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It was a blast. We ate a ton. The dressing was great (it is called “dressing” if it is not stuffed inside the bird, and “stuffing” if it is actually inside the turkey, according to my MIL). The decorations were beautiful. And the Tarheels lost terribly against NC State in Football.

Amelias Birthday was just a few days before thanksgiving (on Tuesday this year), and though we didn’t get any pictures, I wanted to acknowledge how special of a kid she is, and how proud of an uncle I am.

We hosted my side of the family, and there are several weeks worth of postings of things to say, but I will leave it as: we made it through the meal together.

Thanksgiving at the Registers house was great. This year was just entirely different than years past because Mercy was able to entertain herself for a bit. For the past 5+ years, she was trying to kill herself by jumping down stairs, finding sharp objects, finding poisonous objects, throwing shoes, and every other thing you can imagine.

This year, she didn’t. What did I do with this new sense of freedom? I avoided all pictures as you can see, but after that was accomplished, I fell asleep on the couch for a few minutes after the meal. It was delightful.

Rosie and I have a long history of picking trees out together. And if you look in the bottom-left picture above, one of her favorite traditions is topping the tree each year with the star that goes on top. Year after year I would lift her up, sometimes it was stressful and she didn’t quite understand or even want to cooperate. This year, she started talking about it hours in advance- she was so excited for the important duty of putting the star on top.

Mercy spent time focusing on three branches on the bottom, ensuring they had 6 ornaments a piece. It looks ridiculous, but we were sure to leave those ornaments just as they were placed.

I like to think our ornaments and decorations are not a shrine to the North Pole, but lean 70% towards the birth of Jesus, and 30% towards kids crafts, Santa, etc.

There has been a post about Mercy, sharing her story. There has been a post about Rosie, sharing her story.

The 9 people who read my blog have spoken: they want to hear Stormy’s story. So, turn on the the wayback machine, step into the Delorean, warm up the flux capacitor, we are going back in time!

We bought this house in January, 2013. We weren’t married even 3 years yet; our first year of marriage we lived in a basement. The second year we lived in a townhouse. Taylor did not like the townhouse. She probably had merit in those thoughts. The carpeting was terrible.

I am not sure if it was from the new house, or from still being kinda newly married, or just because I am pretty stubborn about things, but we were bickering a bit. Small disagreements. We both wanted things a certain way in our new house, and men and women think a little differently on these things.

And that’s the power a dog can have: We stopped bickering. We focused on the dog a bit more than we focused on our own needs/wants. And there were many.

We both worked. The dog had to go on walks. We didn’t have a fence. The dog had to be let outside during our lunch breaks. There were thunderstorms. The dog had to be let inside.

And there were snowstorms. What do you do with the dog and the work and the snow shoveling then? I remember this day: stormy sat outside on that pile of snow for about 4 hours.

But back to Stormy’s adoption story. Taylor and I talked about a dog. Our friend Anna Lehnen knew all about dogs- I think her parents were breeders? But wither way, we went down to the Staunton pound, “just to look”. The website had a dog named Charlie that looked like a sweet dog, so Taylor and I went down to see him.

Charlie was gone. Of all the critters in that noisy kennel, there was one that was quiet. She stood on her back legs, and watched Taylor walk all around.

So we went home. Without the dog. But Taylor kept saying “I can’t stop thinking about that dog Shira”. You see, that was her pound-name. Shira.

So, we got her. it was October of 2013, and Stormy was 1 year old.

We stayed in that house less than 2 years. It was a great couple years- the federal government said that our income at the time was below the poverty line- but I didn’t feel like much was missing.

But something was missing. We were actually pretty sad during that time, trying for a couple unsuccessful years to get pregnant with Rosie. And Stormy was a delightful addition.

Ted and Deborah (Taylor’s parents) opened their doors for us to live there while Taylor was pregnant, with Stormy, while we looked for our first place in Greensboro.

Stormy made best friends with Jager. They were really an inseparable pair. In fact, to this day, the Register’s house is stormy’s happy place.

They were besties for 5 or 6 years, until Jager passed away. Even today, if Stormy hears the name, her ears perk up. Dogs are the best.

We got our first house in Greensboro.

