Tag Archives: Quelf

Wayfarer's Journal

Fourth of July Family Weekend at the Lake

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As I mentioned in my earlier post this morning, it was a fantastic weekend at the lake with family. Wendy, her sister Suzanna, and I drove up on Wednesday morning and spent the afternoon getting the Playhouse ready for the onslaught. Clayton jumped in the van with my folks, they picked up Taylor (flying in from weekend with a friend in L.A.) and Madison (flying in from her home in Colorado Springs), at the Des Moines airport and headed south, arriving in time for a late dinner of pizza from Captain Ron’s. My sister Jody, her husband Scott and their kids Solomon and Emma left after Sol got off work and arrived in the wee hours of Thursday morning.

The Fourth of July was spent outside in the sun. Other than a brief, intense rain/hail storm that evening, the weekend was gorgeous with highs in the mid-80s and night time temps falling low enough to open the house. There was a lot of time in the “relaxation station” on the water on Thursday. Tom and Wendy served up a wonderful meal of smoked salmon for dinner that night as we celebrated Taylor’s 23rd birthday. It was a chilly evening and we headed out on the water to watch the fireworks at Captain Ron’s, only they didn’t shoot off fireworks that night (oops). Our neighbors, however, shot off a mess of them and we enjoyed the private show. Taylor brought sparklers and glow bracelets to enjoy.

Friday morning a bunch of the crew headed out on a neighbors boat so that Jody could (attempt to) water ski. The rest of us hung out. Mid-day we headed out on the boat to Bear Bottom resort for fun on the water slide and in the pool. We were going to eat lunch there but it was going to take forever to get served. We tried Captain Ron’s but there was a two-hour wait there, too. So we ate at the Playhouse. Jody and Scott made enchiladas for us that night. A tradition in our house is to answer questions from the “If” book after dinner and we spent a long while gathered around the table answering questions like “If you could read one person’s diary, whose would you read and why?” We learned a lot about one another and enjoyed a ton of laughs. As night descended we sat out on the lawn  by the lake to watch Captain Ron’s fireworks.

Saturday started with the requisite run to Sunrise Doughnuts. Between doughnuts, grandma’s cinnamon rolls, grandma’s chocolate chip cookies, Jody’s monster cookies, and Wendy’s cheesecake, and an anniversary cake for Scott and Jody we all got fat ‘n happy through the weekend. More sun and fun on the dock on Saturday. Scott took the kids into Osage to shop at the outlet mall. Wendy and I snuck off on the waverunner for a while. In the afternoon people kind of did their own things. People read, Maddy and I went out to Bulldog’s Beach House for a daddy/daughter date. People watched movies.

Saturday night was Grandpa and Grandma’s turn to treat with barbecue ribs and chicken. We celebrated Jody and Scott’s anniversary with a cake. That night we played Quelf together and had an uproariously good time. The kids stayed up to watch movies while the adults pooped out early.

Sunday morning Wendy and I made one last, big meal to have together. The crew did a wonderful job of helping pick up and clean and then packed up and headed out a little after 10:00 a.m. leaving Wendy, Suzanna and me in an odd sort of quiet.

Chapter-a-Day

What Really Matters

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Crazy Family LR

For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.
Philippians 1:10 (NLT)

This Fourth of July holiday weekend was spent with a good number of our family members at the lake. As children grow and spread out on their own path, it becomes more and more rare for many of us to gather together. Even during high holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas our gatherings become more and more limited. We share a meal. We have an hour or two together before various members begin to scatter to their own personal schedules and priorities. Such is life.

So, Wendy and I headed to the lake last Wednesday recognizing the rare opportunity for family members to have three full days and four nights cloistered together. My parents, my sister, her husband and two of her three kids, our two daughters, our son-in-law, along with Wendy’s youngest sister enjoyed eating, playing, talking, resting, and laughing together. We celebrated Taylor’s 23rd birthday on the Fourth. We celebrated Scott and Jody’s 25th wedding anniversary. We celebrated life together.

On Saturday night the entire crew gathered around the dining room table to play a game of Quelf. It’s a little known game with no real objective other than to inspire and motivate corporate silliness. I have a great photograph of Wendy with tears of laughter streaking down her face as she attempted to quell her laughter long enough to read one of the game cards. Someone at the table remarked that what we were experiencing together that night would become family legend. Twenty years from now when we gather together for a meal with children and grandchildren out will come the stories of the Fourth of July weekend at the lake when Taylor and Clayton made masks out of paper plates, when Grandpa acted like a woman, and when Grandma introduced us to Wendy the sock puppet. Long forgotten will be the work deadlines that stressed me out so much over the past few weeks.

