It's Been A While

So, I feel like I have failed in my attempt at blogging about my boy. Sure I think about it a lot, but to be honest, I have just been too busy and exhausted to put my words down on paper. These last several months have been slammed full of special moments and memories with Carver, but the boy's 100 mph pace keeps me pretty occupied. To catch up, I think I will try to do a quick blog about each of the last few months in my pitiful attempt to get up to date.

Since my last post was in August, I'll begin with September. The best part of September was a wonderful beach trip with Carver, Kristi and a few of our friends from Florida. We played and played in the pools and at the beach of Anna Marie Island. Carver had no fear of the crashing waves and moving water, so I stayed super busy chasing him on the white sand.  We had a blast, ate at tons of good restaurants, found a cool ice cream spot and had beautiful weather.  I even snuck away one morning to go play golf... (can't wait until Carver can join me on those outings).  Here are a few pics:

The Shower!! This is fun!

At the Beach...

All cleaned up for dinner...

My first date!

A couple of moments worth mentioning come back to mind.  First, since the room had no bathtub, Carver got to take showers with Daddy.  He loved the shower and cried when we made him get out.  If we even left the bathroom door cracked throughout the day, he would try to sneak in there.

The second unforgettable moment was early one morning, just after we woke up.  I was headed to the shower to get ready to go play golf and Carver just had to go into the bathroom with me.  There was a random closet in the bathroom so Carver decided to play hide and seek in there.  Well, instead of a door knob, the only way to close the door was by pulling on the deadbolt latch.  Sure enough, Carver shut the door and simultaneously latched the dead bolt.  Panic set in immediately as I scrambled to find a key. No luck. Next I called the front desk. No luck again, I had to leave a message. My son is trapped in a closet behind a deadbolt and I have to leave a message... really?!? Needless to say, I was pretty mad at this point, but still scrambling. I looked at the door, realized the hinges were on the outside and ran to my truck to get my tools. By the time I got back, Carver is pretty upset.  Kris is holding his hand (touching it) under the crack at the bottom of the door and trying to keep him calm, but he is beginning to lose it. Luckily, I had the tools I needed, the hinges were fairly easy to remove and we got him out fairly quickly.  I have no idea how long this whole ordeal took, but even though Carver was safe, this was one of the scariest moments of parenthood to date. Not because he was in danger, just because he was stuck in the closet and there was a feeling of helplessness as we had no way of unlocking the door and Carver sure couldn't figure it out.

The rest of the month was pretty uneventful in comparison, but saw lots of afternoon outdoor play sessions as we enjoyed some of the last weeks of summer. Great month with the boy, playing catch up from my summer hiatus.

Stoney's and Milestones

If you know me, you know that I work a ton, leaving very little time for my wife and my son.  This is an area of my life that I know I need to work on, but starting a business and trying to provide for my family through that business has proved to be a lot more work than even I imagined.

At any rate, I had the pleasure of spending some quality time with my two favorite people this past week / weekend, so my next few posts will reflect the long overdue family time.  Kris decided she needed to see the hairdresser on Wednesday of last week, so I got to stay home with Carver for the morning.  Since we haven't seen each other hardly any these last few months, I wanted to make it a special morning for the boy.  We started out with a trip to Stoney's Restaurant in Clarkesville.  We shared a big platter of biscuits and gravy, complete with scrambled eggs, sausage, and even some jelly.  Here's a few pics of our fun breakfast out together...

Here's our favorite breakfast spot.

The grub.  Carver likes breakfast just like his Daddy.

Carver's favorite restaurant pastime... playing with straws!

We ate everything on our plates, loaded up in the big blue truck and rolled on down the road back towards the house.  On the way home, we (or "I") hit a huge milestone with the truck and it made me happy to have Carver with me for the momentous occasion.  We crossed the 200,000 mark on the odometer that morning. I've anticipated this day for a long time.  Pretty much no one else would be excited about it, so it was good to at least have my little co-pilot along to share the moment with.  He played along with me as I pulled over and took a picture of the odometer so that we could remember this day together.  If he grows up to be like me, he would probably think it was a lame move, but I am going to pretend that it mattered to him as well.

Here's the proof...

Here's my faithful old truck...  She's been as loyal as a good dog to me...

We made it home, changed clothes and headed out for another adventure together.  More on that to come...

Summer Blues

My job is my life.  I know that is horrible but it's true in so many ways.  I love what I do and I can't fathom doing anything else.  Unfortunately, being in full time camp ministry can also put quite a strain on family time.  You see, this time of year is tough, real tough.  I moved out of the house and into my room at camp around mid-May.  I average about 4 - 5 hours of sleep a night for 3 months.  I've already pulled 3 all-nighters trying to get camp ready in time for the next group of kids.  It's non stop, full of challenges and plan B's, but I just wouldn't have it any other way.

However, while I have been hard at work, Kristi and Carver have taken two significant trips without me.  So, in the last month, I could count on my hands how many times I have seen them.  I'm not entirely sure that I would need both hands.  Kind of tough to be an involved, intentional dad when you aren't seeing your family for months at a time.

