Day 1,407 - Hoeing Down at The Fox Hill Hoedown

I love getting to hang out with Ethan and do "bro" things. That's a good thing too because the two of us are together pretty much every day. Between all of the rounds of 'Candy Land' we play, the books we read, the Matchbox car race, and the wrestling matches we have with each other, our days are pretty full.

That being said, there are definitely times that I miss being around Ellie and find myself pining for some of her attention. It probably doesn't help that at nights before bed, she primarily wants time with Bethany. That's ok though. The two of them definitely have a special bond. However, it's no shocker that I find myself occasionally missing those times that it was just Ellie and I, day in and day out. Lucky for me though, Ellie feels the same way and makes certain to carve out special things for the two of us to do together. One of those things recently happened when Ellie asked me to escort her to the Fox Hill Hoedown which took place on Friday.

The Fox Hill Hoedown was actually Ellie's first-ever school dance. Understandable when one remembers that her Kindergarten year mostly took place behind masks. Ellie had actually spent several days leading up to the dance picking out the perfect "country" outfit for the occasion before settling on a pair of black leggings, a gray-floral print dress, her cowboy boots, and a jean jacket. I told her that she could dress me in whatever fit the Hoedown theme. Therefore, she picked me out a pair of jeans and a red flannel shirt. I went ahead and added an old cowboy hat I have for pool days just to further fit the theme.

6:00 finally rolled around and it was time for us to head to Fox Hill Elementary for the Hoedown. After parking the car, we headed inside and worked our way down to the gym. Almost immediately, I noticed that most parents were sitting on the sides of the gym while letting their kids do their own thing. Ever the thoughtful parent, I asked Ellie if she wanted to find some of her friends to hang out with or if she wanted to be with me. Ellie resounded emphatically that she wanted to hang out with me. With that, the two of us found a place on the gym floor and started dancing the night away.

Every so often, we would have to leave the dance floor behind as the DJ would occasionally play songs meant for one specific grades. However, that gave us plenty of time to do fun things like check out the photo booth or the merch table where we got a light-up ring shaped like a rose for Ellie to enjoy. As the night went on, Ellie collected multiple pieces of glowing apparel from various friends who decided to share with her.

I'm aware that Ellie probably won't always want me to accompany her to a school dance. However, I'm really happy that we got to have such a fun evening dancing and singing together. It certainly is a cool memory. It's also one that I'll proudly hold over her head someday when she emphatically tells me how embarrassing I am and that she'd never want to be seen in public with me like that.

Day 1,389 - Hard Lessons to Learn

FYI, this might be rambling and a little bit long but it's ultimately a cathartic exercise. I guess what I'm saying is READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

I really haven't been wanting to write this blog. If I'm being completely honest, it's been really difficult to blog at all lately. I'm not entirely sure of the reason. It just feels like there are seasons that can get people down and they find themselves in a hole that's difficult to scratch and claw out of. I think this has been one of those seasons though.

I'm honestly not even certain when it began. For whatever reason, over the past month, I feel like I've found myself wanting to spend less time with the kids and more time doing whatever selfish thing seems more appealing to me at the time. When I'm asked to play, the answer increasingly became "in a few minutes". Sometimes though, I wouldn't even sugarcoat it. It would simply be "I don't want to right now." Maybe there's those occasional times when Ethan is telling me a story about something really important to him and rather than engage him like he deserves, he instead gets a "Uh-huh", a "That's nice", or a "Ok". Awful, just awful, right?

The weirdest thing about this attitude is that despite my knowledge of it, I feel like I haven't necessarily wanted to take steps to combat it. Instead, it's just been easier to maintain socially distant instead of giving Ellie and Ethan the attention and affection they deserve. When describing it to some friends recently, one of the best ways I could find to describe it was that I'm present but not really present.

I wish I knew what has brought feelings like this on. I don't know if it's a delayed reaction to Ellie going back to school or if it's something else. I have been struggling with the idea lately of Ethan starting preschool next fall and kindergarten the year after that. I know that's going to bring about a huge change in my life from the way everything has been the last six years. Maybe a part of me thinks isolating is the safest way to protect myself now. I really don't know.

One thing that has been reassuring to me though is that despite my best interests to isolate, Ellie and Ethan continue to seek me out. Rather than give up on me, they continue to chase after my attention and my affection. Therefore, I've been striving to do a better job of giving that to them. Maybe it means less time with my phone in my hand and more time with it sitting unused on the kitchen counter. Maybe it means having more intentional conversations with Ellie when the opportunity presents itself. Maybe it means using my days to teach Ethan things and interact with him rather than let him just play on his own.

I think with Ethan, I definitely feel guilty at times. I definitely have not done as well by him as I did with Ellie at the same stage. When she was his age, I had a "daily schedule" full of "classes" that I would keep during the day to ensure "optimum development". I had dedicated blocks of time that I would use for number work, letter recognition, some handwriting practice, art time, and of course, freeplay. With Ethan, those occurrences have been less staged and therefore fewer and farther between. Thankfully, he's not behind but I definitely feel bad about it.

Since this is apparently just a blog full of non-coherent ramblings with nary a legitimate, cohesive thought to be had, I might as well comment on this too. With Ellie, I've honestly been struggling with how to talk to her lately. Yes, I realize that she's my daughter and a conversation should be simple. However, I'm not sure of the reason why that is the case. Maybe it's the way she gets in the car each day after school and doesn't want to talk about her day at all. Whatever the reason, I know it's definitely something I want to fix and not something I want to persist.

