The Logan Family

Tag: Dance

  • Dance dad, mancala, and prayer

    Dance dad, mancala, and prayer

    Dance Dad

    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 from 8th 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.

  • Dancing days, and Luke’s things

    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.