Category: family

Why is it that the last day before a vacation is the longest day of the year? In just 24 hours we’ll be on our way. I am mostly packed, and the kids are all packed up.. "Can we go now?" The kids are ready now!

Living in a house built in 1871 is fun for a lot of reasons. We love being in a house with history and knowing that many families have raised many kids within it’s walls.

A truly fun thing is finding little bits of evidence of their existence. One of these "discovery" moments is happening as Kristen is busy stripping the final remnents of wallpaper in the house. The dreaded stairwell. You can tell that before they wallpapered, the family let the kids have some fun with pencils. While this isn’t a good influence on the McLane children, it is fun to see their handwriting on the walls. It will be a shame to paint over it!

It’s been a bit of a struggle to get Paul potty trained. He get’s it, but he also has had some setbacks. But I am happy to report that he is doing pretty good. The little guy just has a big hurdle to pass… peeing standing up.

More proof that churches are the hardest places in America to work. Just heard from a friend that his job has been terminated "effective immediately." No chance to say goodbye, no chance to end things nicely, no chance to look for another gig, no chance to… it just sucks.

And people wonder why pastoral staff have so much baggage? Another walking wounded.

So I chickened out. Some friends of ours told us that the drive to Fort Lauderdale would cost us about 24 hours… that so wasn’t happening. So we bit the bullet and bought round trip tickets tonight for the four of us. All in all, with the rental car in Florida and everything else it is still going to be cheaper for us to fly there versus spending 2 days each way driving.

It’s official that we’ll be there from March 30th through April 6th. I can’t wait!

So today the whole family went out and played in the yard a bit. According to the National Weather Service, it is 38 degrees and sunny. I will admit that as I sat in our rocker outside in the sun, I thought about pealing my hoodie. It’s crazy that 38 and sunny feels "hot."

Busy Day While life might be calm now, I have had a crazy and unrestful day. I was at the church at 9:00 to help with the stage remodel. Just like with the office remodel, I wasn’t allowed to do much more than carry stuff. But it was nice to help nonetheless. My skills come into play later with the sound stuff and designing a worship service that will work with the tiny amount of stage equipment we’ll have available.

The old saying is that March comes in like a Lion and leaves like a Lamb. If that is so, I have a couple of things I’d like to do in March. We’ll see how it goes.

• 1. Play golf I’m not talking about at the golf dome, I mean at Romeo Golf Course. I want to play at least 9 holes on my home course before the month is up.

2. Put away the snow stuff I want to put all that crap away, get the lawn mower prepped, and start thinking about landscaping.

3. Open the windows to let in fresh air It’s not that our house isn’t clean, it’s that at this point the air is feeling winterish.

Let’s see how many of these goals get accomplished. We aren’t off to a good start with freezing rain today. But next week is looking like we may see some 40s.

After last weeks running around (I haven’t had a meal home in a week) I will be home or nearly home for the next month. Lord willing, our next significant trip is our vacation at the end of March to Florida. It feels good to know that.

It’s good to be home today. We don’t have any big plans, but it is nice to have a day where I only have a little bit of stuff to do.

Adam: I’ve got some YMX stuff to do today, and I need to get us started on our taxes. How well I planned in 2005 will determine a lot of what we can do money-wise in 2006. I hope that I’ve not messed up like I did in 2004.

Kristen: Kristen is ready to get out of the house. I can just tell! Good news, we’re going out tonight.

Megan: Megan is amazing me with her interest in writing letters and asking how to spell words. We’ve not pushed this and she’s seems interested on her own. One of the funniest things she does right now is when I’m working on the laptop she will often go and grab her "Barbie laptop" and sit and work on it to be like daddy. Megan is also getting good at talking on the phone and coloring in the lines.

Paul: Paul is growing the fastest in the family! (Good to know, eh?) He’s extremely verbal and will tell you exactly what he wants. He’s also doing pretty good with potty training… more exciting for Kristen than for him I think. Paul’s biggest frustration is that he’s 2 and not 4 like Megan. He wants to do everything she can do and sometimes freaks out when he can’t. It’s funny to learn how different Paul is from Megan. He is way more cuddly than Megan has ever been, but he’s also way more physical. One of the great ways he and I communicate is by bumping heads… literally! Unfortunately for Paul, he communicates in this same fashion with hard things like furniture.

Violet: Our friendly cat is ready for Spring. She wants out of the house in the worst possible way but it is too cold. She seems to adjusted to "life with a dog." The big change for her is that she isn’t able to sleep with Kristen and I since Stoney is in the bedroom now. But she has found Megan and Paul to be excellent sleeping partners!

Stoney: Stoney has slowly become part of the family. He still does same bad things every once in a while, but overall he’s a good family dog. He too is ready for Spring so he can be in the yard most of the day instead of in the house. He is obviously in the "hybernation" mode as he sleeps most of the day and is far less active than when it is warm outside. I am sure he is ready for the warm weather so he can play endless ball in the backyard.Now if only he would get along better with the cat. It’s good that he doesn’t try to eat her, but if he would just not chase her we’d be happy.

Marble: The fish swims, we’re happy about that. Best behaved animal in the house!