Author: Luke

Boy, it was a busy weekend.

Leave a comment at the bottom!

We were invited by our good friends, the Maness’, to go to the annual daddy-daughter dance, hosted by their church. For years, I had always been a bit jealous that Matt got to do a daddy-daughter dance with his girls at the country club so they could feel honored and loved, so this invitation meant a lot.

We had never been to this dance before, but knew a lot of people who had. My expectations were not the highest, simple because I have seen some church events that were put on in a gymnasium with a very small budget. Whatever the case might be, we were told to get corsage’s, as most girls would have them.

Rosie got her corsage, mom got her pics, and we met up with our friends for a fancy pre-date meal; the lady gets to pick the location, of course:

So we ended up at Moe’s.

This was not a standard church event; this was the 22nd annual dance, and there were literally hundreds of people. It was way fancier than several weddings we have been to over the years.

They had several “photo spots” around, where people had shirts that read “I can take your picture for you”. Several are on Brian’s phone, but this is one we got.

Each year they have a large heart to sign; this is Brian posing with last year’s heart.

It’s hard to get a picture that could capture the scale of this dance, but there must have been close to 400 people there. The picture above is early, when the dance floor was relatively empty; however it was packed the rest of the night; the must was pretty great too: it had everything from “Under the sea” to Rihanna and Jay-Z (the clean versions).

The dance was a blast. Thank you Brian and Meryl for inviting us; and I think Rosie felt honored as well.

Dance Dad Life

Dance competitions are a big deal. What I learned this weekend is if the words “Rosie’s dance competition” are on the family calendar, that means I need to:

1. Sleep well the days before
2. Have plenty of patience
3. have very few opinions
4. Not plan on anything else that day; or days.

They literally last all damn day. Rosie was there from 9:40 until 5:30 (or so). Since you are sane and only care about the highlights, here they are:

There were dozens of dance companies there, and hundreds and hundreds of dance routines, starting with the younger kids early in the day, and going well into the evening; I was told Evan and her girls were there until around 11.

Some of those performances were pretty awesome- I was told some of those girls can end up doing practice 4-6 days a week (Rosie does 2 days a week), and it shows.

They did great for their second dance.

See point number 3 above: have very few opinions. So I will do just that.

It was a long day, Rosie did great, and it was fun to hang with the fam during a chaotic day, with people coming and going as they could.

This was our cheering section; mom showed up a few minutes after, and I didn’t want to ask them all to smile for this quick shot; but, it was fun for mercy to hang with her cousins all day.

I hope Rosie chooses soccer though.

Would you call yourself an introvert? These days, I think I would. Taylor definitely recharges her batteries by being alone. But not me.

Years ago I would get this time by going on a short day hike in Greensboro- there are plenty of trails around lakes on the north side of town to hike a few miles.

If you go back even farther, I used to go on hikes along the blue ridge parkway during my years in college, a couple times even camping by myself. In hindsight, that was pretty stupid.

In high school, I would go on wandering drives by myself around the outskirts of town, in my 1989 dodge ramcharger.

These days, it is harder to find that kind of uninterrupted time. And Taylor was taking note of that (I married a good one). So for my birthday, she gave me a night away, at the St. Francis Prayer Center. If you have a minute to read the story about how it was founded, the story is amazing.

https://www.stfrancis.today/

It is 40 minutes north of town and is open to all; they serve three meals a day, have a library, a walking trail, fireplaces, gardens, and an outstanding, quiet facility.

It was the ideal place to be quiet, and pray through some of the craziness from this past year.

I’ll keep it vague- but there have been a few stressful things weighing on me, and I don’t quite know how to navigate them. The stress has been surfacing in different ways. And the only thing I know how to do is pray through it, and this song just kept coming to my heart.