We had a house; we had a dog; we had a kid. Stormy was living in her 4th place at this time:

• She was a puppy in the kennel. Maybe born there? Adopted by a family with small kids.
• Lived in a house with her first family. They named her Shira. Shame on them. She is obviously a stormy.
• The family surrendered Stormy back to the kennel. Shame on them. Never surrender!

Stormy had a best friend named Jager. And Rosie had a critter named Stormy to make her own.

There are dozens of these pictures.

Dogs are the best. Stormy is the best for what can be seen in this pic:

She loves to be AROUND people, but will always hang off to the side.

Anyways, time is running short here. We moved to our new house (the current one), putting stormy in yet ANOTHER place to call home.

Stormy was there to greet Mercy when she came home from the hospital too:

Ok, she isn’t 100% awesome. Stormy does have a flaw. This part isn’t in the pics, so you will have to take my word for it.

Stormy loves trash. Loves it. When we were walking in Harrisonburg, she would find any scraps on the side of the road. For some reason, there was always a chicken bone around and Stormy would find it.

I spanked her for getting in the trash in the kitchen. You know what her response was? Nothing. She did it again. For 5 years, then tay finally said “I don’t think it’s working.” Tay was right. It didn’t work. So we just had to get a garbage can that could lock.

There are so many pictures, it is hard to choose which ones tell the story the best. She is a good dog and has been great for the girls.

My only peeve is that she seems to ignore them. She won’t run and greet them, or kiss them (that may be a perk, that stormy doesn’t lick). Maybe this is because we had her before we had kids?

Stormy has a few more gray hairs than she did before. She doesn’t chase the squirrels as often as she once did. She is a great dog and I think the one thing that really absolutely makes her the happiest is a fall afternoon, when the weather is nice, and I am doing yard work. Stormy will just sit nearby, and move to be close enough, but not in the way. She will watch the people pass by on the street, and enjoy every moment “working” with me in the yard. Love her.

When there are lots of kids, they have to have something to do. It is tiring, yes.

One trick most parents can likely agree on: When there are multiple kids, it tends to be easier to parent them. What does that even mean?

It means, kids can entertain themselves; and that’s (almost) exactly what happened this weekend in the mountains with our friends Andy and Laura (and kids). In a perfect world, the other two great families would have been with us as well: The Steinwedells and the Torres’. They were with us in spirit.

Five kids. Though that may sound insane, the kids are all pretty well behaved. We did what any parent would do, and threatened them that there are numerous bears outside eager to meet ill-behaved children. They seemed to respond well to that.

Originally the forecast called for a lot of rain, but it only ended up raining early on Friday.

Kids aren’t just gonna sit around and entertain themselves in an Air BNB, so Taylor found us the MAIN event of the weekend:

Ok, ok- the main event of the weekend was not eating at my favorite, mediocre quality burrito place from college. Yes, it is nostalgic, and yes, it is consistently ranked as a 6 out of 10; but it is a tradition to eat there between one and seven times on a weekend visit.

Taylor did some research and pointed us to the Alpine coaster in banner elk as a fun event.

Did it rain on our parade? Yes. Did we care? nah, it was great.

The carts are more sturdy than I was expecting; there are rules about going with two people on a cart/sled/buggy, and Mercy was on the very bottom range of height/weight/age to ride with someone. Were we afraid that she might be scared? Yes. Did we do it anyways? Again, yes.

There was a calculated risk about whether to film while going down the coaster, and I decided against it. However, here we are on the long haul UP the mountain:

You may be thinking, what did the three year old think about it? Did she have fun? She smiled long enough to get a pic of her, and that is saying a bit. One day she will get older and wonder why we don’t have any good pics of her as a kid, and the answer will be “You always frowned or ran away from a camera.” In the instance, she was buckled in and couldn’t escape her dad’s relentless pursuit of a silly selfie:

The best thing to do with kids while in the mountains? Try the classic dad move: “Let’s go for a hike!”. If you are an avid reader here at theloganfam.com, you may recall our last family hike with friends in the mountains where we got lost for several hours in the woods. This was not that. Everyone needs a story of redemption, and this was mine.

A 2.3 mile hike around the lake. It was about as easy as a hike could be if one wanted to avoid getting lost: keep the body of water on your right, and eventually, you will make it around the loop back to the car.