Hopefully, in the near future... maybe a couple of years down the road...  we can build a house at camp.  Though I am extremely busy there, I do have down time that I would love to spend with my family.  Unfortunately, with them living 30 minutes away, my down time is not enough to drive back and forth.  But, if they lived on property, I could see them at least daily.  We're praying for something to work out real soon.  I want to raise Carver at camp.  Camp has been such a huge part of my life for the last 15 years that I can't think of any other environment that I would rather raise him in.

Today was kind of cool though.  Probably for only about the second or third time in 15 years, I actually left town for an overnight trip while camp was in session.  Kris and Carver have been in Baltimore for the last week and a half prepping for my sister-in-law's wedding.  This morning I got up early, hopped on a plane and flew up for the wedding.  I'm heading back first thing tomorrow morning, but it was great to get to spend a day with Carver away from the distractions of camp.  That is rare, especially in the summer.  We didn't really do anything super special, but we did get to hang out, walk the dogs together, play cornhole, run in circles chasing each other and we both endured the misery of an outdoor summer wedding together.  It was a good day and even though I missed camp terribly, I'm so glad I got to hang out with my son today. 

Hopefully there will be many more days like this to come.  He's growing up so fast and I hate to miss so much of it.  No pics for now, but hopefully Kris will get me some to remember this day by.

The Park

Carver loves the park.  Since we have had great weather this week, I have been able to take him after work the last few days.  He loves to play outside, which makes me extremely happy.  Hope it lasts.  So, as long as he is loving it, we will try to keep going as much as possible.

This week he has finally learned how to slide down the slide by himself...  sort of.  Sometimes he tries to walk down; sometimes he does the superman slide; sometimes he does a split while sliding; sometimes he actually goes down feet first, and one of the funniest slides is his "no look" slide where he goes down feet first on his belly.  He's getting the hang of it so hopefully he can do all of this safely soon.  Right now we have to sort of spot him along the way.  Here's a few pics of the learning process:

A little help on those stairs...

Checkin' in out, planning the approach

Great form...

 

 

 

 

 

Most of the stuff at the park is still a little too big for him, but he likes to check out some of the other stuff.  Here are a few more shots of his outdoor adventures.

First trip to the sandbox...  Mommy never lets me in here...

Why so serious... 

Spring is here...

Carver is really enjoying this great spring weather we are having.  Couple that with the time change and we have been able to spend a lot of time outside lately.  He enjoys going to the park, walking around our yard and swinging in his new swing.  I love that Carver loves being outside.  He cries when we have to go back in.  He's discovering grass, flowers, dirt, bugs and all that good stuff.  He's not too sure about all of it yet, but he is digging checking everything out.  Carver even got his first splinter today, and it didn't seem to phase him at all.  Tonight he was perfectly content watching me pull weeds out of the garden.  I think he wanted to help, but wasn't sure about getting his hands that dirty.

I'm really enjoying this current stage.  Watching Carver walk around, explore and experiment is so cool.  Of course, he has also started showing some signs of mini tantrums if he doesn't get his way.  (That part is not so cool, but we are working on it.)

I can't wait for it to get a little warmer so we can try out the pool again.  Hopefully he will love the water as much as he did last summer.

Poor Winston

The boy likes the dog.  The dog likes the boy (most of the time).  Here's one of Carver's favorite uses for the Baby Winston...

 

Hopefully Carver will figure out a better way soon.  Not sure how long Winston will stand for this.

Long Days...

This is one of those dreaded weekends...  well, sort of... just half of a dreaded weekend I guess.  As much as I love my job at Strong Rock Camp, it often forces me into some super long hours.  In the summer, that's not so bad since I live on the property during those months and the summer ministry is what I am most passionate about.  But this time of year, the weekend retreats bring the good and bad.  The good part is it breaks up the monotony and keeps things interesting.  The bad part is we don't have those 30+ summer staffers around to help run the show.  The net result is that we often work 16 hour days on Friday and Saturday, followed by 8 - 10 hours on Sunday and then back to work as usual Monday morning. 

Yesterday was another one of those days.  At camp by 6:30 am preparing for the group, doing my normal Friday office work and then greeting the group around 4:00 when normal folks would've been knocking off for the weekend.  Not us though.  That just marked the beginning.  I had another 6 or 7 hours left before I could head home.  Back at work by 6:30 Saturday morning to do it all over again.

The hardest part of the weekends is missing out on family time.  It is not unusual for me to not even see Carver from Thursday night until Sunday afternoon.  I see Kristi, but only when I roll over in the bed as she is usually in bed before I get home and still asleep when I leave.  It makes for some tough weekends in regards to the family.

Luckily Kristi is a trooper with all of this.  She hangs in there while I'm away and keeps the house running smoothly.  It's just tough not to get to hang out with them, especially as Carver is getting into this latest mobile stage.

Our hope is to one day move onto, or very close to the camp property so that I can at least hang out with them a little more on these weekends.  Short breaks exist but since I can't leave the property, I don't have enough time to go home.

All right, enough venting...  just missing my boy (and his mom).  Back to work for now...  there's 160 burgers waiting on me to grill them to perfection and about 100 hungry teenagers demanding the same.  Off to get my grill on...