Category: family

  • A little thing I love about Romeo

    Now that we’ve lived here on Bailey Street about a year, I know what I like and don’t like. Two things worth mentioning that I love about where we live.

    1. We’re right in the village. When we were looking at houses we looked at stuff all over the Romeo School district. In our school district you can be in the village, in a subdivision, in the country, or "way out in the country." I think we looked at a little of each but we kept saying… "we want to be in the village." We looked real hard for a few weeks and then had to stop because I was going on a mission trip. Then one day Kristen sent me an email that I opened in an Internet cafe` in Fivemiletown, Northern Ireland. It was the listing of our house with the note "I think this is the one I want, I job by it every day and pray that God would let us buy it." It was clear that Kristen wanted this house and we decided to buy it before we were finished looking at the yard. We knew it was a perfect place to entertain and we knew it had all the things we were looking for. While it is sometimes a distraction, I love being "in town."
    2. Fred’s Market. It’s the traditional corner store. The store has been in the village "for ever" and it’s a lot of fun to see that it is still alive and thriving in the days of Meijer and Wal*Mart. I love nothing more than walking with the kids there, talking to Paul (the owner) and picking up something for my kids. He knows our name, we know his, and it’s just a great small town thing. At first, I wondered how he stayed in business at all. But after living near it for about a year I know he does a brisk business in liquor and lottery sales. He has loyal customers and there is almost always someone in there. I think Fred’s is most memorable to me for it’s hospitality. When I’ve dashed over there before he closes he’s often joked, "I’ll leave you the key." I think he’s joking but at the same time I have no doubt Paul would really give us the key if we needed it.

  • Megan is in school

    Peach_fest_049Tuesday, Megan began Kindergarten. As a parent, this is pretty hard to swallow. All the emotions of her growing up seem to well up as the reality of her not being a baby anymore slaps you in the face. In the days leading up to school starting I was pretty bummed out. But on Tuesday I was actually quite excited for her.

    She didn’t have to be to the school until something like 10:45 AM. But she was awake and ready to go before 8:00 AM. She paced and paced and was having a hard time being patient.

    Peach_fest_041Today marks the 3rd day of school for her. She is quickly falling into the routine of it and seems to love everything about it. Her teacher seems really nice. I look forward to this year being a positive experience for Megan and her learning a lot.

    It’s kind of weird. You are standing there in line, waiting to drop your kid off, when it hits you. Megan will know some of these kids for the next 13 years of school.

  • Another sign of winter

    Econoheatpanel_1I ordered another Econo-Heat panel for Paul’s room. We only had one last winter and I wanted to make sure we keep Paul nice and toasty in his room. The one in Megan’s room was fantastic last winter… so I think it’s worth the money. I read a bunch of flaming bad reviews online of these, mostly by people who sell furnaces or install more expensive systems… but here are the "pluses" for me.

    1. You can turn them on and off. We don’t run it very much, so you can control how much money you spend on that room. By running the furnace to the kid’s rooms we wouldn’t have that control. (Well, if I upgraded the whole house to a zoned heating system… but that’s oodles of money)
    2. Easy to install.
    3. Very safe. Unlike most space heaters, these aren’t going to burn you if you touch them. Since it’s mounted to the wall I don’t have to worry about it tipping over or anything either.
    4. No brainer installation. I can’t lie, this is a factor for me. I’m not the handiest person and the world and I love that I can take it out of the box and put it on the wall without a problem.

  • A New Diagnosis

    Mclane_spring_022
    We finally have a name for what our little Paulie does. When he is pinching everyone, getting on his sisters nerves, disagreeable to his dad, and says "Go away from me" to the world Paul is suffering from PNS. (Pre-Nap Syndrome)

    Today I am suffering from NNS. (No-Nap Syndrome) It barely seems like a Sunday at all if I can’t catch a couple Z’s in the afternoon. Oh well.

  • Back to the fall routine

    With cool temperatures rising in Romeo and excuses fading away, we began our fall clean-up today. I popped several tylenol before doing this… Wow, my back is sore from all the painting at church this week. But I had to get to work nonetheless. I hope I can sleep better tonight.

    Today, I climbed the nasty tree in our side yard and sawed off some limbs. The largest one, about 8-9 inches thick, scared the tar out of me as fell. There were a few things I thought may happen… most of which would result in my death… but nothing bad happened. It did make quite a SNAP as it fell to the ground though which brought Kristen running to the window.

    Next big project, getting a few more coats of mud on the kitchen walls.

    p.s. Man, it was cold today. What’s up with that?

  • No more Dave-ness

    Well, he’s gone. The party ended about 5:00 PM as we left Dave at the security check point. The whole way there and even seeing him start to say goodbye to a lot of people didn’t make it set in… but at the airport it started to hit us. As we said our final goodbyes and he got in line, reality hit our little group hard.

    As we sadly and silently worked our way back to the van I held Megan’s hand tightly. Whereas she had been playing and singing only a few minutes before, she walked quietly and hugged my leg as I paid for the parking. The silence continued as we left the parking lot and headed onto the highway.