What's nice is that occasionally I get a nice reminder of what it looks like to be a family and to have people at least pretend to be passionate about the things that excite us. In some cases, it's even legitimate excitement! A nice example of this occurred yesterday as we watched the NASCAR Cup Championship Race. A season that begins each year in February reaches it end each year in November with four drivers engaged in a winner-take-all shootout for a title. While I've been a fan for a long time, Bethany and the kids have mostly just put up with my enjoyment of NASCAR. This year though, that all changed.

Around April, the kids were casually watching a race with me and were asking questions about some of the drivers. Well, for some reason, I proceeded to tell them about how the current leader of that race, Ross Chastain, spikes a watermelon into the ground when he wins a race. From that moment on, they were hooked on Ross and cheered relentlessly as he circled the track. On that day, he won his first race, spiked that watermelon, and gained two new fans for life in Ellie and Ethan. While they don't religiously follow the races (none of us do; there's just too many), they do want to know how Ross finishes each week.

After perhaps the craziest thing I've ever seen in 20-plus years of watching racing, Ross qualified for the Championship 4 and raced for a title yesterday afternoon. During the final 50 laps, all four of us sat side-by-side on the couch cheering for Chastain's every move. Ultimately, he came up just a little bit short. However, in his interviews afterwards, Ross gave an awesome example of what it looks like to be a graceful loser and just conveyed joy for the whole experience.

Later that evening, Ellie found herself lamenting Ross's loss and stated how unfair it was that her favorite didn't win. However, that blessed me with an awesome opportunity to discuss how things often don't seem fair or right in the world but how there's a right way and a wrong way to handle those occurrences. We can either let it get us down or we can be thankful for the opportunity that we've been given and the experience we got to have.

Honestly, that lesson isn't just something for Ellie to remember. It's something that I can stand to remember as well. Even during those times I find myself in a so-called hole, it's all the more important for me to fight my way out as I know I have people who love me on the other side who only want to have a relationship with me. That's honestly all Ellie and Ethan ask and I don't think that's asking too much, do you?

Day 1,373 - Astronomy, Movies, and Snack Walks Aplenty

Fall is here. If I'm being honest, it's probably one of my least favorite times of the year. While the changing of the leaves is an inarguably beautiful sight for the eyes to behold, my allergies feel much, much differently. It always begins simply enough. A few sneezes here and there. The occasional sniffle and eye rub. Before I know what's happening, I end up battling a full-fledged cold. Not cool. Worse yet, Ethan's experiencing the exact same thing and it's definitely got the little man down.

However, that being said, we did have happier fall days before these colds reared their ugly heads. In fact, look no further than back to Monday which was the final day of Ellie's fall break from school. We had a pretty awesome few days leading up to Monday complete with trips to Fun Run, The Rush Funplex, and Pumpkins Etc. all occurring on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. With Monday marking the last day before Ellie headed back to school, I figured that we should probably just spend the day at home rather than doing anything big. Therefore, that's exactly what we did.

A few minutes after Bethany left for work, we got a phone call that we needed to go outside and look at the moon. If there's something you need to know about my kids, it's that they absolutely adore the moon. After a quick step out onto the driveway, I decided to ask them if they would like me to set up the telescope so they could see the moon up close. After an enthusiastic "YES!", we all ran inside and got dressed before heading back out to the driveway to check out the moon.

Despite the fact that daylight was rapidly coming, it didn't ruin our fun any as the full moon was very visible until it disappeared behind a streetlight. Honestly, it's a blast to look through the telescope with the kids. They are enthralled by seeing it up close. Ellie even took great care to describe everything about the moon to us later that night including her belief that there were astronauts up there. Not quite right but that's ok.

After we finished up with our impromptu astronomy party, we headed back inside to play games and read books for a while until the kids got bored with those activities. When that moment happened, I had a fun answer ready to go. I had been planning on letting the kids watch a movie on the projector in order to really celebrate Ellie's day off school. When that time came, I fully expected Ellie to ask for some kind of Disney movie or "Paddington." Imagine my surprise when she asked to watch the film adaptation of "The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island." While that might seem a little random, it's really not. She's been reading the book to Bethany and really wanted to watch the movie version again. Luckily, we were able to find it available on Peacock for our viewing pleasure.

Once we finished the movie, it was time for lunch and quiet times before our afternoon plans could commence. Truth be told, I was really excited about our afternoon plans. I've written many a time about the Humpty Dumpty statue that sits on a wall about a half mile away from our house. With the weather being nice, I figured it was a perfect day to take a walk to visit Humpty. Once we got there, the kids were stoked to find that he had a jar of fun-sized Skittles sitting next to him which we helped ourselves to. However, I had one more surprise in store for Ellie and Ethan.

Upon leaving Humpty, we walked to the corner where Ellie and Ethan began to turn left just like we do when it's time to head home. Instead of following them, I pressed a button on a crosswalk and stood at the light waiting to cross. Despite their confusion, the kids happily followed me across the street and into the Casey's General Store parking lot where the last part of my surprise came into view. Together, we went into the store and browsed for the perfect treat to enjoy together. Finally, we settled on a big root beer and a pair of Rice Krispie treats. Once we paid for our feast, we headed out to the curb behind the store and sat, happily enjoying our treat together.

