The road to....

.....Iowa????

Yep, that 's right. We are taking the family on a well-deserved, and well-needed little vacation. It's Iowa, can we really call it a vacation?

We are actually driving down to talk with the Pastor that married us when we were younger and in better shape. My wife grew up with him and his wife, so they are all too weird when they get together. Reminiscing over different things while I sit back and wonder whether there is a baseball game on somewhere that I could be watching. Don't get me wrong, they are absolutely wonderful people and I am looking forward to spending some time with them, but when you have 5 years experience in a group that has been together for 20+ years, you most likely missed all the good stuff.

We are actually heading down there to discuss some financial items and to talk with them about our parenting classes that we are leading. Classes that at times make me wonder if we should be the ones doing this. For example, I was sitting in the recliner the other day, reading the paper and enjoying a nice, hot cup of coffee. The youngest ankle-biter, who was days away from taking that HUGE step in life and going from a 2 year-old to a 3 year-old came over and was standing next to me looking over my should. He likes to point at the pictures of all of the different sports and tell me what they are. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that he was no longer looking at my paper, but seemed to have been distracted by something else. As I turn my head, I notice that my son, wearing some red, soccer shorts, has pulled the waistband down and is "flicking"....it. I fight back the urge to spit my coffee all over the place, and ask him what he is doing. He quickly pulls his pants up and gives me a quick "Nothing, daddy". Now, I know that at times we think we are a pseudo-normal family, but this one left me wondering.




Dinner Time

As we sat down for dinner, we held hands to pray. The youngest child (I really need to give them a nickname), said he wanted to pray. As we bowed our heads, he rattled off a prayer that I think I heard the words, "mommy, food, good, and then ended with a rousing Aaaaaaaamen". I mentioned to him that I was not sure that it was a good prayer because he went so fast and none of us could understand him. He looked me straight in the eye, raised his index finger in the air to make sure I understood his point and said to me, "Daddy, all prayers are good prayers."

-Words to live by, I guess.

This, of course, coming from the same child who, around Easter time, came running into our room at 2:30 AM yelling, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy....". I asked him what was wrong. He responded in an incredibly enthusiastic voice, "Daddy, Jesus is Alive!!!" Then he scurried back to his room, closed his door and went back to sleep. Needless to say, my wife and I could only look at each other and try and decide if that was the cutest thing ever, or just incredibly weird.



I know that it will be a long weekend as Y'all(notice the singular form, All Y'all would be the plural form) wait to hear about the great trip to Iowa.



***TEASER***
Pictures from my Lake Michigan Fishing Trip will be done this weekend - we caught plenty of monster salmon. I will try and post a couple of the good ones ;)