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Time flies when you are having fun and the incredibly fun twelve years with my beautiful wife has been a flash! It is hard to believe that its been well over a decade since I made one of the best decisions of my life and said “I do” to the one God sent me. Several jobs, four houses, one weenie dog, and three incredible kids later, we are still going strong…by the grace of God.

I could not have asked for a better person to share my life with and I tell her that often.

To celebrate, we got to escape on an extended weekend to what is becoming a favorite spot in Galveston. And thanks to Mom and Jim, we were kid free. (not that they would not have been fun to have along…but you married-with-children people know what I am talking about.)

For Kara and I, the road trip is part of the fun. We listen to music (I created our very own playlist with lots of They Might Be Giants), laugh at each other, stop for Blizzards, and even stop for Disc Golf when I can talk her into it.

To get to Crystal Beach where we stay, we take a ferry across the Galveston shipping channel. This is such a unique and fun experience. We even got to see more bottle nosed dolphins arching out of the water on our ferry ride across.

Here is my lovely bride taking in the sites…she’s my beautiful girl.

I could not pass up this sunset behind the ferry’s Texas flag.

While we were at the beach, we splashed in the large waves, sat and read magazines and fought the wind. (I have pictures on my other camera to share later.) We also spent some time in the house…watching the Olympics, of course.

As you can see, the wind was in our faces as we went back across to Galveston to end the trip. But the gales could not put a damper on our relaxing and fun trip…and such is life: we have had our share of “windy days” but the sun keeps shining and God keeps taking good care of us. I cannot wait for many more years!

This past weekend was full of fun times.

I played in a disc golf tourney in Cedar Hill.

The course is very challenging with thick trees and a pond that comes into play.

There is actually a family of beavers that have build a house in the pond. See the white mound in the picture above.

Unfortunately, I did not shoot well and ended up way down the list.

Despite some frustration, I did have a fun time.

Saturday evening, we had a party for my good friend Jeremy Haile. He recently graduated from Law school…quite an accomplishment after years of very hard work. Here are some pictures from the party.

A great time was had by all. Congrats Jeremy!

This was our view from the lakehouse that we recently rented on Lake Travis near Austin for the Parker family’s summer trip. An absolute blast was had by all.

We spent much time on a rented deck boat which was perfect for cruising, swimming and even dragging the kids around on the tube and the knee board.

Ashton got into the knee boarding action and was happy as could be.

Even Parker braved the waves and took a spin behind the boat. Thank you to Uncle Pete for coaching Parker on the proper technique.

Reese and Parker also had fun just riding along on the boat.

Then, of course, there was the fishing. Zach brought his fishing boat and was nice enough to take me along on a couple of fishing trips. I did actually catch some fish which is a welcome change for me.

The kids had their fill of Perch fishing around the dock as well. (Somehow I didn’t get any pictures of that…might been all the worms I was putting on and all the fish I was taking off.)

In all, we had a safe, smooth and very fun trip with the Parkers. BIG thank you to Grandad and Granny and Pops and Nana for making the trip possible for us all.

I got my iPhone last week and I am geeked in every sense of the term. Today, I downloaded an application to allow me to post to my blog from my phone. For those of us who are geeks… wow.

BIG thank you to my cousin Will for upgrading my blog to allow for this posting.

As you can see, my site is under construction a bit.

This is a test post.

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Wyatt returned safely home from his trip to Colorado last night.

He and his cousin Soren (9) got to fly by themselves to see their Aunt Danna (Kara’s sister) and Uncle Trey (Danna’s husband) who live in Denver, CO. While they were there, they got to do the following:

- Go to a huge water park
- Go white water rafting down some fast Colorado River rapids
- Go tent camping in the Colorado Rockies
- Hike up a mountain
- Play with big dogs
- Play lots of video games
- Oh, and fly on a plane without their moms and dads

They had a wonderful time and are already counting down the days until they get to go again.

Thank you SO much to Trey and Danna for making our kids feel so welcome and have so much fun.

While the older kids were gone, we flip-flopped younger kids between Pete and Sara’s house, Zach and Jodi’s house, and our house. The kids had a blast with their cousins for those days. They played so hard that every down moment was a potential nap time.

After one hard-playing day, I took this picture with my phone of Reese sleeping in the van.

Next week, we go to Lake Travis for the Parker Lakehouse trip.

We had a great time on our lakehouse trip over the Fourth of July weekend.

Since the trip is a long time in the car, we usually stop at a swimming hole water park in Little Rock on the way. (previous post) But since Wyatt had a large gash on his face (see below) we did not want to torture him by making him sit and watch us swim. Instead, we stopped at Burns Park in North Little Rock.

The kids loved climbing on this huge tank.

This is a large park with beautiful pine trees and lots for kids to do. (Did I mention that there is a disc golf course there too?)

While at the park, we stumbled upon an old, defunct water slide facility. The door was open so we investigated and when we did, a flood of memories came back to me. When I was a kid, I used to travel to Little Rock to hang out with my cousins for a week or so. My Aunt Jeanne (the same one that owns the lakehouse to which we are traveling) took us around to fun places in Little Rock. One such place was a park with twisting, concrete water slides. The defunct slides were the same slides I had visited long ago! I took lots of pictures and will post them some other time but the memories were so cool.

As we continued the long car trip, the kids enjoyed watching movies to pass the time.

(click to see the bandage on Wyatt’s face)

We got closer to the lakehouse and the sky grew darker. We ended up driving through some pretty heavy rain for the last hour or so but made it to our destination safely.

It was a bummer that, for most of the first day, there was rain. My mom had planned a really cool event - a treasure hunt complete with pirate outfits for the kids.