The kids did great. Honestly, it was a lot of fun. Of course I rushed the kids a bit to ensure that they didn’t get tired in the beginning of the hike, and not have enough energy to finish. I didn’t want to end up carrying anyone on my shoulders.

It was a lot of fun. The Peascoes are great friends, and it is wild to think how we started hanging out with only 2 kids between us.

On the way back from the hike, we sure were thirsty. So we did what any responsible parents would do, and stopped at a brewery for a pint before heading to the cabin for the night. An intense crayon coloring competition ensued:

Do you play games when you go on trips with family? We do; we used to play more games before bedtime routines became exhausting, but now the kids are getting old enough to where we can play games from time to time. So before a few hours of quiet, we went out with a bang by playing apples to apples, jr. Per usual, I lost by a wide margin.

This next part doesn’t apply to the whole group, but I would be remiss if it wasn’t included.

When I was in college, at the top of the mountain was a dangerous, rusty old fire tower on the ridge of the mountain overlooking campus. It also happened to be almost directly behind the house we were staying in. My initial instinct to take the kids on a “small hike to go see the fire tower” would have been wrong: we definitely would have gotten lost.

Back in college, it would take a four wheel drive car to get up there. The view was amazing. And since the three year old was melting down and needed a nap, I thought it was a great opportunity to go find the fire tower near our cabin for the weekend. Surely it would be easy to find on a foggy morning on a rough gravel road, right?

No. It wasn’t.

In fact, driving an AWD Acura MDX up that road was right up there with the not-smart things I have done. There was a point I had to turn around. Here is a clip, and of course, videos never do this kind of thing justice:

I got there. And it was disappointing. Unfortunately a fun, adventurous destination had become another 5G radio tower. The rusty old tower was gone. All the fun things are gone.

Thanks to all of the eight people that read this blog. If you are reading this, chances are you know me and/or my mom who is celebrating her birthday. Or you like reading up on Halloween and this caught your attention. So, welcome. And now you get to hear about my mom’s birthday.

She had one. And it was fun.

We got the family together and watched my niece’s presentation of Shrek for her school play.

Here she is along with the gingerbread man. Honestly, Amelia has personality bursting at the seams, and acting could totally be a thing for her.

But that’s not all! Cici’s birthday continued with dinner at the newest taco place in town, Southbound.

Getting together with the family is just fun. Sad to think the days are numbered now that the biggest one of the group – I am referring to the age of the children here- is in High School; those days are going to fly by, and she will be off to college.

But that’s not all! The birthday continued with a concert with Maverick City Music. If you haven’t heard of them, they were awesome. They do some powerful worship music.

Here we are before the show celebrating the poor lighting for selfies. Our seats were only three rows away from the worst seats in the place.

The venue was engineered for pretty awesome sound. Notice my technical words “pretty awesome”, and you will just have to understand that means the acoustics, even in the worst seats, were superb.

It was a powerful night of worship. It was good for the soul. These are the songs I have listened to over the past couple years, many on repeat, when things feel crummy, and seeing the show in person was a special moment.

The whole place was on their feet dancing, lifting their hands up, and just praising. Maybe more concerts like this should be on the agenda?

Ok, just one more about the show. Here is a short clip from one of the songs I have enjoyed over the past year:

Broadway

Well, it is a traveling broadway? But it starts with the letter “B” so let’s go with it.

Rosie, the apple of my eye, “Rosie Posie” as she is known, got to join Taylor and I and take advantage of our season tickets to the local venue to see the Broadway presentation of Aladdin.

It was dope. Aladdin was one of the few VHS tapes I owned as a kid; it was a Disney movie, without a princess, so of course I was into it. The best part of the movie? Robin Williams as the Genie. The best part of the play? Some other un-named guy playing the genie. I mean, he really stole the show.

We saw the lamp before the show.

Rosie and her friends totally 1-upped us when it came to taking a good picture though.

The show was a blast. And so was our fancy dinner before the show where we sugared up the kids before telling them to be quiet and sit still for a performance:

You probably guessed right: It was just me and a whole lot of girls for this evening as well.

Boo!

Not “Boo, you suck!” But “Boo” as in, Happy Halloween! Last post covered some halloween, like the fall-harvest festival at our church. If you didn’t read it, you honestly didn’t miss much.

But it did not include Halloween. And the kids in costumes that lit up Facebook: well, this is about 8 days too late to the party.

