started by bringing in some hot coals, and putting them into the center of the table. Then, the veggies. And, most importantly, they had a special cocktail to go with each part of the meal. I saw that as a man-versus-food kind of challenge, and accepted their “matching cocktails” offer.
One of the special drinks with the meal
Long story short, the meal was amazing. I am starting to be wise in my older years, and stopped eating at a reasonable time, rather than continue and suffer from indigestion after eating a ridiculous amount of food.
We laughed. This might have been the most important part of the trip.We just had a blast, and laughed about how stupid we must have looked, for these locals, in a beautiful restaurant, and an even more beautiful resort, would pay such a ridiculous amount of money to cook their own food. It really took a great-deal of concentration and effort to cook that meal.
The cooking seemed a bit chaotic. The questions going through my head included:
Can I tell if this poultry is cooked well enough in this dimly lit restaurant?
What is e. coli really like, and how do I know if I got it?
is this food making me gassy?
how long does a plantain need to be grilled for?
Can the waitress come and double-check my work to see if I passed?
The best part? About halfway through our meal, a younger, latino-looking couple sat two-tables away and ordered the same meal. I can say with full faith and confidence, the list of questions from above were not going through his head. He maintained his composure, and cooked that meal with ease.
The best ziplining in the in world.
It really was. About 20-30 minutes away from our hotel, right around on the other side of the volcano was “Sky Tours” (or something like that). It seemed like a great operation, and Tay was pumped. They get the harness on you, and then an open-aired gondola takes you to the top of the mountain. The view of the volcano and the lake below was amazing.
ziplining before picture
There are 9 ziplines, and I think they said they were the highest/longest/fastest in the country. If it wasn’t those exact words, it was something else similarly terrifying.
Here is the top of the mountain, and a weird hand statue with absolutely no significance. To me, it said “you are in God’s hand now, HAHAHAHA!”.
And here is a video of someone going down (not Taylor).
Taking the gondola down was not that bad. Taylor had a wonderful time. As that video shows, there was not even a small part of me that wanted to go down that zipline that day.
ziplining after picture
Hanging Bridges.
We used a travel agent, and she was amazing. More on that below. However, as part of our “adventures” for the trip, we went on a tour of the Mistico Hanging Bridges.
The whole trip Taylor and I only had a moderate understanding of what to expect. We could have done more research, sure, but this was part of the fun.
Taylor with our tour guide.
From the ininerary for the trip, it was described as:
Enjoy a journey into the rain forest in a perfect path of trails and hanging bridges, allowing you to see the jungle from different perspectives, through the forest while walking on the trails, and from the canopy of the trees while walking on the suspension bridges. This 3km path provides a nice journey with your guide pointing out the flora and fauna of the area.”
Official Travel Itinierary description.
It sounds pretty vanilla, right?
What was it actually like? Amazing. By far, the highlight of the trip. My expectations of a nature hike were something like a long, cub-scout trek where we may have heard a few stories about how we “just missed” an exciting viewing of an animal. But I loved hiking, so this would be fun, either way.
What did we actually see? See for yourself: (Also, the images are in a circle because the pictures were taken through our guide’s scope)
monkeybatEyelash viper- very poisonous, I almost touched itPoisonous FrogTarantula NextSloth on bamboo shoot
Also, some monkeys were getting in a fight over our heads. The guide later told me, a 5″ log was thrown down and almost hit me.
Spider Monkeys fighting
Volcano Hike
After the nature hike, we did a shorter hike up the accessible side of the volcano (people arent allowed to hike up the volcano).
As close to the volcano as we are legally allowed to be.
Sorry for how bumpy the road is. It is due to the impact craters from the volcano that have hit the road over the years”
-Our Driver, on the way to the Volcano
The nerdy side of me wants to tell all of the many facts about the volcano here, but I will withstain; if you are curious, we can chat more about volcanoes at the pool over the summer 🙂
Solo Hike
Our last day at the resort, we took advantage of the trails connected to the property. There was a “Level 2” hike of a little over a mile. Why was it a “level 2”? Beats me. And what is the scale? Is it a 2 of 5? or 2 of 10?