Parker Pirate

Arr Ashton

My mom drew a red train-track cut on Wyatt’s bandage…and, of course, a mustache on his lip.

This is my cousin’s daughter Ginny…as a pirate.

My task was to draw a treasure map.

The thrill of the hunt.

X, as a matter of fact, did mark the spot. “The Spot” contained lots of toys, some money, and new goggles. The treasure hunt was a great time for the kids while we were stuck indoors.

One more picture of Parker inside the house because I can’t resist the cuteness:

He and Ginny had a great time together.

Thankfully, the rain passed and we got some great lake weather.

Cut notwithstanding, Wyatt could not resist the lake activities. Above is him on the knee board.

Here is Wyatt and Jacob on the tube and ready to go.

He also jumped off the cliffs. Since the lake was very high, the highest cliff was only about 10 feet high. Still, the force of the jump made his cut start to bleed a bit…ouch! Again, he was a trooper as we sat on the boat together watching the other kids go. Even Parker jumped off a smaller cliff.

If you squint, you can see Kara and Parker at the top of the cliffs in the picture above.

All the other kids had a blast in the water as well.

Wyatt, Ashton, Parker and Jacob (my cousin’s other child)

Aunt Cilla, baby Carter, Parker and Ginny

Parker loved the boat.

Just before we left, Wyatt and Jacob pledged to wear the “disguises” that they had won in my mom’s bingo game the night before until they saw each other again…that lasted about 20 minutes. It did look funny while he was wearing it though.

We had a wonderful and safe time with my family and loved all the activities as usual. Thank you to my Uncle Les and Aunt Jeanne for inviting us and making us feel so welcome!

Next up, the story of Wyatt’s trip to Denver…stay tuned.

This past Monday night, we had three of the kid’s 4 cousins at our house to spend the night.

Wyatt and Soren wanted to climb the tree in our backyard but cannot reach the bottom branches. I made the now infamous decision to put a step ladder out there to ease their ascent. As I watched them climb up and into the tree, I knew they were going to have fun. I guess they did for a few minutes until they attempted to get down.

Soren came down first just fine but when Wyatt tried to step on the ladder from the tree, the ladder went out from under his feet. He lost his grip on the tree and fell onto the ladder. Unfortunately, the lower part of his face hit a sharp edge of the ladder pretty hard and he got cut pretty badly.

A head wound bleeds a lot. A two inch gash from the chin up the jawbone hurts a lot. Wyatt was crying, Soren was upset, Kara almost lost it, Ashton did lose it, Parker didn’t know what to think. Hysteria doesn’t really help in these situations so I tried to calm everyone as best as I could without getting hysterical myself. I had Kara get a towel and an ice pack and we loaded up to go to the emergency clinic.

Wyatt had to get three dissolvable stitches inside the wound but the excellent doctor was able to use a product called Durabond on the external part of the cut. This is basically glorified superglue that is safe for wounds. Because of this, the doctor believes, and we are praying for a minimal scar.

Through it all, Wyatt was an incredibly strong trooper. I think I saw three tears even when he was getting the deadening shot. While it is certainly okay to show emotion, I was proud of how he kept himself in control.

Obviously, I have no pictures of the incident to post now. I will, however take some pictures on our lake trip that begins tomorrow (7/3) and I am sure you will be able to see the band-aids in the pictures.

We are thankful to you for all the prayers and well-wishes. God is in control and we trust him for all things. We know Wyatt will be just fine.

This weekend was the Play It Again Sports Open (PIASO) in Crowley, Texas.

The format of the tournament was unique in that we played two rounds of 30 holes. Typically, the big tournaments are four rounds of 18 or 21 holes. Apparently, last year’s PIASO was too long in the hot Texas sun and thus, the shorter format.

The other unique aspect of the weekend was that the groups of golfers all started their rounds on hole one at certain tee times. Most tournaments are shotgun starts where players start at different holes of the course. This was nice because I got to sleep in but it also meant that I was stranded in Crowley from 4pm on Saturday until 11:30 am on Sunday. This would have been plenty of time to drive home but the 106 mile round trip at $3.95 per gallon had me looking for other options.

Thankfully, my brother and sister-in-law Pete and Sara live exactly 8 miles from the course. They were going to be out of town camping for the weekend but they graciously offered their house to me. Turns out they did come home on Saturday night around midnight but still insisted that I sleep in their bed. I resisted but they would not take ‘no’ for an answer. Thank you guys SO much for the place to crash!

As for the tournament, I had a bit of a rough first day…9 bogeys with only 3 birdies. What saved me was that I did not have a single double bogey on the day. Also, I finished with 8 straight pars…consistent, yes. After day one, I was 6 over par, tied for 12th place, and in the money.

Day two played from shorter tee boxes but they had their challenges. I was somewhat erratic with my throws and went out of bounds a couple of times resulting in 2 double bogeys for the round…ouch. I did put together some nice holes to obtain 10 birdies including the last two holes which played 345 and 330 feet respectively. I finished the round at 5 under par…an 11 shot swing from the day before.

I finished the tournament tied for 7th place in my division winning $30 worth of merchandise.

Click the picture for a larger size.

In all, it was a fun and challenging course on a very warm weekend but a GREAT time. Chances are good that I will play this one again next year. Next time I hope to bring my family along with me.

On a recent visit to the Pop’s and Nana’s house, Parker wanted to dress up like his cousins.

I don’t think pink is his color.

Look at that snarky look on his face.

I think he’s pretty cute even with a dress on. But Molly Ringwald, he ain’t!