The further I progress in my life journey, the more capably I believe that I am able to discern and refine my understanding of what really matters. So much of that with which we concern our daily time and energy does not really matter in any significant, eternal sense. We rather become entangled and distracted. We pour time, energy and resources into those things which drain our lives without providing any worthwhile return on the investment.

Today, I am thinking about what matters, and what does not. God, grant me the wisdom to know the difference between the two and the grace to concern myself with the former as I increasingly divest myself of the latter.

Wayfarer's Journal

Anniversary and New Year’s

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New Year’s Eve was Wendy’s and my 6th Wedding Anniversary! We enjoy being with friends on New Year’s Eve, so we actually celebrated our Anniversary the day before. We decided that we’d celebrate this year by checking out all the after Christmas sales, get a few new clothes, and then go out to eat. We had a great day together and did find some wonderful deals. Taylor was working at J. Crew and she told us that Clayton was meeting her after work for a date night, so we met them for coffee when she got off work and enjoyed some conversation. We ended our evening at the Latin King for a nice leisurely evening meal.

New Year’s Eve was spent at the Pella VL’s with a small group of friends. It was supposed to be a potluck of appetizers, but everyone brought enough food to feed an army. We had Wendy’s chicken fingers, meat and cheese platters, chips and queso, a few more meat and cheese platters, pita bread and hummus, and more meat and cheese platters. Then there was Wendy’s snicker doodle cupcakes and chocolate truffle cheesecake for dessert.

There was plenty of great conversation around the room and everyone enjoyed getting to meet baby Camille. She was the center of attention for a while. The VL boys got back from being with a babysitter and we got to enjoy seeing them before they headed to bed. I  even got to read Casey at the Bat to Nathan. With the kids down, the adults retired to the family room to play a hilarious game of Quelf and laughed until it hurt.

By the time Wendy and I got back home, cleaned up a bit, and got to bed it was closer to my normal waking time than I care to admit. We were able to sleep in, however, and we enjoyed a very quiet day spent mostly on the couch Sunday.

Wayfarer's Journal

2011 Christmas in Denver with the Halls

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Apologies to those who’ve wondered where my chapter-a-day posts were since late last week. I took a few days off to celebrate Christmas with Wendy and her family in Denver. Wendy’s sister, Becky, was kind enough to host us all for the second straight year. We even got to meet Court, the new man in her life. His folks even joined us for brunch on Sunday morning.

Madison’s boyfriend, Kevin, drove up from Mt. Pleasant on Thursday and spent the night here in Pella so we could leave early on Friday. We stopped in Des Moines to pick-up Taylor. It was a long drive, but we enjoyed some great conversation and made it to Denver in the early evening.

Saturday morning was spent shopping with Kevin and the girls. Taylor helped me pick out a few birthday gifts for Wendy, utilizing those skills she’s been honing at her job at J. Crew. Madison and Kevin worked on some gifts for Kevin’s niece and nephew while Madison shopped for some work clothes.

Wendy’s sister, Becky, was a wonderful hostess and we enjoyed hanging out all afternoon and evening. We ate a lot and laughed a lot. Food and conversation were the order of the weekend. I enjoyed coffee and conversation with Wendy’s dad both Saturday and Sunday morning. Taylor got up to join the two of us “morning people” on Sunday morning which was wonderful.

The family gathered around my iPad on Sunday to Skype with Wendy’s brother, Josh who is serving as a dentist in the Army in Germany. It was fun to watch everyone gathered around to visit with Josh who was half a world away. As a Christmas gift to the family, Josh talked his girlfriend into stepping into the camera so everyone could see her.

Taylor brought a party game called Quelf along for the weekend. On Saturday night the five of us played in the hotel room. On Sunday, we made Wendy’s siblings play with us. It’s sort of a zany mash up of trivial pursuit, charades, and truth or dare. We had a lot of fun playing together.

I drove Madison back to Colorado Spings on Monday morning. It was fun to see where she goes to school, to see the house where she lives and to meet her landlord. After a business lunch in Englewood, I headed back to the hotel to pick up Wendy, Taylor and Kevin to begin the trek home. Wendy had been watching the radar and told me that we could expect to drive through snow, ice and rain all the way home as a huge storm front moved north into Nebraska and Iowa. We were extremely thankful as the front seemed to miraculously stay just south of the interstate. At one point the radar showed that it was snowing right where we were, but we didn’t experience one snow flake or rain drop the entire way home. We arrived home in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

We had a ball and enjoyed the time with family.

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