It was a beautiful hike.
We worked up a sweat, and before I sat down by the pool to be lazy for the rest of the day, I wanted to go check out the other trail connected to the property. Taylor was smarter than I am, and decided to stop at the room instead.
This other trail is supposed to cost $35, and the hotel asks that you book this hike with someone from their staff to guide you. I didn’t want to spend money for that, and I am fit enough to go on most any trail, for at least a little bit, right?
So I chose to try this trail, and here was the sign.
Out of sheer curiousity, would you continue?
Then, I got to the river at the bottom (maybe 1/2 mile?):
Solo Hike near hotel
Then, about 20 yards past the river, saw a little tail that was orange and black and white, wiggling just a few inches from the trail.
Where we stayed
The resort was called “Amor Arenal”, where “Arenal” is the name of the volcano.
The place only had 31 rooms. It opened just a few months before covid, then closed down again, before re-opening. It still felt almost brand-new.
It felt like we were staying at Jurassic part. The service was amazing.
I saw some wild turkeys through the trees near the pool. There was a parrot in the tree right outside of the breakfast place on the first morning.
The door to our room
On the last day, Taylor mentioned how she wished she saw more toucans. And what happened? There were 4 toucans in the tree right over our room that last morning.
Hard to get pictures, but this is the profile of a toucan
Our room was amazing, by far the coolest place I’ve ever stayed.
Part of the hotel
What part of Costa Rica was it?
This was in a place called La Fortuna. We flew into San Jose, and took a 3 hour shuttle (that ended up being about 4 hours after traffic) to our hotel.
La Fortuna
The town, La Fortuna,is fairly small, but maybe the coolest little place I have ever been. Taylor and I caught a ride to town for dinner 2 of our 4 nights there, and the town was amazing.
A great restaurant in La Fortuna
It was safe. There was a church in the center of the town. It was saturday night, (maybe Sunday?), and the small town-square was bursting with people. There were families everywhere, teenagers, little kids, etc. The wild part? Almost no one was on a cell phone. And barely any alcohol, no homeless people, great lighting, no litter. Almost everyone was eating ice cream.
It was such a great little place.
Wait, why Costa Rica?
Originally we had plans to go to Mexico with two other couples that we know and love. However, one of the couples got pregnant, and the other couple bought into a business, so the timing wasn’t right for them to come.
However, Taylor and I were already excited about a trip, and had childcare arranged (thanks Zippy and Poppa and Cici!). So, we called our travel-agent friend that we have worked with in the past, told her what we wanted, told her our budget, and she put together the whole trip. This is great for me, because I tend to over-analyze things, which makes me great at my job as an engineer, but terrible at making decisions and creating a travel itinerary.
So she suggested we do 4 days in the jungle, and 3 days at the beach, because we wanted a few days of adventure, and a few days to relax. Mission accomplished. Thanks Julie!
Rosie is 8. And she is a dancer. She loves it, and that means Tay is a dance mom, and I am a dance-dad.
One thing at a time.
There are many “right” ways to do it when it comes to kids and extra curriculars. The choices are endless:
music: guitar, piano, singing?
Painting and art
Swimming
soccer
tennis
dance
Church activities
cheer
This list could grow by 15 more items, but you get the idea. Of all of the many options, what is the “best” way, for our family, to make sure no one gets burned out? As a reminder if you havent been in this place in a few years, or haven’t been in this parenting space at all, each commitment involves driving to and from practice (sometimes several times a week), weekend commitments, costumes/uniforms, scheduling, etc. Then, when scheduling, this means mom has to check her calendar to see what works, and dad has to check his calendar to see what works (meaning, who doesnt have a work call that day that can be rescheduled). And, the other kid still needs to be picked up from daycare, no matter what the schedule demands.
