A Post From the Road

Greetings from the home of Elvis! I am writing this blog post from beautiful (and hot) Memphis, Tennessee.  You probably already knew that Elvis was from Memphis and you have heard of Beale Street, but you probably didn't know that Memphis is also the home of FedEx, The Pink Palace, and Irish Diving Goats.

It has been a week since our last post and some things have happened since then.  I know that you can't wait to get all caught up so without further delay, here's the news.

Last week the boys went back to daycare and day #1 was a bit of an unknown, we really didn't know how they would do but we figured that Eli would be a mess and Kai would be super excited to see his friends because Kai was pretty excited about going back to school before that Monday.  We were a little off with our assumptions.  Eli cried for about 30 seconds and then was playing and getting reacquainted with his friends.  Kai was super clingy to me, he didn't cry but he wasn't happy to be back to school.  As I was leaving the playground where I dropped Kai off, he was standing by himself with his fingers in his mouth (his go-to position when he's uncomfortable).  A couple of boys approached him and asked him to play Avengers.  Kai said no, then looked over at me with the saddest brown eyes ever...ugh!  As I drove away from the parking lot, I looked at the playground and Kai hadn't moved, he was standing there all by himself in the middle of the playground with his hands in his mouth..sad daddy.

The rest of the week was filled with a lot of shorter days for the boys at daycare.  Kai went to school late on Tuesday because of swim lessons and both boys left early from school for Kai's karate class.  Wednesday was a pretty full day for them.  On Thursday I picked them up a little early and we went to Forest Park to play for a while.  We played until a huge thunderstorm came and chased us away from the park.  In a drought filled year, we haven't been chased indoors many times and the boys really liked experiencing the big rain, lightning, and thunder from the comfort of our car.

Here are some pictures of the boys enjoying their time at the park.

This weekend was my dad's "cousin camp" family reunion.  Dad has a bunch of 1st cousins and they are all really good friends so they get together every year at Uncle Gary's farm in Montpelier, Ohio.  Since we were going to make the trek to Northwest Ohio, we also went to see Stephanie's folks in Bowling Green.

On Saturday night, Grandpa Eridon, Kai, and I went up to 5/3 stadium in Toledo to watch the future Tigers (Mudhens) play the future Pirates (Indianapolis Indians) in a doubleheader.  We only made one game, which the home team won, but we had a great time.

Here is Kai with Muddy, the Mudhens boy mascot.  The Hens also have a girl mascot, here name is Muddonna...

Bright and early Monday morning it was off to Memphis for work for a few days and that is where I am writing this blog post.  Memphis is an interesting place, downtown mostly closes down by 6 and the only area that's open is Beale Street. I will be down here a few more times so maybe I'll discover more of the area and find some stuff to do while I'm here.

Here is a shot of Beale Street at dusk. 

I can't wait to get home, I miss my family.

My husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey. - Proverbs 7:19

The Final Weekend & 1st Day Back to School

The boys went back to daycare today.  It was pretty surreal and they did fine but today definitely didn't go the way that we expected it to go. 

We woke the boys up a little earlier than we had been getting them up and fed them breakfast.  Stephanie left a while before us boys did so she could swing by their school and drop off all of their extra outfits and stuff that they need to have.  Kai had been pretty excited about going back to school and Eli was a tough read but you could tell he knew something was about to change as he became a little extra cuddly and whiny as today got closer and closer.

When we got to school Eli was pretty relaxed but Kai wasn't doing nearly as well.  Kai had a death grip on my legs and wouldn't let go for anything.  He wouldn't talk to anyone, even his old teachers that were so glad to see him. Eli cried when I handed him off to his teacher but stopped crying after about a minute and started playing.  When I left Kai he wanted several hugs, then a couple of boys came and asked him to play Avengers with them, he said no.  I left him in the middle of the playground and when I drove away he was still standing in the same place with his fingers in his mouth (his "go to" stance when he is uncomfortable / scared / nervous).  Daddy was sad.

Our final weekend before sending the boys back to daycare was pretty awesome except Steph had to work all day on Saturday.  Although the Lesnet family was down one, we still had a good time.  Us boys went up to Forrest Park where we played on the playground(s), rode the casserole, and played mini golf.  After the park, the boys went to lunch at Chipotle.  We came home after that and the boys took a nap / quiet time while I made a side dish for a get together with the McGriffs that evening.  I made a super simple rice and beans dish on our rice cooker, it was posted online by a college dude (yes, I used a recipe from a college boy that lives in a dorm) who makes it in his dorm room...so its easy (and delicious), check it out here.