That afternoon hike gave way to some great conversations with strangers at dinner who were visiting St. Francis for another event; they shared about the various ministries they were involved in around the Durham/Raleigh area, and an hour-long conversation passed in no time. It was delightful for two reasons:

1. There was no where to be. There was no schedule to be anywhere, and no kiddos that needed a potty break. I don’t remember the last time I was able to slow down this way, and just engage with someone.
2. It was great to get out of my own head and hear about some amazing things being done by ordinary people around the state. This lady was 70+, and shared about 4 different non profits she manages reaching underserved teenagers in Raleigh.

With that much silence and peace around, it is hard NOT to get a great night’s rest.

The next day I spent some time reading up on things NOT related to prayer (there is only so much reverent time I can muster in 24 hours), had a wonderful lunch, and made it home in time to watch UNC play (and lose) to Duke.

So what is the takeaway from this night away?

1. It is going to be ok. Just pray through some things, and let them go.
2. My family is special. Taylor is awesome, and I am lucky to have her.
3. It is good to re-charge my batteries every once in a while.

It is a great place- highly recommend.

Unrelated, but fun

Here are a few other pictures and videos from the week.

The Logan’s reading this post will know exactly what I am talking about. For everyone else, I’ll try and keep it short and sweet.

When I was little, my family would spend a week (or more) every summer at a place in upstate New York called “Merriewold”. It was a family place owned by my dad’s side of the family, and we would take the long drive, and spend the best week of the summer at the lake.

There was par 3 golf, ping-pong, a lopsided pool table, fishing, swimming, swim-races, tournaments, a rope-swing, salamanders, blueberries, cousins, brothers, Grammy, and a million other fun things.

I couldn’t easily find many pics just now to share. By middle school, we weren’t able to go as often, so most pics I have are from years and years ago, but the memories are locked in as simple, fun summer memories- the best I could have asked for.

This past weekend, our neighbors and friends, the Swaringens, invited us up to their mountain house just west of Boone. Their house was beautiful, we ate like kings. And the community was just perfect. Here is why.

There are tons of “communities” out there for vacations. I spend some of Saturday afternoon just browsing through them on my phone.

Both Communities shared a ton of things in common: a lake, swimming, fishing, trails, mountains and trees, community events, golf, and charm.

But the reason why Merriewold and the Land Harbor Community are different than most other vacation communities is not because of what they have, but because of what they DONT have: million dollar listings.

Looking back at Merriewold, one of the big reasons why it was so special was because there was a great community, and the community all felt like it was on equal footing. All of the houses were old. None of the houses were mansions that seemed out-of-place with the rest of us. And this made everyone more approachable.

The clubhouse at Merriewold (Just like the game-room at Land Harbor) was simple. It wasn’t a place of luxury with brand new, high quality entertainment. It was simple- meant for kids to enjoy.

The weekend was a blast. We had fun connecting with Clint and Margaret, and their kiddos as well. Here is a quick clip of Mercy and their son, Owen:.

This post is woefully incomplete, but like every Monday morning post, the kids are waking up, so I must cut this short.

The past several weeks have been challenging for me for several reasons I won’t go into here. But, here are a few fun highlights since Christmas (sorry for the delay!).

Christmas was fun. And Cold.

On the east coast, we had an extreme cold snap right around Christmas. Though everything held up well in our house, there were a few things that were out of our control: The electric grid.

As we were putting the final touches on the Christmas Eve brunch that we were hosting for the very first time, the lights went out. Taylor’s family, mostly coming from the Raleigh area, was about 15 minutes away. It was 22* outside. And we were just about to put the breakfast casserole in the oven.

Without thinking, I took the casserole over to Matt and Evan’s house, so we had a warm breakfast to enjoy.

Having a few people in the house really worked for us though. While the temperature outside was pretty cold, the body-heat of a few extra people, as well as our small gas fireplace helped us hold up well.

The power outage was said to last 30-60 minutes to help release strain on the power grid, it ended up being over 3 hours. As luck would have it, the power came on 15 minutes after people left.

More Christmases

We had a wonderful Christmas with the Registers. Ted made a prime rib that was unbelievable.