Every year for a few years now, Mallory, Everly, and Deborah come over for trick or treating. Guess what? Yes, I am the only dude in this situation as well.

Mercy is happier than she looks. Everly cracks me up every time. They love each other so much. And Rosie was almost shaking she was so excited to go get the candy.

Ok ok, this pic of Taylor just cracks me up. And if you zoom in on Mercy’s face.

Our neighborhood is bonkers for halloween. They close off the road, and the kids just do the rest. Rosie is old enough to run around with her friends almost unattended. Mercy didn’t really know to say “trick or treat” like she was supposed to (she did for 1 house).

So, we just strolled. Saw lots of friends, the weather was a bit chilly (coming from a guy who HATES the cold).

A few days later, Rosie didn’t have school for a teacher workday, so the daddy-daughter breakfast date at Tex and Shirley’s was special. Yes, the nostalgia that my wife loves to hate, that I went there with my dad when I was a kid, makes it pretty cool too. Back then, it was a different location, but I don’t want to sound like an old man going down memory lane…

We got to go on a hike around Greensboro on day last weekend. We made it 1 mile in about an hour, complete with a stop for a snack:

Again, Mercy is happier than she looks in this pic.

And, this just made me giggle, and I want to share it with no context:

Do you go to counseling? Would you ever consider it? I have been going to a counselor, and it has been helpful. Recently, there was a subtle suggestion that Taylor and I have been thinking on. It goes a little something like this.

When the kids start screaming, I can’t handle it. When there is an argument or a disagreement, my mind gets focused on it. Processing the issue slowly and objectively is skipped.

It was suggested that this is anxiety. I always considered myself to be the opposite of anxious; fairly laid back. The counselor put it this way: when the “alarm bells” go off in your brain that there is an issue of some kind, it needs to be addressed. This is normal and healthy. However, there can be times when the “alarm bells” are going off too often, or in a disproportionate manner. This is what might be my reality.

How and why does this happen? Sometimes, earlier in life, the body can “learn” this in the wrong way. Divorce, arguments with my brothers, and other things happening in my life as a child might have been the cause to learn how to navigate stress the wrong way.

I don’t know, and I am not fully convinced how far to run with this label; but it seemed to sound as though it is accurate to some degree in my life. Maybe it is impacting some friendships and relationships, I am not certain. That is my vulnerable moment for the week. Moving on…

Home Again.

Taylor went on a work trip this week. She doesn’t travel often for work, but she was gone the week before. And two weeks before that. Somehow, all the trips piled on in the month of October. In addition, some unexpected things came up and Tay had to spend a few nights away outside of her trips with work.

While she was gone, the kids were fed and taken care of, to some degree. We got a good chunk of our healthy food for the day from smoothies in the mornings, as seen above.

The mornings had some spare time, so Mercy and I did scooter time before she went to daycare. As a video, it is a little funnier. Mercy fell, but dont

Kids were picked up after school. When Tay is gone, the dog gets put outside so often as we come and go from the house, I decided to take her along with us this time for something different. Everyone enjoyed seeing Stormy in the car.

We even at a few healthy dinners. Also, we had mcDonalds one night when I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer. So, it all evens out, right?

We ate healthy dinners, in front of the tv.

At the end of the day, we even did bedtime stories. Mercy is getting really good these days (at memorizing the story she asked for 6 dozen times)

Before she came home, I took the afternoon off of work. What would I do with such free time? During the daylight hours, only 2 things:

1. Take a nap. It was glorious.
2. Clean up after the crazy hailstorm we had last week by spending 2-3 hours getting leaves in the yard:

When momma came back, both her and I were whipped. What is harder, 13 hour workdays on a trip, or single parenting for many days out of a month for kids this age?

The fun things of fall still await. We went to the pumpkin patch, and the fall harvest festival at our church. The travels are over for the foreseeable future.

Last week was Taylor’s 20 year high school reunion; this week was mine. Friday night we got together, both page and grimsley (our rival), at a place called “Terminal Tap”, a bar opened within the past year by one of our alumni, Ty Tysinger. It was a fun crowd.