As we headed back home, I made conversation with Ellie by asking her if she enjoyed her day off school. To my great joy, she proceeded to reiterate every great thing that we had done (as if I wasn't there for all of them!). Ethan, for his part, did the exact same. I have to say that I love creating special memories with Ellie and Ethan and a big part of that is allowing myself to spoil them now and then. #DaddyWrite

Day 1,364 - Ethan and Cat: Board Game Buddies

Calvin and Hobbes.

R2-D2 and C-3PO.

Snoopy and Woodstock.

No one is going to dispute that these are some of the most iconic duos of all time. However, I think any list of iconic duos would be incomplete without including Ethan and Cat.

You're right, Han. I'm sorry I didn't include you and Chewie.

Ethan and Cat have been nigh inseparable since Ellie gifted it to him back in the day when Ethan first learned to say "Cat".  They have been constant companions and do practically everything together. At least that was the case until a few weeks ago when Cat mysteriously vanished. Try though we might, we couldn't find Cat. Therefore, there was a stretch of nights when Ethan was forced to go to sleep without his best friend laying beside him. Despite the presence of Spidey, Uncle Ryan Bear, and Leon the lion, there was still a void in his heart that could only be filled by Cat. Therefore, you can imagine his joy when the day came that we finally found Cat stuffed underneath our bed. No idea how or why he got there but it doesn't really matter. Ethan finally had his best friend back.

One of our earliest pictures of Ethan and Cat. He's so white and fluffy!

Like all best friends, Ethan and Cat love to do everything together. They eat snacks, go on car rides, play board games. What, you want me to rewind for a minute? That's right, Ethan and his stuffed cat play board games together. I realize now that probably does sound a little confusing. After all, in what world could a stuffed animal play board games with a human child? Apparently this one.

It started simply enough. Ethan absolutely loves playing board games. However, there are definitely those times when no one can play one with him at that exact moment. For the most part he takes that in stride. One day last week, after I finished the project I was working on, I went looking for Ethan so that I could play Yahtzee Jr. with him just like I promised. When I wandered closer to his room, I heard the unmistakable sound of dice rattling. With that, I quietly peered around the door frame to see what was happening.

The first thing I saw was the Yahtzee Jr. board game spread out on the floor with two sets of player tokens set out. My initial thought was that Ethan had gone ahead and set up the game board and was waiting patiently for me. Then I noticed that the board looked to be in mid-game. The next thing really gave away what was happening though. Ethan put the five dice in the cup and then carefully situated the cup between Cat's paws. Then he "helped" Cat shake the dice and play through Cat's turn. The two actually played through the entire game of Yahtzee Jr. before I joined them for another round. Yes, you read that right; I played a three-person game of Yahtzee Jr. with Ethan and Cat.

Since that day, it's become quite common for Cat to join us when playing board games. Bethany has even gotten the opportunity to play both Candy Land and Yahtzee with Cat. The one bad thing about playing with Cat is that sometimes Ethan and Cat get confused about who's turn it is. Also, and this is just dumb luck, I haven't actually won a board game since Cat joined in the fun. Although, for the record, Ethan hasn't either.

I guess what I'm saying is that Cat is really, really good at board games. Who knew? #DaddyWrite

Day 1,357 - Ethan's First (Real) Visit to the Dentist

I'm the type of person who likes to find one specific doctor, dentist, ophthalmologist or podiatrist and then stick with them until their inevitable retirement date. To me, I don't think that's asking too much. I've come to learn that insurance companies often times feel differently necessitating that change occurs. For adults who have become set in their ways, this can definitely be a little hard. For children, like Ethan, it's barely even a blip on the radar.

BLIP, not Blippi

I'm guessing that open makes it pretty obvious but yesterday marked our first visit to a new dentist which was necessitated by our previous dentist dropping our insurance. It's ok though. Change isn't always a bad thing. Plus, it allowed us to do a college style hat dance where we sat behind a table with caps featuring the logos of each dental office on it while we made our choice. There were brief fake outs and everything leading up to the moment when we finally plopped a hat with the words "Garrison Family Dental" on top of our heads. Ok, so that last part never actually happened but it would have been pretty fun.

After dropping Ellie off at school yesterday, Ethan and I drove up to Smithville for our biannual dentist exam. Actually, this wasn't just a biannual exam for Ethan; it was his very first REAL appointment at the dentist. Sure, he's sat in the chair before and allowed the dental hygienist to count his teeth, but he's never actually had a full cleaning and exam before yesterday.

As Ethan's never had a REAL appointment before, we decided that it would be best for him to watch me sit through my exam first and then he would go second. To help the time go more quickly for the little man, my new hygienist turned on Nickelodeon where Ethan was elated to see the Paw Patrol saving Adventure Bay. As my cleaning went along though, Ethan found himself less drawn to the TV and more drawn to what was happening to his dad in the big chair. He proceeded to wander over right next to my arm and affectionately patted it while my teeth were being cleaned. Finally, after a quick consult with the dentist, it was time for Ethan to hop up in the big chair for his exam.

The first thing that the hygienist did was show Ethan each of the tools she would be working with and let him touch and feel anything he was curious about. From there, the chair was reclined, and Ethan's dentist visit commenced. There were a couple of times that I saw his eyes darting around a bit nervously during the cleaning but ultimately everything went swimmingly. I'm sure if you were to ask Ethan his opinions on the dentist, he would regale you with epic tales of how his teeth were brushed with strawberry toothpaste and how the lady painted something (fluoride) that tasted like bubble gum on his mouth. He might even tell you of how he got two prizes for being such a great patient.