Years ago, it was Taylor’s idea, to just to one thing at a time. So far, it has worked for its intended purpose: no one is burned out yet. Sometimes through the year things overlap, but we are only committing Rosie to 1 thing at a time throughout the year.
So far she has done soccer, swimming, and dance, as well as the occasional art lesson from her gifted family, but DANCE is what she has grown to love the most.
This past weekend, she had another competition, and her team placed top 10. This is a big deal, because her “team” (is that the right word for it?) is a new one, and has less accolades than many of the other teams that perform at these competitions. Rosie’s cartwheels are getting much better. And so is her confidence. The team knows all of the moves, but they fall short when it comes to the timing of their moves.
Other fun things
There are a few moments when I wonder if I am doing things right; one of those moments was two weeks ago when I got two families with small kids lost in the woods when it was raining outside.
There are lots of other moments that come up through the week, and all I can think is that, “this moment is really nice.” There is so much to be grateful for, and sometimes I can get these items on camera. Rosie is such an awesome big sister, and Mercy eats up any attention she can get.
There was another sweet moment, but I was holding the camera the wrong way, and it did not turn out too well.
These girls make me feel pretty lucky. I wish I could hit the “pause” button- I know life goes in seasons, and not all of them are great. But for right now, these moments are pretty special.
I started running again, and at this time of the year, if you can get past the pollen, this really is the prettiest place there is to get out for a run.
That it for this week. What have you been up to? Leave a comment below.
Luke’s Things
Back around Christmas, I mentioned something small that helped make life better. Here is another problem/solution that has worked great for us, and may help you as well.
For whatever reason, certain items don’t seem to stream too well on our tv. All of the things we use often work fine: Netflix, HBO max, Disney. But some live events, like sports, or in our house, streaming a live dance competition, would have poor quality.
The solution, was this:
A mesh wifi system for the house. The reason was because our house has a chimney in the center, as well as the HVAC system, which created dead spots throughout.
Even though the wifi wasn’t far away, it didnt have a strong connection to hold a stream from something like a live event. The version that we have is an older one that isn’t sold anymore, but here is the link to the updated model.
This weekend was great. There was a small win, and a small fail- let’s look at the fail first.
This is the plug that powers our outdoor lights that hang over our patio. It is a string of lights, and looks pretty good at night time. However, it wasn’t working, and I couldnt press the “reset” button to get the power working through the outlet anymore.
The replacement plug came in, and I cut the power to the outlet, and removed the old one. If you are keen-eyed, you may have noticed the error right there.
After everything was complete, I turned the power back on. But it didn’t work. However, the internet in our house wasn’t working either (it was on the same line). Neither was the lights in the bathroom, or the lights in the shower.
I was able to move the plug for the router for the internet, and it is working fine (hence, how I can write about my failure). However, after trying again last night, of the four wires that were removed from the old outlet (and not labeled as they were removed), after trying EVERY possible configuration, I still can’t get the wiring right.
In the meantime, we still have SOME lights in the bathroom, and a hurt ego, but it will be fixed. Soon.
And I can’t be the only person who has goofed in a home project like this. Do you have any similar stories to share?
A win is a win.
Saturday morning was a lazy one, and we did some errands as a family, just like the old days, before Rosie’s busy social life and over-scheduled play dates.
What did we do? We took Mercy to get her first haircut. She wanted to bring her “naked baby”, which is exactly what Rosie did when she was small.
The haircut was a wild success.
We documented all the best parts at this local haircut place that only does haircuts for children. What a great idea for a business by the way- they didnt have these when we were small.
Rosie did an excellent job coaching her sister through the moment.
And she was real proud after the fact. She said “I’m cute”.
It might seem small and insignificant, but for me it wasn’t. We just ran a few errands, and it was great. There wasn’t any complaining. We were all in a great mood, and just spent time together.
These kids are really good together, and by next year, things will be different. But for now, these moments are 100%.