The goal was to go to the football game after meeting up at the bar, but:

Saturday we got to walk the halls of the high school; For some reason I was only expecting 4 people to show up, but the crowd was great. The halls were well lit, it didn’t smell like urine, and it seemed less depressing than I remember in my years walking through those halls. Talking with a few people during the weekend, one of the overall feelings of walking those halls was fear; there were some crazy fights, and other things where keeping your head down was the best thing to do.

This is where we ate lunch. I remember seeing a chair get thrown out of the window on the right side of this image.

The gym still had that unique smell of teenage sweat.

It wa a fun crowd that walked through the halls. Then, off to Kau;

Ok, pause here. Why was this reunion so exciting for me? Here are a few things that came to mind:

1. I don’t use Facebook as much anymore. I have no idea what is going on in people’s lives.
2. I am a much better person now than I was in high school. Back then, there was a lot going on in life; I wasn’t involved in many things, but these are some great people I went to high school with.
3. I married up. Taylor is awesome, and I am glad to have her meet the part of my life she wasn’t too familiar with.

---

This was the whole group at Kau; Man, it was fun. So many people had fun/entertaining/bizarre stories to share.

First off, THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED PLAN THIS EVENING! It was a blast.

One alumni was on drunk history. One person ride a motorcycle to Alaska last year. One person works locally with people with HIV. One person became a millionaire.

Corey Higgins and I did middle school and high school together. He hated me. It was so much fun to reconnect. His view was “Luke was always in his own bubble over here, and everyone else was over here”. Maybe not much has changed?

All the way back to elementary school, and haven’t seen Taylor Lineberry since graduation.

The Page reunion ended around 10 pm; Taylor could only make it for about an hour due to some child care issues, but I soaked the night in and went across the street to the Grimsley reunion.

Josh Aunspaugh went to App State with us, and was a great friend Freshman year. I don’t know what happened, but we didn’t see him much afterwards. Also, Haley Parrish was fun to see all weekend. Also a dear friend since high school.

Other Page high school kids showed up, and I ended up in a free Grimsley Whirlies shirt. Here are the ladies formerly known as Katie Jones and Abbey wood (their maiden names).

What a great time.

This week is also special: Taylor had her 20 year high school reunion, from Northwest High School here in Guilford County.

It was a fun night- way more fun for her to catch up with some old friends. Around 60 people showed up, at a local bar called Oden. It was really laid back.

There were a few fun conversations. Many of the people I got a chance to connect with are still living in the same general area as their parents did, and raising families in the same way.

One of the biggest changes since our class graduated (Taylor and I graduated the same year), was that a new high school opened two years after us, and really changed the districting maps for the county. Northern High School is the newest and best in the county.

Since the kids were out for the night at Taylor’s moms house, we even went to the after party downtown. Be proud of us- we stayed out past 11pm!

Anniversary

Uncle Steve and Aunt Chris celebrated their 40th year wedding anniversary this weekend. Though my cousin Brenna reached out about the event in Greenville, I wasn’t unable to attend.

HUGE congrats to them. As an adult, this pair has just become more and more fun. Aunt Chris, you always make me laugh. Uncle Steve, as a kid I thought you were intimidating. As an adult, I think you are an amazing person. Your wit from years as an English Teacher serves you well. Love you guys, and wish that the years didn’t see us apart as much as they do now. Though there aren’t a ton of pics I can readily find, this is a solid one from around 1991:

The Children’s Museum

Rosie, Hunter, Mercy and I took the 26 minute drive to the High Point Children’s museum this past rainy Saturday. But I am a nerd, and what was really cool was learning afterwards that there is a feature on iPhones to automatically create a mashup video of a bunch of images/video clips, and I was real excited about how it turned out:

Many of you might already be familiar with how to do that. If not, here is a quick clip explaining it:

Its fall. Taylor is on a work trip to Philadelphia for work, and I can’t sleep, so adding another blog post is the obvious best thing to do.

In our neighborhood, one thing we look forward to is the “scary house” that goes all-in for halloween decorations. They are a few blocks away so we haven’t had a chance to trick-or-treat at their house, but the setup is pretty extreme. Have you ever seen anything like this?

The new teacher fake-out

On Wednesday of last week, we got an email/voicemail/letter home from school informing us that Rosie’s teacher would be leaving. This was really sad. She really likes Mr. Robertson, her third grade teacher. He is new to the school, and has made a very big impact.