However, there is one thing I'm absolutely certain he would share; that being the story of how he got to choose his very own Spider-Man toothbrush from the big drawer of toothbrushes hidden in the cabinet next to the big chair. I've honestly never seen him so excited to brush his teeth in his entire life. Let's hope that keeps up. After all, he doesn't want cavities that he has to get fixed like me. I won't even have Ethan with me to give me emotional support.

 #DaddyWrite

Day 1,344 - Captain America Goes to the Hardware Store

I am not above bribery.

There, I said it. I know that many a parent has claimed to have a code that they will not break...ever. I know that early on, it feels like one can keep that promise to themselves. That they will never give in. I'm here to tell you that eventually that moment will come when you are willing to bribe your kid to make your own life easier. Actually, on second thought, I prefer the term "incentivize". Sounds less harsh than bribery.

Recently, Bethany and I reached the point where we had to incentivize Ethan in order to finally get him to poop in the toilet instead of waiting for naptime when he could just go in his pull-up. The rule was that when he received ten stickers on his poop chart, then we would take him shopping for a toy of his choosing. Oddly enough, once that first successful bowel movement occurred, it didn't take him any time at all to fill out his chart.

When the time came for Ethan to pick out his reward, he and I headed to Five Below to begin our search for the perfect reward. While I figured we would eventually have to go to Target or something of that ilk, it didn't take Ethan long to decide on the perfect reward: a Captain America costume. Luckily for us, this costume was even one that he could put on all by himself.

Decision, decision, decision.

Over the past few weeks, Ethan has spent many an hour cosplaying as Captain America and fighting evil all over our house. Of course, there was one slight thing missing from his ensemble: Captain America's iconic red, white, and blue shield. Therefore, this morning, I set out to rectify that. Armed with a plastic Spider-Man ring, the lid from our animal cracker jug, and a print-out of Captain America's shield, I got to work. By the time I was done, Ethan now had a shield of his very own to proudly brandish when fighting imaginary Nazis.

Ethan loves pretending to be Captain America so much that it's been pretty much impossible to just keep the costume at home. For example, it hasn't been out of the ordinary for him to wear it to school when dropping Ellie off or picking her up. However, he has recently decided to up the ante of where he wears the costume. Over the past couple of weeks, he now is a firm believer that he needs to wear his costume to the hardware store.

It started simply enough last week when we made a quick trip to Ace Hardware to get, you guessed it, hardware. Since we couldn't find exactly what we wanted there, we had to make our way to Lowe's. In both stores, Ethan paraded around, proudly sporting his Captain America costume. My favorite moment of our Lowe's trip had to be when an employee thought she heard me telling Ethan that we needed to find the bathroom. In reality, we were looking for bathroom hardware. Her response was that "Even Superheroes have to stop fighting crime and use the potty from time-to-time!"

While I assumed wearing the Captain America costume to the hardware store was a one-time thing, Ethan certainly proved me wrong today. First, Ethan again wore his costume to school to drop Ellie off. From there, we were going to go to Smithville for storytime. However, we had about an hour to kill before storytime began. Therefore, we made our way to Menards so that I could price some things for a proposed home project of mine. Ethan asked innocently if he could go into the hardware store dressed as Captain America. My proposal was that he could as long as his shield stayed in the car. Therefore, I once again found myself wandering the aisles of a hardware store with a superhero by my side.

It actually is pretty fun to go to the hardware store with a superhero. For one thing, everyone is sure to smile when they see Ethan traversing the aisles.  More importantly, he'll only be a kid once. If he wants to go to the hardware store dressed as a superhero, it's not like it hurts anyone. In fact, I'd bet that he brings joy to pretty much anyone he meets. That's a pretty cool thing if I say so myself.

#DaddyWrite

Day 1,338 - The One Where Ellie Goes to First Grade

Happy Fall Y'all!

Actually, I realize that it's not fall yet but it kind of feels like it could be. That probably has something to do with the fact that Ellie is now back in school. If I'm being honest, that makes me a little sad to know that my summer with my buddy is over. While I didn't cry like last year, I still struggled with leaving Ellie there just since I wasn't really ready for her to go back. That being said, I did receive a nice little surprise this year that I didn't get last year.

On the first day of school, students have the opportunity to have their parents accompany them into the building for their first day. When I first asked Ellie on Sunday night and again on Monday morning, she was "much too cool" to have her dad and brother escort her to her classroom. By the way, those are my words, not hers. Of course, as everyone knows, the words of a six-year-old are made to be broken. As we drove past the building and saw the legion of parents accompanying their kids into Fox Hill Elementary, Ellie began to have a little remorse about her decision to not have Ethan and me take her into the building. Finally, she spoke up and asked if we could take her in. So, that's exactly what we did.

As we made our way from our parking spot one block over, it was fun to watch Ellie skip down the sidewalk in pure excitement to be heading back to school. Of course, she was still dealing with a little trepidation over going back to school. That wasn't going to stop her from still having fun though! Finally, we made our way inside the building where Ellie told us that she was "going to lead the way to the classroom". She did exactly that and before we knew it, she was giving both her brother and me massive hugs before sending us on our way. On my last glance back, I was pleased to see her gleefully hugging long-lost friends and saying "Hi" to the new people she didn't yet know.