We tried going to the store, but it was closed, and I wanted a smoothie, so:
Then we went and got a few things for Taylor and I’s upcoming trip. Mercy doesn’t just want a seat- she wants to pull it over so she is sitting beside her big sister.
And to offset the electrical failure, here is my success:
The rainy day project I have been working on for Rosie. 350 feet of rope, and 132 knots. I finally completed it, and it has its new home after a few other items were removed. Rosie loved it.
Last week I didnt post anything. It was a rainy, junky- weather kind of weekend, so I focused on my rainy-day project, which isn’t complete yet, but this is what it looks like:
Rosie has been asking for something like this, and it should be done some time this week.
Everyone has preferences
Mercy is 2, and she cries. It has been a rough couple of months, but I think we are getting to the better side of it. Why does she cry? She cries because she wants something. As Taylor has often said, “It’s ok to have preferences”. Here is an example of these “preferences” while we were out getting some dinner this week:
Why is the above image a “preference”? Easy- this is where the kiddos prefer to sit while they eat dinner.
During that exact moment, this is also how I prefer to eat my dinner:
It can be a bit maddening to try and figure out why Mercy is crying, and what her preference might be.
I finally had a heart-to-heart with the two year old, and just said “Mercy, you have got to stop crying. You can’t keep crying all the time.”
It is hard to tell how many words sink in when talking with a two year old, but after picking her up from Sunday school, the teacher told me “Mercy kept saying, ‘I’m not crying’ during her time in here tonight.”
I asked, “did she cry?” and the answer, was “no”. Maybe it’s getting better!?!
Similarly, this is how my family “prefers” to watch tv:
Easter Week
Going to a non-denominational church as a kid, and most of my adult-life, “good Friday” was pretty well known. We also had “palm Sunday” the week before.
Our church now uses the standard calendar, but has added “Maundy Thursday”, and a Saturday vigil to the week. This year, we got to go to the “Maundy Thursday” service. In the Bible, this is the night when Jesus had passover with his disciples before he was crucified. During that night, he also washed his disciples feet.
Our church adds to it in a special way, where we have the chance to wash each other’s feet as well.
Mercy washed Rosie’s feet, and then Rosie took a turn:
A few minutes later, Rosie asked if she could wash my feet. She did so, and while she was doing it, I couldn’t help but think of what it must have been like for Jesus to wash 12 of his disciples feet, though he didn’t have to- knowing how much he loved all 12 of them, even the one that betrayed him.
It was a really sweet moment, and Rosie asked some great questions in the car on the way home.
We came down to the beach to spend a few days with Taylor’s parents. I’ll be working this week from the beach, so will Taylor, but it is spring break for the kiddos, so why not?
Taylor’s parent’s are awesome grandparents. And Ted knows his way around the kitchen. The other week, Taylor and I got the chance to do a quick dinner at Flemings, and we split the scallops for dinner. I told Ted that their scallops were not as good as the ones he cooked on New Years Eve, so we got to enjoy a special dinner of Scallops and Corn Cream (not to be confused with “creamed corn”), and it was just as good as the first time he served them:
There wasn’t much else that happened this week. Here are a few fun shots from the week:
Taylor joined us on the walk to school one morning. The trees are starting to bloom, and allergies have been crazy.
This is how Mercy “prefers” to eat her dinner. And preferences are ok.
We took the girls to a local park. Mercy wants to do everything her big sister does.
How did you celebrate Easter? Do you have any fun traditions? Leave a comment below.
Though this blog has a tag of “fun and failures”, the “failures” part doesn’t get addressed often. This is a great example of a failure.
This past weekend we went to visit our old friends from our years in Harrisonburg, Virginia: Lisa and Brandon. They are living on the outskirts of Washington DC now, and the 1/2 way point between us is Wintergreen Resort.
Lisa found a great little house on Airbnb, and it worked great for her 3 boys: Easton, Owen, and Cam, and our two girls.
The kiddos watching a cartoon
The weather was set to be rainy in the morning, but clear in the afternoon.
