where I talk with my inside voice
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.
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 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...
Josie took the test and got her driver’s license today! Way to go, bitty! This is almost a year earlier than Noah got his license, so she’ll have plenty of time to build up her skills behind the wheel. And because she’s decided she wants to drive the Element, I thought it was time for an update. So I got...
Homecoming has certainly become a bigger deal now that Noah is in college. I headed down to Columbia to hangout with my friend Troy (Carlton was sick or he would have come too) and watch the game against Auburn (which Mizzou just barely managed to win in the last minute of the game). I had never been to a homecoming...
I took Josie to the St. Louis Art Fair in Clayton today. I think she was surprised at the scale of it – about six city blocks filled with booths selling every kind of art imaginable. We also had some good food – street corn from one of the food trucks and we had a late lunch at a place...
I took the kids to the History Museum to see the new and improved exhibit on the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. They did a great job putting it together and there are a ton of interesting artifacts on display, including a lead crystal punchbowl very similar to my grandmother Ellen’s. This might be our last homeschool “field trip” since...
Josie has been wanting to paint a mural on her bedroom wall for a while now, and she finally bought the acrylic paint that she needed and moved all of her furniture out of the way. Her room was torn up for a couple of weeks, but it’s complete now and she did such a good job! I’m proud of...
Josie and I went to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Muny. She remembered a couple of the songs from when we watched the movie a while back. If I were a rich man, I would get season tickets so we could make this a family tradition.
Tonight we went to see Les Miserables at the Muny. Grandma Linda shared a few of her season tickets with us this year because this is their last year going (we might have to buy their seats for next season!). It was a really good show.
We just got back from our 12-day roadtrip out west – with overnight stops in Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, Bryce Canyon and Flagstaff. We drove over 2,000 miles, ate some great food, and made some great memories. Some photos from the trip are available in my album, and check out the short video below.
As a birthday surprise for Josie this year, I’ve been working on my first MOC (in Lego lingo that’s My Own Creation). It’s a Lego model that I designed in Studio (what used to be called Lego Designer many years ago) and then ordered the parts to build it. It took a lot more time than I was expecting, but...
We took advantage of the nice weather today and went to the Minifig Shop, had lunch at Dewey’s Pizza, and then spent the afternoon at the zoo. I’m not going to have too many more opportunities like this. Have to grab them while I can.