As Ethan and I made our way out of Fox Hill Elementary, there was only one thing left for us to do with our day: head to Chick-Fil-A for our yearly first day of school breakfast. This has actually been something that we have done consistently since Ellie started preschool. On her first day, we go to CFA and share a breakfast sandwich and then follow that up with a milk shake for dessert. Yes, I know that it's probably extremely unhealthy and unnecessary but it's tradition. Actually, I'm not sure how this tradition will work when Ethan starts kindergarten. I guess I'll just be that lonely guy sitting in Chick-Fil-A at 9:30 in the morning eating a breakfast sandwich and milk shake. Wow, that's just kind of sad to think about, right?

A sad little Ethan thinking about the chicken that awaits him.

The good thing though is that we don't have to sit around and ruminate on missing Ellie. I mean, don't get me wrong; we both miss her. However, between house projects and enjoying the warm, sunny days, we have so much to keep us busy that 4:00 comes before we know it. In fact, come to think of it, I've got some grocery shopping to do right now. That will certainly fill some time!

#DaddyWrite

Day 1,332 - Training Camp(ing) with the Chiefs

Like any young lad, Ethan has one great dream in life. More than anything, he wants to sing "Pat Mahomes, Take Me Home" to Patrick Mahomes. It's a relatively simple request. Probably completely unobtainable, but still simple. Like any good father though, I want to do everything I can to help my kids achieve their dreams. With that in mind, on Monday morning, we made our way to St. Joseph to check out Chiefs Training Camp at Missouri Western State University. 

While I have been to Training Camp before, Ellie and Ethan have never been. With the two of them getting older, I decided this was finally the year to try taking them. With Camp starting each morning at 9:15, we left home around 8:15 to head towards St. Joseph. My assumption was that would give us more than enough time to get parked and into the Training Camp area to watch events unfold.

Upon our arrival at Mo West, we parked the car and headed inside the Stadium area to watch practice unfold. I mostly let Ellie lead the way as she had grand dreams for what she wanted her experience to be like. First of all, she wanted to sit in an actual seat instead of having to stand. Second of all, she wanted that seat to be up as high as the bleachers go. Finally, after walking past approximately five other sets of bleachers, Ellie found the exact place she had been looking for. With that, we climbed the bleachers and took our seats. 

Almost immediately, Ethan began asking where Pat Mahomes was. Once I told him that Pat would be wearing a yellow no-contact jersey, it didn't take Ethan long at all to spot him leading stretches in the middle of the field. While Ethan was preoccupied with starting at Pat Mahomes, I entertained myself by watching the wide receivers practice fielding punts. Ellie, for her part, was intrigued less by the wide receivers and more by the punter. She had never actually seen a football go so high in the air before so she was loving watching it.

After about 30 minutes of watching various aspects of practice, Ethan was in need of a bathroom break. After fulfilling that urge, we headed over to the Kids Play Zone so that Ellie and Ethan could enjoy some play time. The first thing they wanted to tackle was a large Chiefs-themed bounce house complete with slide. After that, Ellie wanted to run through an inflatable sprint course so she and Ethan took turns following each other through that course. 

After checking out the inflatables, the kids got serious about fine-tuning their football prowess at various drill stations. The first was the Scoop and Score drill where a kid would hop over a series of obstacles, pick up a football about halfway through, and then sprint the rest of the way to the endzone. After a couple of times each of doing that, they moved on to a simple Obstacle course consisting of "hurdles" and a slalom-style course. After that though, Ellie decided to tackle her own personal Everest in the form of the rock wall. She strapped into a climbing apparatus and tackled a portable climbing wall. She successfully scaled the Easy and Medium-level walls before deciding she was done even though there was still a "Hard" wall to go. For the record, I'm convinced she would have gotten up that one with no problems at all.

 

After wrapping things up at the Kids Play Zone, we wandered back to the practice fields to watch the tail end of practice. While I'm not an autograph guy, we wandered over into the autograph section just so that we could see some of the players up close. Ethan definitely enjoyed trying to pick out some of his favorites while asking me the names of anyone he didn't know. He also loved watching Pat Mahomes do a series of TV interviews. Even though Mahomes never got close enough for Ethan to serenade him, he was still more than happy to see all his favorites up close.

While I would consider our time at Chiefs Training Camp to be a rousing success, there was one disappointment for Ellie and Ethan. One of their goals had been to meet KC Wolf and unfortunately he was nowhere in sight on this occasion. As I told them, "It's ok because there's always next year."

#DaddyWrite

Day 1,328 - $TEXAS

"...And you wagered...Texas with a dollar sign in front of it."

I know for a fact that classic "Celebrity Jeopardy" bit from Saturday Night Live has absolutely nothing to do with anything. However, just thinking about it made me laugh. As a result, I decided it was the perfect way to introduce a blog post about our family trip to Texas. Hopefully it made someone else chuckle at least a little bit.

On Saturday the 30th, the four of us piled into the Traverse, hopped on I-35, and headed south towards Texas. The reason for said visit? We wanted to visit our friends, the Lindholts, who moved to Fort Hood earlier this year for Allen's new job as a chaplain in the U.S. Army. Of course, Ellie has spent most of 2022 pining to see her friend, Lydia, so that played a big part in us arranging this trip. On Day 1 though, we wouldn't be going to Fort Hood. Instead, we had plans to stop for the night in Runaway Bay, Texas to spend the night with Aaron and Eileen, Bethany's cousins, at their picturesque lake house.

