blog posts

One of the last activities we did was take a fjord tour from Bergen. It wasn't the one I wanted ...

On the recommendation of a friend, we split our time between Bergen and Odda, a tiny town only a two-hour's ...

It's taken months for me to pull these photos together, and I've lost the ambition to detail each photo with ...

One of the best ways to see Bergen is from above. Conveniently, the Fløibanen funicular is easy and inexpensive. It's ...

Welp, our homeschooling journey is officially over! I've submitted everything, checked all the boxes, double-checked those boxes, and called it ...

In 2015, we decided to celebrate Christmas in a non-traditional way -- at the beach, specifically Hilton Head -- to ...

For the record, this is what our youngest cherub used to look like: It is a bizarre phenomena that babies ...

A few months ago, I was scrolling through Instagram on a lazy afternoon while Chuck mowed the lawn. Suddenly, I ...

It's been a month since Jeremy graduated from A-School and spent two weeks here before heading off to Japan. I ...

With a big overseas trip last year, and a big one planned for next year, we stayed stateside this summer ...

Michele and I had a visit scheduled in 2020, but we all know how that year turned out. That means ...

There is something about taking your second (and last) child on a college tour. Homeschooling has been a long journey ...

One of the things I'm endeavoring to do this year is see people I haven't seen in a long while, ...

I'm sharing less these days, which I'm sure you've noticed. In previous years, I shared a lot with readers - ...

When people decide to start a family, they usually say something like, "Let's have a baby," as if having that ...

There are two questions I get asked regularly. The first is always, "Have you heard from Jeremy?" and the second ...

Despite the high heat and suffocating humidity that plagues the south every summer, I've been taking long walks almost every ...

After researching AirBNBs in Paris and getting discouraged by steep prices and undesirable locations, we scored the best apartment we've ...

Instead of going to the Louvre, which none of the kids cared to do, we got up Tuesday morning and ...

Writing about Paris will take several posts because we packed in a lot of places in a little bit of ...

Staying in Hésingue (France) put us in close proximity to northwestern Switzerland. After studying the routes and drive times, along ...

It is one thing to experience your oldest child turning milestone ages. It is quite another thing to experience it ...

When we started planning this trip, we hoped to find lodging in all three countries as the itinerary unfolded, but ...

I've wanted to visit Strasbourg for several years, a charming town in the Alsace region along the Rhine River. Since ...

The bulk of our trip was centered around France, but I didn't want Grafenwöhr to be my family's only German ...

Over the years, whenever Chuck and I would start talking about our next trip to Europe, the idea of visiting ...

It's been a roller coaster week, but one of the high points was definitely Jeremy graduating high school. We were ...

When we got Major in January 2013, it had been two and a half years since we'd lost Hank. Our ...

We're only weeks away from Jeremy's graduation, which both unbelievable and a relief. When we decided to homeschool eleven years ...

Sometime in mid-December, I got a text from Jim, the author of Green Bay: A City and Its Team, the ...

The snow started falling in the late afternoon yesterday and didn't stop until this morning. We finally got a good ...

Only in Tennessee would it be 78 degrees with a threat of tornadoes on January 1, followed by a widespread ...

For the second time, we met my sister and her family in Lake Geneva for Christmas, though it was entirely ...

It's been a vibrant, lovely autumn, and the season seems to have lasted longer than usual this year. There are ...

We have been locking eyes for a long time. It used to be that we'd lock eyes after school when ...

Both boys are running cross country for our local high school, and honest to goodness, we couldn't be more pleased ...

The aging of one's children is a curious and cruel set of mathematics. Our firstborn is 18 today, and I'm ...

You should know July was a rough month. I said no to several things and spent an inordinate amount of ...

Well, here we are again. This time last year, we were in a very different space, but no matter how ...

The school year is creeping up on me, and I don't appreciate it. My summertime priorities have been on point ...

Wednesday was our last full day in Costa Rica, so we kept the day light and planned a special dinner ...

On our fifth day, Chuck and I got up early to drive around the property to take photos and then ...

One of the things Becky and I wanted to do in Costa Rica was see a sloth. We'd talked about ...

One of the activities we booked in advance was a four-hour sunset catamaran cruise with snorkeling. It was an excursion ...

Until I put my feet on the ground in Costa Rica, I was hesitant to say with any certainty that ...

Per Dad's wishes, we brought his remaining ashes home to West Virginia this past weekend. It was the second service ...

In decades of trips to West Virginia to visit my grandparents and extended family, I have never, to my knowledge, ...

On my third and final full day in Boston, we met Amy in Beacon Hill after her morning appointment. Pre-Covid, ...

Monday in Boston was one satisfying discovery after another. The skies were clear, so the city looked glorious. We grabbed ...

