where I talk with my inside voice
When I started the blog on The Pipes Family Foundation website last year, I didn’t expect to be spending so much time doing genealogical research. I mean, it’s been an interest of mine for at least twenty years, and I really started to immerse myself in it during the pandemic, but then it was just for me. Now I’m investing...
My wonderful family indulges me every year with a day trip somewhere that they might not otherwise have gone. Whether it’s to visit an alpaca farm or to climb around on the trains, they always seem to enjoy themselves. Or they do a good job of faking it. This year it was the AB brewery tour downtown, followed by lunch...
Alas, poor Yorick, even though the Shakespeare Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary year, we have never been to a performance – until today. I was offered seats through ECF, so we saw a modern reimagination of Hamlet and it was really good. I was getting a little tired by the end – it’s hell getting old – but I...
Laura was planning to take Jane to a UFL game and she asked if we would want to go along. Noah has gotten more into football his first year at college, so he was interested, but this was our first time going to a UFL game. It turned out to be a really good day. The Battlehawks beat the Birmingham...
Just a couple of years after Noah took it, we signed Josie up for the BRAKES defensive driving school. This is a really cool professional driving course that is designed for kids to learn some valuable techniques behind the wheel and, as the name says, Be Responsible and Keep Everyone Safe. She got to learn how to recover from a...
The past year has been tumultuous. I haven’t really talked about it here, but with the loss of both of my parents last year and the upheaval at my employer, when I got to the end of 2024, I had to spend some time reflecting on whether or not I was on the right path. After ten years as a...
Last week we took Josie to SEMO, and this week was Mizzou. We recently learned that she got a 36 on her ACT, which is amazing (though not surprising), but that means she has some great options. I don’t think she has made a final decision yet, but the Environmental Science program at Mizzou is going to be hard to...
Seventeen years ago the Lord blessed us with a baby girl, and we planned it so that her birthday would coincide with her older brother’s spring break from college. Now that’s planning ahead! Noah is home this week for a visit and it was nice having the whole family together for the birthday celebration, which included presents and cheesecake! In...
When we heard that Alan Walker was coming to St. Louis, we decided to get tickets and give them to Josie for Christmas. This was her first concert, and my first time at The Factory. It was a really good show – although we were both glad we brought our earplugs. There’s a short video below.
It was time for some new wheels (I can’t believe it’s been almost six years since I got my first A8), and this one showed up on Audi Kirkwood’s web site on Monday and I knew it wouldn’t last long (with only 42K miles on it), so 48 hours later I bought it. It’s a 2020, which means it has...
Josie has taken an interest in musical theater recently, and one of her favorites is Six – a fun romp through the history of the wives of Henry VIII. It seems unlikely subject for a Broadway musical, but no more outlandish than Hamilton I suppose. The music is really good, and the show, albeit short, is very entertaining. As a...
We got back last night from a 10-day vacation that included a 7-day cruise aboard the Norwegian Getaway. We stayed a couple of extra nights in New Orleans to explore the French Quarter. Honestly, the trip was exhausting, and I need a vacation to recover from my vacation, but we had fun and made lots of memories. Photos from the...
This has been a challenging year – drama at work and losing both parents – it was a lot. But there was plenty to celebrate too. Not least of which is the establishment of The Pipes Family Foundation. We won’t really get that rolling until next year, but the hard part of setting everything up is done, now we just...
This is the time of year when I normally start looking ahead at a potential family vacation in the spring or the summer. The scheduling has been complicated by the fact that Noah is off at college now, but this is the new reality, so we just have to roll with it. He is applying to be a summer welcome...
Because ECF gave them a grant of $10,000 this year, the St. Louis Ballet sent me an invitation to watch their dress rehearsal for The Nutcracker. So Noah and I went to see it tonight. It was a really good show – the dancers were great and the costumes were very festive.