By the time we reached Runaway Bay, we were all definitely ready to burn off some energy and stretch our legs. Ellie and Ethan spent their time leading up to dinner basically sprinting back and forth across the backyard with Aaron's and Eileen's grandchildren. After dinner was served, Aaron had a surprise for the kids as he was taking them out on a boat ride around the lake. For the record, Bethany and I had been privy to the surprise so we had made certain to pack the kids' life jackets for the occasion. 

While out on the lake, Ellie became enthralled by watching her cousin, Levi, tubing behind the boat. Once Aaron stopped the boat and Ellie if she was interested in tubing, she wasted no time in joining Levi on the tube for a trip around the pond. While Aaron kept the boat at a pretty slow pace to begin with, it didn't take Ellie long to get to the point where she was consistently encouraging him to go faster and faster. Interestingly enough, at one point, Levi went tumbling off the tube but Ellie continued to cling tight. By the time she was done, Ellie had a smile plastered across her face from her trip across the lake.

 

The next day, we left Runaway Bay around 9:00 am to continue on our trek towards Fort Hood. With only three hours ahead of us, we took the opportunity to enjoy listening to some audio books. Before we knew it, we had arrived at Fort Hood and pulled into the Visitors' Welcome Center where we found Allen and Lydia patiently waiting for us. The reunion between Ellie and Lydia was honestly the stuff of legends. It's basically how you would expect two five-year-old best friends who have been separated for half a year to react upon their reunion. Before long, Bethany and I received our security clearance and we were on our way to the Lindholt home to see the rest of the family.

After reconnecting over lunch with plenty of time for playing, we all set out for the town of Salado for the afternoon. When we arrived, we immediately wandered into a creek that runs alongside the town. In some parts, the water was so crystal clear that we could watch baby fish and/or tadpoles swimming with the current. Once we wrapped up our time playing in the creek, we changed out of our swimsuits and headed to Rio Salado Cocina for some awesome Mexican cuisine. Allow me to take this opportunity to brag about the fact that at a table with five children and four adults, we only had one spilled drink the entire meal. I think that's rather impressive myself. After heading back to "Casa de Lindholt", we proceeded to get the kids ready for bed. For our trip, Ellie would be sharing a full-sized bed with her friend, Lydia, while Ethan would be sleeping on a bunk bed in the boys room with his friend Miles and his older brother, Jackson.

The next morning, our merry little group set out relatively early for Waco, TX and the Magnolia Silos. Of course, there was one very important stop that we had to make along the way: the famous Buc-ee's gas station chain. We have heard plenty of stories about Buc-ee's over the years but truly didn't know what we were in for. I'll be the first to say that the scale of the store totally shocked me. Imagine your local Target as a gas station and you have a fairly apt comparison for the size of this establishment. After a short sojourn inside the store where Ellie and Ethan pretty much begged for every piece of merch with a beaver emblazoned on it, we all loaded up and continued on our way to Waco.

Once we arrived at the Magnolia Silos, we immediately made our way inside the Magnolia Home store for a rousing game of "Guess That Price". For the record, we lost the game in resounding fashion. From there we made our way outside to a wiffleball field sitting in the middle of the complex. There, Allen and Kayla entertained the five kids for a little bit while Bethany and I explored the rest of the Magnolia complex. Once we met back up with our friends, we headed toward a courtyard where food trucks were parked so that we could eat lunch. Of course, no trip to Magnolia is possible without a mason jar full of sweet tea. Actually, I don't know if that's true or not but I couldn't resist. While we waited for our meals, the kids made themselves right at home in some super comfortable bean bag chairs. Once we finished our lunches, the kids spent a little time playing soccer in the courtyard until we all decided it was time to make our way back to Fort Hood.

The next day, Tuesday, would mark our last full day in Texas. Unfortunately it started with a bit of a shocker as we learned that our hosts were both COVID positive. However, after a little deliberation, we decided that there was really no reason to change our plans especially since we'd already spent two full days together. Our plans for the day did change slightly though as we were no longer comfortable going to a local pool. No worries though as we had plenty of fun around the Lindholts' house. Allen spent most of the day smoking a delicious brisket that we had brought all the way from Missouri to share together so it was just as well that we were around the house. The kids spent plenty of time playing on a swingset and an inflatable water slide in Allen's and Kayla's backyard. As for me, I spent a fair amount of time hanging out with Jackson and learning the intricacies of Fortnite and Minecraft. For the record, I'm not really good at either but it was still fun!  

 

Wednesday came quicker than any of us really wanted. However, Bethany had to be back at work (from home) bright and early on Thursday morning. Therefore, we bid adieu to our friends around 8 am and hit the road for a marathon trip back to Missouri. Of course, we did have the audiobook of Wonder to keep us entertained for approximately eight and a half hours. By the time we made it home, Bethany and I would both attest that the drive went much better than we ever could have expected. In fact, we now are confident that we can take the kids on long road trips!

That  being said, I don't think we're ready to take on another long road trip any time soon. Let's stretch those bad boys out at least a little bit.

#DaddyWrite

Day 1,322 - Looking Fly and Flying High

Uhhhh...

What to write? What to write?

This is one of those good writer's block blogs. Every so often, one of those pops up. Generally, it's due to me viewing the minutia of everyday life as being somewhat unexciting. However, there are definitely those memories that are worthwhile to consider. Case in point: Ethan's pure love for dressing up.

Now, I'm fully aware that dressing up can refer to one of two things. The first being to look good/classy/studly/fly/insert other words here as necessary. The second means to maybe put on a costume and play pretend. For the record, I'm actually referring to both of those things in this instance!

