family

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Dear Holly: You’re Around Here Somewhere

8 years, 4 months.

Dear Holly,

With Aunt Dana and Uncle Andrew living on the same street as us, it is now a common occurrence that I don’t necessarily know where you are sometimes, I just know that you are A) being well taken care of and B) having fun, whatever you are doing.

Earlier this week while Mommy and I were still working, Aunt Dana started sending me pictures of you and your cousin Darla at what I now know is called “Cook With a Book”.

Only just now as I am writing this, I learned it was hosted by the local high school FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America); collaborated with the local elementary school library.

You had a great time… even if I didn’t know where you were or what you were doing at the time.

And that’s one of the many reasons I love living here in Alabama.

There’s always something unique going on- and we never have to pay to park!

 

Love,

Daddy

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The Renovations are Now Completed on Our Alabama Home

Fact #1: Moving your family to another state is stressful.

Fact #2: Remodeling a house is stressful.

Fact #3: Trying to do those two things while keeping the budget as low as possible is stressful.

I feel like Andy Bernard in The Office when he declared, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life. I haven’t had a very hard life.”

As of today, Labor Day 2024, we have now lived in Alabama for 100 days; which is how long it took living here for our home renovations to finally be considered “complete”.

I can feel it. I feel the relief, as well as the amazing sense of accomplishment, that as a family, we collectively remodeled the 28 year-old house we bought, and just as my wife aspired it to be:

“Like a cute farmhouse”.

Right now I’m thinking of a certain scene from the movie, “Meet the Parents”…

Well that’s how I feel about shiplap.

It is official:

Anything in our home that could be “shiplapped”, has been now been shiplapped.

Our kitchen ceiling. Our master bathroom ceiling. The kids’ bathroom wall.

I’m also now in on a home renovation secret: Not only does nailing up boards make them look “like a cute farmhouse”, but they also are probably covering up something not so cute and farmhousey behind them.

There is no question: This entire process has been a complete family effort. And when I say “family”, I mean my parents, as well as my sister’s family.

It took all took of us working and sacrificing most of this year to get where we are now.

We spent spring break this year basically gutting the house; taking out the cabinets and the ripping up the floors ourselves, to prepare the contractors to install the new ones.

Once all that was completed, then we had to build new door frames and baseboards.

Even as I’m describing it, I feel a little guilty using the word “we”, when I was simply the assistant. Without my family, I would have no idea what to do!

So yeah, I guess it’s important to realize that this entire process had indeed been stressful. However, I am now living inside the reward.

For me, it’s much more that my wife’s vision of making this home beautiful.

What has been my inspiration has been to set up a warm and welcoming home environment to raise my family and to welcome guests.

I love that our home is one story and has an open lay-out. I feel like our family is closer because of it.

While there while always be some kind of upcoming renovation on our home, our family can now live in the reality that a new level has been unlocked:

Cute farmhouse.

 

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Dear Holly: Picture Day for 3rd Grade

8 years, 3 months.

Dear Holly,

Last week Mommy had to spend a few days working in Nashville, which meant it was just you and me and your brother here at the house.

We managed fine, until realizing Friday was picture day at school.

Fortunately, Aunt Dana volunteered to get you all fixed up; in addition to taking you and your brother to school each day.

I just dropped you off at her house about 15 minutes early and she gave you what I call “the beauty pageant treatment”.

That’s one of the many benefits of living 0.2 miles from family.

We are definitely not used to that. We used to be nearly 3 hours away from family.

Now we live on the same street!

Love

Daddy

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My Mother-in-Law Came to Visit Our New Home in Alabama

In July, we spent our summer vacation on the Oregon coast; where we celebrated my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday.

Now, a month later, she spent some time at our new home in Alabama. She flew all the way out here from the Sacramento area, on the other side of the country.

I always enjoy her being around. She and I clearly both have the “can’t sit still” gene. We can certainly relate to each other.

As a passive viewer of every episode of every “house hunting” show on HGTV and Roku (because, you know, my wife…), I have always openly mocked the husband and wife as they say, “Oh, this would make a good space for entertaining guests…”

My immediate response to the TV is always, “Yeah right! You are not going to be entertaining guests! That’s just staged footage at the end of each episode that you set up for the camera crew and then you never have anybody over after that!”

I am quite passionate (and skilled) at heckling reality shows: “Really? You just conveniently saw three houses, made an offer on one that the two of you just happened to say the name of at the exact same time and then you were able to buy that house before somebody else made an offer?!”

Now that I think of it, why does my wife keep inviting me to watch these shows with her?

The funny thing is, the entire time we have been in the renovation process (which we are technically almost done with any day now), I have kept telling my wife, “It is very important to me that we host family and friends for meals together.”

So it makes me happy that we’ve already been able to do that, as we had my side of the family over while my mother-in-law was here. We are actually “entertaining guests”!

As I’ve said before, we are aspiring to live a quiet life here in Alabama.

To be able to have my mother-in-law fly across the country from her home near Sacramento to stay with us… to see her and my wife catching up on the back porch as the sun is doing down… that is the quiet life I came here for.

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Dear Jack: You’ve Decided to Play Football

13 years, 8 months.

Dear Jack,

Within the first couple of days of 8th grade at your new school in Alabama, you were approached by some of your new friends, as well as the coach, to play on the football team.

You instantly decided that is what you are going to do.

So I took you to Hibbett Sports to let you pick out some cleats and a solid mouth guard.

Naturally, for the mouth guard, you chose one that is sour watermelon Warheads flavored.

(Because that is a thing that actually exists.)

I did my best to turn you into a guitar-playing songwriter like me.

It just didn’t stick.

Sure, play football instead.

 

Love,

Daddy