We did the Logan Christmas, which was awesome. Matt did a dramatic reading, and this year had a special costume for the occasion. Unfortunately, Mercy was crying so I had to go take her for a drive to fall asleep, and missed the context, so you will just have to use your imagination to figure it out.

Christmas morning at home with just our family was great. These girls are amazing. Both of them got scooters, and Taylor and I were both surprised to see Mercy just take off on hers.

C’mon 2023!

Between Christmas and New Year’s we spent a few days at Ocean Isle Beach with Taylor’s parents. It is always great to spend time there- and since Taylor had the week off, and my work was flexible, it worked out great.

What is a “shark drop”?

At Ocean Isle beach, specifically a place called Sharkys, instead of doing a ball drop at New Year’s, they do a “Shark Drop”. I’m not sure how long they have been doing this tradition, but we enjoyed it years ago (before covid). They would do a kids version earlier in the night that we took then baby-rosie to, at around 8 or 9 pm.

Also, can we take a moment to note how much better phone cameras have gotten here in the past 5 years?

Earlier in the day, they did another non-shark related kids event: The fire department split open a beach ball piñata high above the playground when the clock struck 12, NOON.

This might be a new tradition? Or maybe we have just never seen it, but it was awesome! The kids swarmed the field like animals when the candy reigned down. Thank you OIB Fire Dept for this fun event!

Finally, we did the Shark Drop with Taylor’s parents, at 8 pm.

Birthday Beginnings

Finally, this part gets intentionally inserted at the bottom of the page, but it is my birthday this week.

The goal was to go to “Bourbon Bowl”, a new-er place downtown with a few lanes, and bowl with the fam for a few games before crossing the street for dinner. The wait was about 2 hours (they don’t take reservations), so we ended up across the street at Boxcar and played games for a bit

Skee-ball is the only game that matters.

Taylor has beaten me the past 7 times we played. Tonight, I got the high score of the morning at 270!

Also, I just loved this video from earlier last week, so I am going to leave it here, though it is completely unrelated.

Last year for Rosie’s birthday, she got tickets to a UNC basketball game. If you aren’t from North Carolina, know this: while the NBA and the NFL are awesome, we do not have many professional teams here in the state. We have the Charlotte Hornets (who are never awesome), the Carolina Hurricanes (Uncle Steve loves hockey, but not most people). Baseball? Nothing.

But we DO have this: the ACC was created at Sedgefield country club in the 1950s, about 20 minutes down the road from our house. The ACC is big here- and we love our college sports, namely, what the ACC is traditionally best at: basketball.

So we love college basketball in this area. And I love UNC. And Taylor feels the exact opposite of “love” towards my favorite guys in baby blue. So I thought it was important to take Rosie to a game last year- and we watching UNC play against the Syracuse Orange last year- one of the first ACC games of the season, as a special birthday gift. It was so much fun, we did it again this year- and brought a friend- it was so much fun.

Chapel Hill is about an hour away (if you add parking which was a nightmare, add another 20-30 minutes if you don’t know what you are doing, like me).

This year was a little different though: let’s be honest, the gift wasn’t for Rosie, it was for me. So the gift wasn’t packaged as a “birthday” gift this year. But it was so much fun, we will have to continue.

And of all odds, who was sitting directly in front of Rosie? Taylor’s uncle Ken! His first game in 15 years, and just happened to be right in front of us.

The game itself was awesome. They played the Citadel, and there is a tradition at UNC games: If they score 100 points, you get a free sausage biscuit at Bojangles the next day. Inflation is real everybody, so these days, instead of a free biscuit, you get 2 for $1. And, the scrubs came in with almost 2 minutes left, nailed a few threes, and reached 100 points at the buzzer. It was so much fun. Here is a clip, right after that moment:

Running balls

The same week as the game, we did the “running of the balls” 5k in the neighborhood next to ours.

You may or may not be familiar with the “Christmas Balls”. It was on one of the national news morning shows, maybe the Today show, a few years ago, but the neighborhood next door to us has a tradition of putting these lighted balls up in the massive trees in their neighborhood, and it is something that has become “very Greensboro” over the years.

