7

This guy turned 7 today....

Tomorrow, he and I are going on our annual father-son "Men's" overnight trip.  This is the trip where we do whatever Ev wants.  So far, the only thing on the agenda is eating ice cream and ordering room service.  In preparation for such a manly outing, neither one of us shaved our faces this week...and we were both equally successful at growing a decent beard. 

It's the Thought

Meggan sent a bouquet of cookies to my office for my birthday.  While I absolutely love the thought and appreciate the effort, I wish the cookie company delivered it as a bouquet instead of 5 sticks and a pile of cookies.

40

I turned 40 yesterday.  I know, I can't believe it either.  40 is the age where old people say "You're in for the best years.  You're finally starting to figure out what life's all about" and young people say "Bro, you need to start checking off items from your bucket list soon".  I suppose time will tell which perspective is correct.  For now, I'm going to enjoy today, I'll tally up the scores in another 40 years. 

Real Woman

My truck has a large sunroof that the kids want open as often as possible. This led to the following conversation this morning...

Amelia: Daddy, will you open the sunroof

Me: Not a chance

Amelia: Why not? I want it open!

Me: I do too...but, not when it's 39 degrees outside.

Amelia: Well, I still want it open.

Me:  Why would I open it on a day like this???

Amelia:  Because I'm tough and I'm not afraid of cold air.  I'm a real woman. 

Everett:  A real woman wouldn't want to freeze her butt off. That's a dumb woman. A real woman wouldn't want to open the sunroof just to try to look cool. 

Me: Tell her, son. 

Amelia: Shut up, Everett. 

She then rolled down her window and proceeded to freeze us.  I'm not sure where Ev got his knowledge of women or keeping it real, but I know where Amelia lost her good sense....staying up until after midnight last night at a sleepover.  The girl needs her rest or she turns into a mean drunk. 

Decade

I looked back at the first time I posted on this blog.  It was January 6th, 2009.  Here we sit almost exactly 10 years later.  It's hard to believe I've been posting on here for a quarter of my life.  It's had its period of strong posts and weak posts (generally coinciding with the demands of my actual career).  It's had happy posts, funny posts, and occasionally sad posts.  I've had times where I thought about redesigning it, adding various forms of content, and trying to generate readership.  I've had far more times where I've thought about stopping the posts altogether.  Then, Meggan and I will spend a night clicking through posts about toddler Amelia,  sweet little Sophie, and baby Everett.  In those nights, I'm reminded of why we have it in the first place. As I've said on here before, it's not a blog.  It's a 2,500+ page memory book for our family.  It's like the old grandparent who sits around the fireplace telling stories of days gone by...only this grandparent never forgets.  It's been a wonderful 10 years and I hope I'm blessed enough to post for another 10. 

Pizza Monsters

These two don't eat much, but when they decide they're in the mood, look out.  Yesterday, Everett told me he was going to "terrorize some pizza"....and then he and Amelia both ate 7 slices each (for reference of slice size, I ate 4)....

Lessons Learned

While we were really sad that Grandma couldn't make the trip, we were happy to still get to see Grandpa this weekend.  I think it was an especially fun time for Everett as he and Grandpa traded expertise...

Grandpa taught Everett a few tricks from his youth...

And Everett repaid the favor by mercilessly beating Grandpa at Nintendo while dancing and talking trash the whole time....