    It was superficial, but I decided that we needed to break the mood a little. So we stopped at Ikea on the way home to try to chear everyone up. It worked a little and superficially.

    What an incredible experience for Dave and our little church! As we talked earlier in the day it was clear we would give him an "A" for his internship. He worked very hard. He was stretched in a lot of areas in his life. He stretched us. On and on and on. It was a great experience. Perhaps this was some of the reason we were having such a hard time leaving him? At some point along the way he stopped being an intern and starting being part of our church. Likewise, he had stopped being a guest in our home and had become a part of the family.

    Something else really hard to watch: I can’t tell a lie. Some of the pain of dropping off Dave had nothing to do with him. As he made his way through the security checkpoint (Big mistake making him take off his shoes… Nacho cheese!) there was a young soldier on his way back somewhere. Proudly wearing his uniform, this massive young man was having a very hard time leaving. He carried his 2 week old baby around and couldn’t bear letting her go. As he tried to say goodbye he started weeping. (This greatly accelerated the tears in the concourse as well! We didn’t even know the guy.) He took his baby girl into the security checkpoint with him, the tears flowing freely as the reality of leaving his wife and newborn daughter behind. He simply didn’t want to give her back. The reality of life was calling him and he couldn’t bear it. For me, it was a huge reminder of the daily sacrifices young men like him make on a daily basis. Likewise, all over this country thousands of young moms take care of babies wondering when or if daddy will be home. While I am excited of the work our troops are doing in the Middle East, it isn’t free.

  • Last Day for Dave

    Today is the last Sunday for our intern Dave. He’ll be playing in the services as well as the Bonfire tonight. I’ll have more thoughtful and complete reflections some other time… it’s just not easy to see him go when we’re really just getting used to having him here.

    As a houseguest, he doesn’t seem like a houseguest. We’ve never had someone here long term… so I have expected a Kato Kaelin experience.

    Of course… he did disappear for about 24 hours. But, unlike Violet, he came back. Some kind of crazy story about girls taking him all over. I’m just glad he didn’t elope or something!

  • Morning Rituals

    Every morning in our house is nearly the same. About 7 o’clock my alarm goes off. The alarm is quickly snoozed… 9 more minutes please. When I finally wake up enough to be coherent, I discover that Kristen is generally off jogging somewhere. Before my first snooze alarm, Paul crawls into bed with his blanket and a stuffed animal.

    The alarm goes off again. Snoozed. The alarm goes off again. Snoozed. Paul lays quietly in Kristen’s spot while I enjoy the fleeting, alarm interrupted, sleep. This is when Megan bursts through the doors wide awake. Each morning she hits the floor sprinting downstairs. When she sees that all is quiet in mom and dads room, she just jumps in bed and pretends to sleep in the morning light.

    A few minutes later and the door opens. "Mommy!" The kids pretend to hide in our bed until Kristen opens the bedroom door. Megan gets snuggles and Paul says "Mommy, what can I eat?" We all chuckle because we know the only reason Paul doesn’t sleep all day is that the boy needs to eat.

    Before the alarm goes off the 4th time, the light usually comes on and our day begins.

  • On Coming Home

    We just returned back from a trip to Michigan’s Adventure and canoeing. Here’s my thought on coming home.

    The only thing more exciting about going on a trip is coming home from one.

  • Bonfire and other notes

    Bonfire
    Yesterday we hosted the church’s Bonfire at our house. Bonfire is Romeo’s Sunday evening informal worship thing. We sit around the campfire and praise God. Last night, Dave and I led a Throne Room concert of prayer. I think it went pretty well. We had a good number of people show up too. Not that numbers mean a lot, but I think the central location attracted a maximum amount of people.

    We did things a little different overall last night… and I think it all worked. We had Tom and Betsy Kraemer with us, they are Romeo missionaries to Kenya. They did some leading of prayer time and some readings. It was a cool way to integrate them into what we are doing. I’ve talked to plenty of missionaries who really long to minister while on home assignment, it was my pleasure to facilitate that… and they did a great job.

    Bonfire1
    We also had a special time of saying goodbye (see you later, more like) to the Gschmeidler’s. They are headed out west to California. It’s been a long process for them as they heard God’s calling but kind of wanted to stay here. I’m really going to miss Glenn and Julie… they were some of the first friends we made here in Romeo.

    • Dave is going to avoid Chris Tomlin songs for a while. Somehow, he messed up "Not to Us" while leading worship yesterday at church. It really wasn’t a big deal, but I could tell he was pretty upset with himself.
    • Megan is a soccer star. At least for this week. She’s joined a soccer clinic this week. As I was a soccer kid, this is really exciting for me.
    • Softball is over.
    • Violet never came back. For now at least, we’re a dog family instead of a dog and cat family. I’m really bummed about this and I’m still holding out hope that she’ll come home.
    • One more day until Paul’s 3rd birthday. He’s very excited about his party at Pump it Up. He and about 15 friends will be bouncing up a storm. It’s a frog theme… since we’ve always called him "Paulie-wog."