For about 12 years now, they have also done the “running of the balls” through the neighborhood: a 5-ish k race. What does that mean? It means that the purpose of the race isn’t time, it is fun, and to help those less fortunate during this season.

So we did it this year, with our good friend Anna, who Taylor and I knew back in our Harrisonburg, Virginia years.

Making Balls

When I was a kid, mom would make a bunch of things, and give them to our neighbors. Mostly it was food, though I can’t remember exactly what it was. Sometimes it might have been art-related, or a craft, I can’t exactly recall.

But I do recall that it was terrible, from my 7 year old perspective. The reason it was terrible was because it was often cold, and mom would wait in the car, and make poor, polite me go up and knock on the door of these seemingly random people that I didn’t know, and try and make pleasant conversations with the “little old ladies” all around the country club neighborhood we lived next to.

So of course, I want to do this tradition with my own kids.

This year was the 11th annual making of the (peanut butter) balls.

In the early years, we messed up a lot. My balls were a disaster- melting chocolate, is really challenging. You cannot add water to thin it out. You cannot add oil to thin it out.

Years ago we decided to do peanut butter balls because we thought we had far too many cookies and brownies, and wanted something different. We both liked peanut butter balls, so a tradition was born.

So far, I think it is going well: I wonder if Rosie will have good memories about this when she gets older? Stay tuned.

This story has been shared, but with Rosie’s birthday coming up this week, it is a story worth remembering and I hope this can help speak to others going through infertility issues, or issues with their faith, as well.

Taylor and I were living in Harrisonburg, VA at the time. We lived in 3 places over 4 years- so I cannot recall if we were living in the basement apartment, in the townhouse, or the small house that was built in 1923.

Regardless, we had been married a few years and decided that it was time to have a child. Except it didn’t work that easily. In sex-ed in middle school, they used some pretty intense scare tactics to leave me with the impression that if I so much as thought about sex, a girl would get pregnant.

But that didnt happen with us. As months passed, things got worse. This beautiful, amazing person I longed to be married with- we were now at odds with each other. We fought. Things were tense.

I prayed. I prayed hard during this time. I can remember one time going out- just getting out of the house to escape for a minute, and I tool the dog with me to the nearest national park, about 40 minutes away. It was raining a little, which was preferred- that way I can walk and pray aloud, without seeming too crazy. So I took full advantage of that. After months of trying, and failing, to conceive, I was angry. So I yelled. I questioned God. Where was He? Did He care? Why wasn’t this coming together, and why was He silent? Often, I can hear a word from the Lord- or a friend can share some encouragement, or Taylor has some wisdom to share. But this time was different- there was radio silence, and just a blackness of lonliness.

“Psalm 37:4”.

That’s it. After months of silence, those were the words I heard, while out on that rainy day. Why that verse? I don’t even know that verse, why is that the one that breaks this silence? I rushed home to see what that verse said.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Psalm 37:4

That verse doesnt mean anything in this context. How is that supposed to apply to this very painful situation? I was disappointed- and felt I deserved better than that.

But it was the Lord that told me this (words I use VERY sparingly). So, I was going to do it- and focus my JOY as it comes from the Lord. To me, this meant really reading the Bible, some commentaries, and diving into prayer. This meant being vulnerable. This meant going out of my comfort zone. To this point, “Joy” never really came from the Lord in my life. What did that even look like? What did that mean?

During this time, we had some friends from the church that we went to. They also had some fertility issues that they worked through. Since I didn’t contact them to see if I could use their names, let’s call them Ashley and Jason. They shared their diet tricks to help, which was simply a paleo diet. Since we didn’t have the money to do what the doctor recommended, which was IVF, this was our only option.

What was actually wrong?

That is a good question. It is hard to know what this kind of pain is like for other couples, but for us, it seemed like a saving grace that the issues were on both sides. I won’t go into many details (also I don’t remember too many details), but there were hormone issues for Taylor and for me.