I'm going to tackle the idea of dressing up first. Wow, I should probably further clarify. I'm going to tackle the idea of looking good first. In our household, we really only dress up to head to church on Sunday. As a stay-at-home dad, my everyday attire largely consists of a pair of gym shorts and a red t-shirt (I have an inexplicable number of red t-shirts). However, on Sundays, I do my best to look presentable, so I bust out jeans and a shirt with buttons. Sometimes I even sport a pair of dress shoes!

For Ethan, Sundays is normally a time in which he does his best to match me. It's actually easier than you might think as we have several dress shirts that are remarkably similar. However, he doesn't stop there. Lately, Ethan has been in a mood to accessorize. What's his favorite accessory? Easy, his black bow-tie.

Now, the bow-tie is not new to our household. In fact, I'm pretty sure we've had it since Ethan was one year old. He's worn it intermittingly over the years but lately, he has come to believe that it goes with anything. Despite our best pleadings and reasoning, it's becoming a rarity for Ethan to go to church without his bow-tie on. It's not all bad though. He does look pretty cute in it even if it clashes horrendously with his brown cowboy boots.

Now, for the other kind of dressing up. The one that involves putting on a costume and playing pretend. This has long been one of Ethan's favorite things to do. In fact, as people might remember, it's not farfetched to see the little man practically living in his Chiefs helmet, jersey, and pants during football season. However, Pat Mahomes isn't the only superhero in Ethan's world. He also spends time each day doing his best Buzz Lightyear impersonation.

Ethan's Buzz costume actually was his Halloween costume this past year despite him not knowing who Buzz Lightyear was. This summer though, Ethan has become very acquainted with Buzz through watching the Toy Story tetralogy.  It's actually really fun to watch him "fly" around the house yelling "To Infinity and Beyond!" while attempting to protect the galaxy from the Evil Emperor Zurg. Buzz isn't the only fictional character Ethan embodies though. He also will throw on Bethany's blue rain coat and my old red bucket hat from time-to-time and pretend to be Paddington Bear. While his adventures don't seem quite as epic when he's dressed as Paddington, they're still pretty cute in their own way.

The photos may be a little old but they still get the point across.

Ethan's most recent costume of choice comes from his time at Vacation Bible School. When he puts on his brown vest (made out of an old shopping bag), his binoculars (made out of an old toliet paper tube), and his adventurer's hat, you know that he is ready to explore nature or hunt for treasures. Either can and has happened. Sadly, I haven't taught him to talk like the Crocodile Hunter during those times yet but there's still plenty of opportunities ahead.

I got in the spirit of dressing up as well. Who wears it better?

For me not really knowing what to write about, I'm happy to see that I somehow managed to successfully put words on a page. It's nice to know that me deciding to dress up like a writer does have its benefits.

#DaddyWrite

Day 1,311 - A Belated Post About Ellie's Sixth Birthday A.K.A. Tanganyika Tourism

I'm still rather shocked by this fact but my little girl is six years old! In fact, she turned six almost two weeks ago! Why do I know that she turned six almost two weeks ago? Well, number one, I have a rudimentary understanding of when her birthday falls. Number two and more importantly, we went away on a short, little family vacation to celebrate the momentous occasion! Where did we go, you may ask? One word, Wichita.

Now, I know on the surface, Wichita, KS hardly seems like a tourist destination for families. That's what I believed until I heard about Tanganyika Wildlife Park. Now, Tanganyika isn't like any other ordinary zoo. It features a multitude of different animals; many of which can actually be touched and/or fed. I'm not just talking about things like rabbits or guinea pigs though. We also got to touch kangaroos, lemurs, birds, goats in addition to getting to feed giraffes, hippos, and rhinos! I'm getting a little ahead of myself though.

We left after lunch on Sunday the 26th to start our journey to Wichita so that Ethan could have his traditional afternoon nap in the car. Once we finished our three-hour journey, we checked into the Drury Hotel in downtown Wichita where we would be spending the night. Spoiler alert: we were upgraded by the hotel staff which was a nice little surprise. We wasted little time in throwing on our swimsuits and heading down to the hotel pool to enjoy some swimming. After we'd all had our fill of time in the water, we changed back into our clothes and headed to the Drury Kickback for our dinner consisting of hot dogs, chicken, pasta, baked potatoes, vegetables, and salad. Before leaving the Kickback area, I made sure to sneak a couple of bags of freshly popped popcorn back upstairs for later.

Once we finished bathing the kids, we allowed them to curl up in their bed and watch TV for a while before it was time for actual sleep. We were lucky enough to stumble upon the movie, Night at the Museum for our viewing pleasure. Ellie and Ethan were especially stoked to be allowed to eat popcorn in their bed while watching the movie. Finally, Bethany and I decided it was time to bring an end to the night and we turned off the TV and put the kids to bed.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early and surprised Ellie with a "big bag of candy" per her birthday list before heading to breakfast. Following a nice breakfast, Bethany proceeded to lovingly pack a lunch bag full of sandwiches for Tanganyika. Finally, the time came for us to check out of the hotel and head to Tanganyika for the start of our fun day. 

The first thing that we did upon arriving at Tanganyika was to make our way to the giraffe feeding pavilion. Now, we knew that we each had five animal feedings to use at our discretion. Therefore, we definitely needed to be particular with how we used them. That being said, the opportunity to feed a giraffe was too much to resist. We each took turns standing on a platform as directed by the zookeeper where we held out our big leaf of lettuce for the giraffe to take. None of us had ever fed a giraffe before so it was obviously a super cool experience!

