we were gifted a trampoline a year ago. for the record, most cool things our kids have can be connected to the generosity of someone who is not their parents. the tramp is a modern-day issue with the high netting all around. for reasons i'll explain in a moment, we recently removed the saftey netting. seeing a tramp without this encasement these days is kinda like spotting a black bear in yellowst...

marty recently posed the dinner table question of what each person's proudest life moment was.

without much thought alex casually said his was saving anthony from a concussion. his comment brought life to the table as people lit up in their retellings. the moment alex referred to took place a few years ago. marty had taken the kids to an event at her school. there was a standing wooden s ...

for the last few years marty has organized a large regional girl scout retreat. she first took it on during bella's short-lived stint in a troop. but even after bella stopped going, marty had formed a fondness for the mission so stayed involved. if i'm remembering correctly, alex attended more of these weekend adventures than bella has—it surely never hurt that all the girls found him wildly...

speaking of food (yesterday), the fiancé of a good friend of mine just started documenting her nurturing her newfound love of food and food-making. and, it doesn't take long to see that her style of 'documentation' is a bit richer and deeper than most folks form of documentation. the above quote comes from her newly established blog. http://www.kindred-eats.com

and her instagram page should come with a full-on warning as i first looked in on it before bed and can tell you that that is a wicked kind of mistake. https://instagram.com/diana.zeng

and a few days after seeing this alex caught her fiance, and my friend, super-sam, slipping something into our mail slot. upon opening the door and surprising him he confessed that he was dropping off a chocolate bar he just made for us to try out. later, when opening it up for the family to try, i found a personalized note on the wrapper's backside (you're not going to get that with hershey!!!) part of which said:

shortly after bella was born, marty declared we would be a family that ate together. if you're wondering what happens when marty carves something in the tree like that, well, after fourteen years, if everyone was in the same zip code, i could count on both hands and feet the number of times this family did not eat as a full complement. dinner is typically at six and lasts, functionally, for about ...

my baby girl turns 14 years old today. last night i told her she had to spend a dad hour with me (a nightly ritual i do with my kids) on this night becuase it would be the last night i'd spend with my 13 year old daughter. then when we were done (watching an episode of lost) we stood in my office hugging. after the hug should have ended and i didn't let go bella slowly said, "uh dad, i kinda gotta go to bed". after five more seconds i lessened my grip, gave her a long kiss on the top of the head and she left for bed and fourteen.

bella's mantle of hair is such a thing that she routinely gets asked if its fake. and as with all things, you know that for every one person that asks, there are seven that wonder.

her hair is most glorious when she is doing what she loves most, roller-blading. given her skill and ability to go fast, this body of hair floats behind her lifting and falling in sync with her actions, seemin ...

at dinner bella launched into a marty love-fest that went something like this.

BELLA
you're so awesome mom. i mean, you wake up super early in the morning. then you go work all day. then you pick the boys up from school. take them to playdates. then come home and make dinner. and then sit and grade papers every night.

MARTY
well, i don't grade papers every night. i maybe ...

i feel like marty and i missed a ripe business opportunity when we failed to hire our kids out to test parks and homes for safety. because when you combine marty's free-range parenting style and the natural athletic abilities of most children, boundaries will be tested. there were many a time i look at one of my children atop or inside something and wonder at length how they ever managed the man ...

in the opening weekend of 2015 the first of our nephews and nieces got married. since there are lots of nephews and nieces in marty's clan this begins a new chapter for our family--which translates to a host of mass walter-fests in the decades ahead. some might groan at all these familial commitments but marty comes from a wildly spectacular and interesting family that enjoys one another. this aff...

a few things i learned in 2014:

• there is a conversation-starting question almost as good as "what are your interest?". the new question is "what is something you've done recently that you're proud of?". i've already travelled a good number of miles on it and would assert that if you can't get a good conversation out of one or both of those questions, you should cut bait and move on to th...
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how could i let a week go by without an anthony quote: i'm often struck by how obvious the world comes off to young, sharp minds, minds that are free of the clutter and nonsense (oftentimes) we adults allow in. anthony's good for two to three of these observations a week. that said, and for the record, anthony is quite terrible at finding things. i might say he was the worst at it if it weren't for his brother who seems remarkably gifted in his inability to find something that isn't where it is supposed to be game (he's surprisingly terrible at locating things even when they are where they are supposed to be). and their room is a wreck. now, i feel these points, both of which go against anthony's theory, do not soil the acumen of anthony's observation because i am a solid example of the syndrome anthony describes above. anthony and alex just are not.