When I got home from running a few errands, this was how Rosie greeted me:

It was devastating for a third grader to lose her favorite teacher!
Why was he leaving? He was leaving because of a state law that stipulates how many teachers are needed for each class/grade. The letter/voicemail sent to us said that due to a miscalculation on student enrollment for the year, there were too many teachers for the third grade, and Mr. Robertson (the newest) would be re-assigned to another school.

The letter stated that the following day, Rosie would spend 1/2 a day with her current teacher, and then transition to 1/2 a day with her new teacher. Effective Friday, she would be with her new teacher.

This was not ok. Rosie was sobbing about this. Who made the decision to trade teachers 1/2 way through October, and in what universe is this in the student’s best interest?

After Rosie had a minute to calm herself, she said “I have to go make Mr. Robertson a card.” Rosie is a gem; what a sweet kid to have that be her first instinct:

I wrote emails. I was hot; I don’t usually write emails about these kinds of issues, but because of the impact it had on Rosie, I wanted the people in charge to know the fallout from their decisions. In the big picture, I know Rosie would be ok; she has plenty of friends, and her home life is stable. But someone, somewhere had to see the ring video that I captured of this sweet little third grader just devastated to know that her teacher was leaving.

The teacher, principal, School board representative, and the superintendent were copied on this rather hot email. What did the email say? In short, we are with you through all the things that are beyond your control (and I listed a few things like Covid, a lockdown, etc), but this is not beyond your control. And whoever made this decision should see the impact that it has on THIRD GRADERS. For older students, this would not be a big deal. For eight year old kids, this is a bond that is being broken from a new teacher that they have grown to trust; and it disrupts the learning process for her class, and all of the other classes that they are dispersed into.

The other parents were pissed too. With only 1/2 day warning, there wasn’t much time, but the parents of Rosie’s class got an email thread going of 37 people providing the names of who to contact at every level of the school system, and I am left to believe that there was a very high percentage of people that took it upon themselves to reach out to voice their concerns.

That’s when we learned that it would be on the radio. It turns out one of the parents from Rosies class is also a morning anchor on a local radio station. She brought this issue up and it must have received near 20 minutes of airtime about how bonkers this decision is. The school board must have been pretty pissed about this exposure. Here is the bit, as a link to watch it on Facebook:

https://fb.watch/nDnf3K52ql/

When Rosie got back from school the next day, I asked her how her day was. She said “all we did was cry all morning. One kid cried so hard she had to go see the nurse.” Again, this adds fuel to my fire. Who makes these kinds of decisions for third graders?

On Friday at noon, a day-and-a-half after we received the first notice of the teacher leaving, we got a an automated call at around noon saying that, “after carefully reviewing enrollment numbers, it has been determined that they WILL KEEP all third grade teachers.” The voicemail was tone-deaf to say the least.

So, next week I will be attending my first school board meeting to address this issue.

UNC Dominates Syracuse on the gridiron

On Monday, I got a call from my buddy Charlie Hiser asking if I could make it to the football game that weekend. Charlie has been my buddy since sixth grade, and though it is probably for the best that I cannot find any solid pictures from the early years, here is a good early, appropriate picture of Charlie and Taylor from 2007:

Yes, I could make the game! Just like old times, going with Charlie and his set-dad Jerry, we made the 1 hr drive to Chapel Hill, capitalized on Jerry’s long-time donor status with great parking, and were at the game. UNC basically dominated, but Charlie and I got some great laughs in. It was great to catch up with him. He lives in Chapel Hill now, and though it is close, we haven’t gotten to see each other too often. Maybe more games in the future is the best answer? Anyways, here are some pics:

We saw the basketball team coming in before the game:

Here is a completely unrelated video I wanted to share: Rosie reading to her sister the day before her birthday. Nevermind Rosie’s face: it had facepaint from the Greek festival we attended earlier that day:

And Mercy crushing it on her scooter on a Saturday morning:

Yesterday was Mercy’s third birthday. While thinking about the birthday, Taylor got this notification from a video three years ago that I wanted to share. This is Rosie, the day before she became a big sister.

So what do we do for such a special kid’s third birthday? One thing I admire about Taylor is her ability to not give in to pressure, and keep things simple and manageable. This party was no exception.

She often says, “just do one thing”, and the one thing we did was a balloon-twister for the kids, at a local park.