About ten years ago, give or take, my dear friend Amy started traveling to Boston annually under the care of ...

We are trudging through the worst part of the school year, those last few weeks of tedious work before finally ...

I don't need to explain Girls Weekend anymore, do I? We're entering the third decade of these trips, so if ...

A few months ago, sometime in the fall, Jackson started going for short runs on our cul-de-sac. He'd throw on ...

When I woke up on January 1, 2021, I felt lighter, as if in the night I'd dropped 20 pounds ...

Dearest 2020, I knew you were trouble from the start. While I am grateful for myriad things - extra one-on-one ...

Well before Thanksgiving was underway, I knew I didn't want to stay home for Christmas. Obviously, a pandemic makes this ...

Before Dad passed away, we all talked about what he wanted to happen with his remains. No question, his heart ...

Here I go again asking that you keep my family in your thoughts: My grandpa died suddenly and swiftly on ...

Last week I sat in the car with a dear friend as I finally said the words I've been holding ...

Ten years ago this week, we took family photos in Amarillo. It was a weird time - Chuck was living ...

I don't know what to call this space - these days that unfolded "after Dad died". I don't want everything ...

When I try to recount the last nine months, the one looming shadow over everything was Dad’s illness. Everything changed ...

August signifies two things: The impending return of school and my birthday. In fact, I don't want to even think ...

The Great Pause is long gone, that beautiful, restorative, slower pace my family enjoyed throughout April and May. I can’t ...

The Przyluckis came in town to celebrate Becky's birthday and Father's Day, so we soaked in more family time over ...

We've had back-to-back weekends of house guests, first with Karin and the kids, then Corey and Alex, and finally, my ...

Becky, Jeff, and Owen came to town last week to be with us as we heard the results of Dad's ...

Despite all of the temptation to buy a boat, we've decided to spend another summer season renting one. (It is ...

Right now, in between our sluggish attempt to finish the school year and staying up-to-date on COVID-19 news, I'm sourcing ...

First of all, Happy Birthday, Dad! It's a milestone, and I'm so grateful for it 🙂 While most of the ...

Almost daily I feel overwhelming gratitude for where we live. Not just America, not just East Tennessee. I love our ...

We are two weeks into Dad's treatment for cardiac sarcoma, and now the rehab center, where he lives full time, ...

Those two things, in theory, should be unrelated, but sometimes things fall together on a calendar for a reason. For ...

I don't even know where to begin. My father had a stroke on Dec. 8 while on a business trip ...

By now most of you know my parents are in California on account of a medical emergency with my dad ...

It has been a full week fraught with surprise, worry, and anticipation. We are near the end of our fall ...

We were happy to host family for Thanksgiving dinner, and it ended up being the first year we mixed both ...

More has gone on here than our trip to England and Wales, so it would be a shame to make ...

It was our final full day in the UK, and we wanted to make the most of it. Instead of ...

Like I said in the previous post, our AirBNB in Nant-y-Derry was a DELIGHT, even though it didn't have WiFi ...

I was still high as a kite the morning after meeting Philippa Gregory at Sudeley Castle, deliriously happy as we ...

Just when I think I'm done running half marathons, I convince myself to run "just one more." When I learned ...

Our fifth day in England was the most special. Not only was it the day that our driver showed up ...

To Windsor! We hopped the train again, this time westbound to the tiny town of Windsor. Last year we visited ...

When Karin said she wanted to see Hever Castle, I didn't mind one bit. Interestingly, it was on our third ...

We both enjoyed every second of sleep we got that first night. It is definitely the trade-off for flying overnight ...

When Karin and I met in 2001, we became fast friends. This is actually the same origin story for all ...

I seem to average one post a month these days, so that's a good indication of how busy we've been ...

We're only halfway through the month, but the momentum of the new school is already giving me whiplash. Is summer ...

Earlier in the spring, my sister asked me if Jeremy wanted to join Owen on his summer youth trip, and ...

My Uncle Bob and his wife, Carie, came to visit the week of July 4th, and I was more than ...

I know, I know - we just went on vacation. BUT, Karin and I like to skip out of town ...

As promised, we made sure the boys set their feet in London before flying back to the States. A quick ...

The weather was a bit gray when we left Levanto, an indication that the remainder of our Italian experience would ...

It was hard to leave France, if I'm honest. We had just found our stride with the neighborhood and language, ...

We scheduled a morning to sleep in and take our time, which was necessary for happy moods and getting some ...

If you'd have told me as recently as January that I would want to go to Monaco for a Formula ...

It was a genius move to sleep in the hotel connected to Gatwick Airport because our Easy Jet flight from ...

Last year, when Chuck and I flew to the UK, we opted for an overnight flight so we wouldn't lose ...