Piper's teachers all seem to love her; of course they would, she does the work and does well. She's also pretty humble, apparently ( Read more... )

Last Saturday was a beautiful fall day in Coralville. No rain (of course it hasn't rained in weeks, but that's another matter); blue skies. Matt and I were putting some things in our car to haul out to the storage shed, part of gradually cleaning a spot in the basement to move Piper's drum kit. I had the back gate open. Harley was basking on the ( Read more... )

My kids went to their first honest-to-goodness, non-covid, non-babysitter, family wedding this August. Their cousin Chris got married in Door County, Wisconsin ( Read more... )

Local radio station Z102.9 ran a contest last week for a pair of Taylor Swift tickets. They would play a sounder at about 20 minutes after the hour, every hour, with an announcement to fill out a form on their website. At about 18 minutes past every hour that she was awake, Rachel would shush the room, turn on the radio, and enter ( Read more... )

(It's pronounced "Gill-bear," because it's named for a French guy ( Read more... )

Samantha was home from college for a brief visit so that she and I could see Cabaret at Theatre Cedar Rapids--I had won tickets from a radio contest. We decided to go out to dinner in North Liberty, since that's on the way to Cedar Rapids ( Read more... )

18 to 19 is a pretty big transition. Within the last year Samantha graduated from high school and started going to college. She attends a college that's just an hour down the road, which is great for her and us. She seems to have settled in well; she was cast in a play, was the fight captain for that play, and has made friends--many of whom seem to ( Read more... )

This feels like the only appropriate place to write about our most recent Thanksgiving; the whole Facebook world doesn't need to know, it's not really releveant to Medium; pretty much just family stuff ( Read more... )

Preserved here because I felt like it ( Read more... )

Sharon and Piper are on the loveseat. Sharon is looking at Hulu on her laptop ( Read more... )