Instead of inviting our own friends, and Rosie’s friends that we have gotten close with over the years, Mercy’s friends were invited, including her friend Maren that we have heard so much about. Basically, Mercy ignored everyone else and played on the slide with her friend:

They also had their cupcakes together

Thank you to everyone that came. Even though Mercy knocked the cupcakes off the counter 10 minutes before we left the house, the cupcakes were smeared, but remained in the containers. The result was a messy, but still edible, cupcake.

The balloon twister was a lot of fun.

A lot of family and longtime-friends were able to make it. Including Matt, who I have seen once since Christmas.

At home, Rosie read Mercy a special story before we went to bed the night before. The book is “Birthday Monsters” by Sandra Boynton:

Then, as is custom in our house, there were balloons to wake up to:

Finally, the big present, and something we got for free from a neighbor down the street, our own bouncy-house.

So, this is a short post this week. Taylor made it all happen and the way she can put these things together with such grace is pretty cool. Thank you Tay for being such an awesome party-planner/mom/wife, as well as a good employee where you work.

Cobe and Rachael got married in Raleigh this weekend. It was a great wedding, and a wonderful weekend all around.

Rachael looked great, and it was special to hear more about their relationship and lives together.

Cobe is Taylor’s younger cousin, and he just passed the bar this past summer. The Bride, Rachael, is crushing it in data analytics wherever she is working these days (somewhere in Raleigh, I am uncertain where).

We got dressed fancy for the occasion- it had been a while since dressing up in a suit. It seemed like before Covid, so it was hard to tell. Were skinny pants still in style? I wasn’t really sure, but old-reliable gray suit got to make another appearance: this was the free suit I got at my own wedding 13 years ago, and still fits. But, it is getting a little worse-for wear, and might not be completely in style anymore.

Back to the wedding though…

We all clean up pretty nice.

From left: Me, Taylor, Mallory and Dereck (Taylors brother), Grandma Becky, Deborah, and Ted (Taylor’s parents).

What really stood out at the wedding?

Everyone’s answer to this is going to be different.

For me, Cobe is just Taylor little cousin, and one of the “kids” at the beach house every summer for family beach week. This means it is in context of going to and from the sand, ensuring food is available for everyone at the house, etc. Cobe is just a polite, somewhat quiet little cousin.

That’s what made the wedding so special. Hearing from their friends, and listening to the stories about his relationships with his family, and his relationship with Rachael added some meat to the story. We got to hear who Cobe really is: a kind, polite, and it seems above all, humble guy who really is thoughtful about the people that surround him.

Ok, Let’s just look at pictures from the wedding.

The shared iCloud album has several hundred (thousand?) images in it, here are a few that seemed special:

Dereck dancing with his grandmother:

Here is the venue: on the 12th floor of a building in downtown Raleigh:

Kiyoe, I hope you are getting all this- you know more about weddings than anyone else reading this blog.

Cutting the cake:

I got to meet a fan of the blog: Taylor’s cousin, who reads every week.

They did some fun dancing at the end. This video kinda had me laughing as Deborah worked her way through the steps in the electric slide:

Then Ted and Deborah sharing a dance:

Other parts of the weekend

Where the heck are Rosie and Mercy?

The bride and groom had a kid-free weekend for us. Taylor is a VIP for putting everything together for the kids to be taken care of while we were out.

First, they spent time with Grandma (above).

Then, they did a sleepover with their older cousins.

Then, the babysitter came and hung out the last several hours until we got home from the Sunday reception, at around 8:30.

While they were well taken care of, there were the “other” parts of the weekend as well.

The reception was on Sunday, so on Saturday, we did a lunch at the Raleigh Times:

Then, on to watch some Saturday afternoon football games as App State played Eastern Carolina University. We went to Woodys:

The next day ( we went to bed early) Taylor and I did a quick run of 3 miles around downtown:

We stayed at the Downtown Marriot while the Latin Festival was going on:

One thing we learned about the Marriot is that they do offer complimentary toothpaste if you forgot yours. A 0.17 oz container:

The quiet weekend away from kids was 100%; highly recommend.

Dara and Ken, thanks for the awesome weekend. Cobe and Rachael, congrats! Enjoy your honeymoon in Italy! Kenna, woohoo! You made it to the blog!