Sunday we went to the last ever service at Genesis Church while it was still 1 church in 1 location.  Next Sunday, the Carmel campus has its "soft launch" so we kind of officially become 1 church in 2 locations.  For the 1st service, Stephanie and I assembled food bags for Kids Against Hunger, which is super fun so if you get a chance to do it, you will have a blast.  Genesis filled over 31k bags of food to feed the hungry here in the US and in Haiti...cool!

After church, I took Kai to the golf course while Eli took a nap.  I have been thinking of getting Kai some golf lessons and asked one of the assistant golf pros at Pebble Brook Golf Course (where we are members) if he had some time to spend with Kai.  Jake is a lefty like Kai is a lefty so I thought he would be the perfect pro to give Kai some pointers.  Jake agreed and gave Kai a great lesson where Kai did everything that Jake asked him to do.  Kai added about 20 yards to his driver and about 15 yards to his irons in the 20 minute lesson.  Then the 3 of us took it to the course where Jake continued to coach Kai in both the long game and the short game.  Kai had so much fun playing golf with Jake and getting better.  We will most definitely be getting some more lessons with Jake this year.

After golf we took the boys to the shoe store because their shoes seemed small.  Both of them have been in the same sized shoes for a long time (Kai about 9 months and Eli about 6 months), we have had them measured from time to time but those feet just weren't growing.  The rest of them were sure growing though...amazing how big they are now!  Anyway, Kai's feet grew 2 full sizes from an 11.5 to a 13.5 and Eli's feet grew a size and a half from 5.5 to 7...whoa!

There you have it, the last weekend of The Daddy Experiment and a recap of their first day back to school. 

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. - Matthew 7:24

Screeching Halt

The plan for the "Daddy Experiment" was to pull the boys out of daycare for the summer and let them play with dad all day.  In the fall we were planning to re-evaluate whether we would send the boys back to daycare or if we would continue on with my current role of full-time dad and part-tme consultant.  We are a little less than half way through the summer and it appears that the experiment is going to meet an early conclusion.

A couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from a heavy hitter in the airline consulting business asking me if I would be interested in helping a regional airline with their major airline commercial relationships.  I did this for 11 years when I worked at Republic Airways so it is something that I am good at and something that not a lot of other "free agents" have a lot of knowledge of.  The company reached out to me a couple of days later, flew me down to meet with them, and hired me on the spot.  This is neat opportunity that I am excited about and I am going to be able to do much of the work from my home office here in Indy.

Here are some of the highlights with photos of the past couple of weeks!

The boys learned a lot of good skills while hanging out with daddy.  They have become great at helping cook, clean up, and mowing the lawn. Now that daddy is going to be working (and some of it from the home office), it looks like it will be up to me to do these chores again.

Although the Daddy Experiment is coming to an end, it doesn't mean that summer is already over.  We let the boy stay up super duper late on the 4th of July to check out the fireworks.  We went to the show up in Westfield.  Here is a picture of mommy with her sons waiting for the fireworks to start.

Track season is mostly over.  At least it's over for me as none of the athletes that I coached made it to the national meet in the events that I coached.  Since there is only 9 athletes still competing, we had our year end awards program.  Here is Kai with his training group and his coaches, Coach Jason and Coach Paul.

In the past couple of weeks, we have also been to several parks (of course traveling by bike trailer), the zoo, the golf course, swimming lessons, and karate class.

Staying home with the boys has been a huge blessing to me but I believe that it has been an even bigger deal to the boys.  They have never been able to spend this much time together and watching them bond has been amazing.  Kai is such a good big brother and Eli is very patient with Kai's demanding personality.  They hold hands whenever we go out and about and give each other hugs when the other one is sad (usually Eli hugging Kai).

Kai has been wanting to play golf every day lately.  He loved golf last year but this year when I would ask him about golf, he would tell me that he didn't want to play and that golf is boring.  For some reason, he changed his mind lately and has fallen in love with it again.  In the past, we would just have him hit a shot when daddy hit one so he would tee off with me, then pick up his ball and drop it and hit a second shot when I hit mine and so on until we got to the green and Kai would putt.  Lately, he started asking about his score and I couldn't really give him an answer so we have started having him tee off from wherever my first shot lands (or the closest tees on par 3's).  When playing this way, he gets about the same score that I do...he's pretty good (and I'm not).

So, the Daddy Experiment ends on Monday (7/16) and the part-time consultant transitions to full-time.  It is with some strong mixed emotions that we end this chapter of our lives.  Being a full-time dad was the best "job" ever and being paid with lots of hugs and kisses is so much better than money.  Although I loved the full-time dad job, I believe that at this point I am the best dad I can be when I have a good balance of professional time and daddy time.  I guess we'll find out if I'm right.

I told them, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver. - Zechariah 11:12