Being a former boy scout of Greensboro’s own troop 203, the maps that fell out of the Airbnb homeowner’s folder had the perfect activity to match even the youngest child’s ability: Let’s do a quick 1 mile hike to see a waterfall.
The hike.
The area was pretty foggy at the top, and started by dropping down over 100 feet in elevation.
After walking down the trail, the route takes us across the creek, and back up to the car for a small loop.
That last part, a “small loop”, did not happen. Though I came across as quite confident reading a paper map to navigate in the year of our Lord 2023, this was a fail.
The trail kept going up and up, and didn’t seem to be bringing us closer to the car.
The scale, route, and final destination
Instead of crossing the creek and turning right to continue the loop, we ended up going way down that yellow mark on the map image above (called “Logger’s Alley Trail”), which took us pretty far from our car.
2/3 of the severity of children whining at this point
Since we came down a pretty far ways in elevation, I figured that since we were going uphill, we were likely going the right way back? Wrong. This was wrong. We were going in the wrong direction.
Once I realized we were going in the wrong direction, and that returning to the car was not an option (this would involve going down hill for a long time, then back up a large hill to the car), the next best bet was to get to a road. Once the group was safe on the road, I could run back and get the car, and pick them up.
Walking home.
Though the ideaof running back to the car seemed like a great idea, it didn’t go as expected.
Taylor and Lisa found the house was a 10 minute walk from where we ended up (20 minutes at toddler speed).
Brandon and I ran back to get the cars. This is a great moment to pause, and I would like to highlight that I, the failed navigator, was able to guide us on a brand new trail, back to our cars by taking all of the right trails. I was sure not to yell, “Let’s go Brandon!”, even once during our time together.
Rosie, Own, and Easton
Taylor shared that the walk home was not pleasant. Mercy screamed quite a bit, and the walk was not a safe one by any stretch of the imagination: There were no sidewalks, it was foggy, and cars were going rather fast past the children. The Good Lord protected us all, and Brandon and I made it home just a few moments before they did.
Devils Backbone
We were in Nelson County, Virginia. And one of the larger destinations in this area was a place purchased by Anheuser Busch in 2016:
The gate to the Devil’s Backbone brewery.
The timing could not have been worse. This was day 31 out of the 46 days of Lent, the year I gave up drinking.
Taylor and the girls walking up to the main buildings.
Calling the location a “brewery” would fail to do the site justice. Calling it a “campus” was a better fit.
Wide angle
Though it might be hard to tell from the image above, from left was the stage, the cigar store, the liquor store, the restaurant, the outdoor bar, the enclosed patio, the store, and the outdoor grill.
For Lent, you are supposed to have 1 day a week of “grace” on Sunday. For the rest of the week, the goal is to remember what Jesus gave up for us, and be reminded of our own weakness and pray through the difficult times.
Honey, it worked, because I was a very weak man.
5 years ago, I gave up drinking for Lent, and allowed myself 1 flex day per week, whenever it worked out best. However, any time I mention that I successfully gave up drinking for Lent, my dearly beloved will remind anyone within earshot that I did not successfully make it through.
This year, I am allowing for no “flex” days, and going the whole 46 days without a drop. Why? 80% for the right reasons, and 20% to be able to tell Taylor, at any point during the rest of our marriage, that I was successfully able to give up drinking for Lent.
Rosie and Easton crushing it.
The place was awesome. I didn’t have a drop to drink. Even when the kids were screaming and I sure could have used one, I held strong and lived out the experience by getting a few cases of beer to take home, and set aside to drink 15 days from now.
The Brisket from the restaurant was amazing. The kids did awesome. THe view was amazing. It really was a fun trip, and would be great to get back at some point with our families.
Just like always when I write these updates on Monday mornings, the kids are starting to wake up.
Before I go, special shout out to Taylor’s parents for watching the dog for the weekend. Thank you so much! Here are a few final pics:
After picking up Stormy on the way homePlaying games with the kidsStormy got a visitorLunch at Devils backboneMercy likes lolllipops
