This has been an interesting summer. We’ve experienced a wide range of life: from births to weddings to hospital beds to new jobs. One thing we haven’t done is any sort of holiday. So, when I realised I had two days of meetings set-up near Cleveland, where some good friends live, rather than fly by myself and stay in a hotel on the company dime, we loaded up the family van and took a road trip to stay with our friends.
10 years ago, John and Karen, and their cherub-like children, Amy and Caleb were in our wedding as we started our family together. Now their kids are teenagers, and our kids are cherub…ish. We’ve been so fortunate to have the example and friendship of this family in our lives — practically since we started dating. They’ve demonstrated how to raise intelligent, Godly children in a loving home, while balancing a demanding professional life. While both Nicole and I have great parents who have also been great role models, the roads God has led John and Karen down often look a lot like where He has led us, so its so wonderful to compare notes, get advice, and discuss life with another family a little ahead of us in the race.
The roadtrip went well, the kids loved being with Amy and Caleb (and felt awfully lucky to each get to have sleep-overs in a bigger kid’s room), John and Karen took the kids for us for a night, so we could have a couple date-outings alone, and our two families got to spend some nice moments together. Over-all, well worth the 6 hour drive.
By September, we’ll have lots to look back on, and lots to look forward too. A recap of some of these things, for posterity:
- To keep from sinking into depression after the accident, I picked up some code-consulting work on the side, for a friend’s small business. I was pleased to find that I’ve still “got it” and was able to pump out some pretty tight code. It reminded me that I still love the elegant problem solving of programming, and inspired me to keep that skillset up – in what little spare time I have.
- This coming Saturday my little sister gets married here in London. Ben and Abi get to be in a wedding again, and we’re hoping that its even more special than the last.
- I helped launch Church At Home – a new online ministry of our church here. I got to exercise some tech from my employer that I wouldn’t normally come across, tinker with networks, serve with a team, and troubleshoot every possible thing that could go wrong with a web stream.
- I finished a very challenging year at work. The results were not what I worked for, and there’s sure to be some lessons in there, but I came out OK – good enough that I was able to move to a new role that should give me better opportunity to succeed. With the two-year commitment that role required, we’ve finally got some peace about our financial, and educational plans for the family.
- Eli has settled into our little clan wonderfully. She’s on a healthy routine that let’s everyone sleep, but is flexible enough that we get to keep up with our lives. If she’d take a bottle every once in awhile, that’d be great. But nobody’s perfect.
My leg is on a slow but steady road to a near-complete recovery – they say I’ll eventually be as good as 95% – but we still were robbed of a summer. With acceptable results from last FY, and the extra work I picked up over the summer, we’re planning a real, actual family vacation in January:
We’re going to Florida. For like a month. To all our friends and family: consider this an open invite to come down and visit us…