After the giraffes, we wandered around the park for a little bit taking in a bunch of different animals. Most notable would probably be the kangaroos. We actually got the opportunity to pet kangaroos as they were laying on the ground, chill as they could be. There was even one mama kangaroo with a joey partially sticking out of her pouch! Once we finished up with the kangaroos, we made our way to our next feeding encounter at Lemur Island.

At Lemur Island, we were ushered across a small bridge and directed to sit on a rock in the middle of the island. From there, a keeper offered all four of us a cranberry to hold in our hands. Then, the zookeeper convinced a lemur to hop up on my lap and encouraged it to walk across each of our laps until it got to Bethany on the other end. Then, she told us to open up our hands and feed the lemur the cranberry as it walked back across. It was amazing to see the kids' reactions to seeing the lemur so up close. My favorite reaction had to be Ethan's as he slightly closed his hand which led to the lemur using his paws to force Ethan's hands open in his quest to eat the cranberry.

We honestly saw so many animals during our time at Tanganyika that I probably can't do it all justice. For example, between the four of us, in addition to the aforementioned giraffe and lemur, we also fed a guinea pig, a tortoise, a pygmy hippo and a rhino. Don't talk to Ellie about the hippo though. That's a sore subject as she was unable to successfully throw a carrot into the hippo's mouth, but Ethan was. There were tears and everything! However, you don't really want to be shown up by your younger brother in anything, let alone feeding a hippo.

There is one additional animal encounter that I do need to share though and that is our experience feeding lorikeets. It really seems like a pretty lowkey experience. You walk through an aviary and offer a small cup of nectar (maybe?) to lorikeets. Unfortunately for Bethany, the birds weren't just interested in the nectar contained in her cup. They were also interested in her hair. By the time we were done, Bethany had one bird on her shoulder and another on top of her head. To top it all off, both birds were picking at her hair with their beaks trying to find anything they could. As Bethany is someone who really doesn't like her head touched, you can only imagine how not fun of an experience that was for her. In the end, one of the workers had to come into the aviary and push the birds off of poor Bethany with her walkie-talkie antenna.

After we finished up our time with the animals, the kids spent some time playing at the Tanganyika splash park before it was time to head home. All things told, we were in Wichita for less than 24 hours. That being said, it was a great 24 hours full of things I'll personally remember for a long time to come. The fact that the kids are still talking about their experiences there gives me hope that they feel the same way. 

#DaddyWrite

Day 1,310 - "It's a Small World After All"

Does anyone else remember the classic Disney ride/song, "It's a Small World"? I know that anyone reading this is currently shaking their fist at me in anger. For the two people who aren't, I proudly present the lyrics to "It's a Small World".

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all

It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world

I'm going to assume that's probably enough of "It's a Small World" for most people BUT if it's not, I'll include a hyperlink for the entire song/ride!

I realize that me going on a semi-rant about "It's a Small World" seems fairly random. However, I trust that it will all make at least a modicum of sense at the end of this blog post.

This may not come as a big surprise, but my kids are definitely suffering from occasional boredom this summer. Despite plenty of time playing outside and exploring the neighborhood, they definitely find themselves asking the age-old question of "What do we do now?" . Therefore, today on a whim, we decided it was time to head downtown and take a ride on the streetcar.

I realize that riding on the streetcar may not sound like anything special. However, Ellie and Ethan absolutely love. They think it's awesome to see all of the new areas of the city that they don't normal frequent. They also love seeing new people and there's few places better to do so than on the streetcar.

Ride that streetcar!

On this day, I decided that we would park at the City Market and ride to Union Station. I also went ahead and informed the kids that as long as they were good and well-behaved, we would stop off for ice cream at Betty Rae's before heading for home. While the kids were informed about those parts of our journey, I (purposely) neglected to inform them that we would be stopping by the Kansas City Public Library just to explore something new along our route.

When the time came to hop off of the streetcar, we wandered a block west and made our way into the library where we were directed to the children's section by a very helpful security guard. As we hopped off the elevator and wandered into the children's area, the three of us were legitimately shocked to see my sister-in-law, Nicole, and her three boys there in the library. It was especially shocking when one takes into account that neither of us frequent the Kansas City Public Library! Ellie and Ethan were especially excited to get an unexpected hangout with their cousins.

Ethan and Edmund are hard at work...doing something.

After an hour or so at the library, it was time for us to hop back on the streetcar and continue on our way. Lucky for Ellie and Ethan, Aunt Nicole and their cousins had nothing else going on that morning so they joined us for the rest of our ride on the streetcar. It was especially fun getting to see the five kids all standing side-by-side and looking out the window at all of their surroundings.

L to R: Ellie, Edmund, Elias, Ethan, and Elbert

Finally, the time came for our friends to disembark the streetcar as we continued on back to the River Market. When we finally exited the streetcar, it was time for ice cream just as I had promised. For Ellie, the greatest reward in the world is getting to have a scoop of ice cream all to herself. Therefore, I was more than happy to oblige since it makes her feel so special. Ethan, for his part, desired to share a sundae with me. Therefore, he and I happily split a S'mores sundae while Ellie enjoyed her cup of Cookies and Cream.

Finally, we finished our ice cream and since our meter was running out of time, it was time to make our way home. A good time had been had by all and as you can see/read, we certainly did confirm that it really is a Small World after all. #DaddyWrite