There were steps we could take that were less invasive, and less expensive, than IVF, so we went that route as well. Again, I won’t share details, but if you are curious, you can google it, and you will likely find some details and put 2 and 2 together.

What about prayer?

Christmas came and went. It was painful. It seemed daily we were getting new-baby announcements in the mail. And worse, people asking Taylor to plan baby showers. Over, and over, and over again. “What about prayer?” was the question I asked. Where was the Lord, when Taylor was experiencing such emotional pain, that I couldn’t fix? Sure, we were happy for each of our friends becoming parents for the first time, but the pain is sharp.

The church that we attended at the time was called Grace Covenant Church. Remember above where I mentioned “getting out of my comfort zone”? This church did a great job of that- it pushed me out of my comfort zone, and kept drawing me back for more. It was hard to explain, but the presence of the Lord was there, and Taylor and I loved calling that place home during that period of our lives.

We prayed, but we didn’t try healing prayer. And in February, our church did a healing prayer night. Taylor asked if I wanted to go, and I quickly said no. No way. Absolutely not. I was not broken, and that was weird. It was out of my comfort zone. Looking back, I think it was just hard to admit to others, and myself, that I did have some broken parts.

So we ended up going. The sanctuary was not brightly lit that evening. There were a few people up at the front of the aisles, and people were lined up to be prayed for. There were a LOT of people lined up for prayer, and chances are, they needed prayer more than I did. Taylor and I took a seat. God doesn’t stay silent forever.

We prayed. I prayed. I don’t know what was going on with Taylor at the time. But I was praying, and crying. And I was still a bit angry, and sad the the God I spent time with in the morning, was so absent and silent.

“God, where are you? Why can’t we have this child we so desperately long for?”

This time, there was an answer. This time, the silence was broken. This time, with head bowed in prayer, the sanctuary disappeared, and clear as day, there was a picture of a child- a newborn, wrapped in a blanket, and being held. Then, an image of a toddler- playing, smiling, parents so close. Then, a teenager.

Then, a voice:

“What is it that you want?” The words were clear- so much that it seemed startling Taylor couldn’t hear them. The tears were flowing at this point.

“I want a child Lord. Please, please, we want this baby.” Anger melted, and became nothing.

“If I give you a child, will you raise it to follow me?” This was more than a question, this was a charge: a command to follow. Parents take a lot of responsibilities when raising a child, and this is not something I wanted to take on lightly.

“Yes Lord”. Yes. Yes, we will raise this child- the one that is so longed for- we will raise this child to know the Lord.

“You will have a child in November.” And the words- everything to my bones, melted. The pain- the months and months, years and years of silence. My life? My plans? My strengths? They are nothing. I am pathetic, without this peace, without this presence, without this moment.

Tears were flowing. I was trying, and failing, at being discrete in these moments. People were still lining up for prayer. We were still sitting in the 5th row of chairs. How much time passed? I had no idea. What just happened? What happens next?

“Tay, we can go now, we have been healed.” Those seemed like the right words to say.

“What do you mean? We haven’t even been through the line yet?” She saw my tears.

“I’ll tell you in the car.”

Confused, we drove through the darkness, the 10 minute drive home. Using the words “God told me” sets a dangerous precedent. Those words carry weight, and cannot be used lightly. And we hadn’t been married for too long at that point. Should I really use those words? Did God really say something.

Yes. And Yes.

“Taylor, we will have a baby by November.” She was elated, and rightfully nervous. I explained everything else, and we both cried.

The story didn’t quite end there. Remember the serious nature of those words? A few weeks later, we found out again that she wasn’t pregnant. Again, there was doubt and confusion. Did I lie to her? No, I couldn’t have made that up.

The following month, at the checkup with her doctor, everything checked out. The due date? Nov. 27th.

Because we were still on such a strict paleo diet (no carbs, dairy, or sugar), this was how my bride shared the big news:

I don’t deserve her 🙂