i'm an only child. i once dated a girl who was an only child too. i remember imagining what a life with her would look like. i remember imagining a quiet and kinda sad existence. marty is one of seven and life with her family is anything but quiet and sad, thankfully. even though family gatherings on her side of the family are loud and scary (to me), i love getting to be part of a scene so rich wi ...

now that marty is working again i have company on the porch for the post-work, pre-dinner winddown. on nice summery/spring days at least. ...

some of my fondest memories revolve around the most pedestrian acts. after juicing a bag of oranges it's hard to pick which is better between their basic excitement of the process or their wonder at seeing where something as simple as orange juice comes from (and seeing that they could make it themselves). ...

our favorite moments of the kansas MS150 ride. it turns out this is one of the biggest ms150, attendance-wise, rides in the country. thousands of riders and lots of hoopla and fanfare and organization. bella's jaw was agape for much of the weekend at the participation and energy of the event which i reckon was her favorite part. my favorite part took place shortly after the above photo was taken a ...

younger (and shorter-haired) versions of marta and bella.

and boy, seeing bella that small already blows my mind. ...

on paper, gap-toothed children should not be appealing but there is just something about small toothless humans that is crazily adorable. as my youngest starts passing through these milestones, i find myself quietly sentimental for the parts of this life experience i will never inhabit again. this emotion begins revealing the fervent pressure many newly married couples get from their parents to ma ...

for those wondering about the back story with the last gallery posting, it is this.

it was the day of bella's annual save the children carnival, her third. she did her recruiting. she completed her planning. she hung her flyers. on the morning of, when we pulled into the lot where the carnival happens, there were three large construction dumpsters on the blacktop of her space, consuming more than a third of the lot and blocking the spaces reserved for half of her booths. upon seeing this i turned to her. her unblinking face was frozen in disbelief at what she was seeing. then, her face began to soften. it continued to sag until tears were seconds away. i put my hand on her knee and said it would be ok. we still had lots of space and would adjust. predictably, she said space or not it was still ruined with these giant, ugly things right in the space. her sound logic continued as she quickly adding strong observations like "who wants their children playing on a construction site" or "they're taking all the shady spots".

after stopping the car, we walked to the dumpsters to see what was in them. after climbing up and peering over the edge we were greeted by this (see photo). the carnival was on the day before father's day and that cardboard box was front and center. i nudged bella with my elbow, pointed at the box and said, "you're all good. grandma nyla has your back."

i could see bella, still rather flummoxed at the luck, dismissed my comment. as we hopped down from the dumpsters i stopped her and said: i don't know if she ever believed me or not but things did go just fine.

you may not believe me either. if so, how many people have you met in your life named nyla?

i get an irrational and unexplainable amount of satisfaction in seeing one of my children lost in a book.

if you're wondering if i experience this bliss when i see other people's children read, the answer is no. when i see children reading who are not mine i think, "well at least they're being quiet". ...

my notes from a toastmaster's talk i gave titled FAMILY MANTRAS.

for the first time, possibly ever, i didn't shower for one week. the exact count was one week plus eleven hours. this did not have intentional beginnings. i didn't even notice for about three days, but when i did notice i had gone three days AND didn't smell funky or look foul—all thanks to lake michigan—i thought i could try to make a run of the week.

a meaningful detail to ...

what follows is a talk my friend sam gave at a gave developer microtalk event. the talks of the night, expectedly, dealt with coding and development and the act of creating. mercifully batting cleanup, sam's talk, generically lableled PROCESS, blew the lid off the tenth floor of a twenty-five story building.

definitive evidence of where all of our kids kooky behavior emanates from.

marty not only can run with her boys when it comes to being goofy, they often are sprinting behind her in attempt to catch up. ...

ok fellas. we gotta talk.

i was recently at a reception and sat down with a friend i hadn't talked to in awhile. i asked him what was up. what was new. during our catch-up he remembered something, lifted a finger in the air and said, "oh, get this". he proceeded to tell me a story about how he, needing a computer quick, raised the lid of his teen son's laptop and found something on the sc...