Monday, June 22, 2009

Making a Switch!!

Attention Friends and Visitors I am Changing My Blog Site!!!
I have decided to make a switch to a different blogging host. The hope is it will be easier to maintain and the presentation will look a little more sharp. Raising Daddy will probably take on a different style too... The post will be more about what I am learning through life's lessons and less about my personal and family musing. The personal and family stories can be seen on our family blog TheToFamily.blogspot.com Come check it out and tell me what you think. I'm pretty excited about this switch. 

The new blog will be here:

Thanks, see you there!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

5th Anniversary Getaway

Lisa and I celebrated our 5th anniversary at the coast this year. Friday morning we meet up with our good friends Trong and Henry at the Waffle Window. (One of our new favorite breakfast spots.) They are right off of Hawthorn street across from Ben and Jerry's. Anyway we had a great time catching up with the guys and Trong surprised us with tickets to see RENT next week. Stoked to see it.

 After breakfast we dropped Kaden off at my sister's. He was super excited to spend time with his cousins all day and have an over-nighter. Kaden did great he didn't even fuss. 

Lisa and I took our time driving out to Lincoln City. Our goal for the weekend was to just chillax and spend time chatting about life.  And that's exactly what we did.
 We found this place called the Nelscott Manor. It's a nice little quiet place that looked out over the coast. There was a nice jacuzzi tub that had a great view of the beach and the waves crashing.

This is me being romantic. I think I mentioned that I have a hard time in the romance department cause I just can't be serious long enough. Yeah, the extent of my romance is this picture. I HEART LISA!
We had to pose for a nice sunset at the beach. Lisa put the camera on the car's windshield wiper and then gracefully jumped into the picture.
This is us from the balcony of our hotel. It reminded us of our honeymoon trip to Cancun, o.k. not so much, but at least the ocean is behind us.  

On Friday night we sat on the balcony highlighting our last 5 years together and came to this conclusion, GOD is good... We have had a great start to our marriage and are looking forward to many more years together.  

Raising Daddy Tip Of  The Day
Make sure the ceiling is high enough before hoisting the munchkin up to ride on your shoulders. 

Saturday, June 6, 2009

News Letter

I'm trying to put our newsletter on blogger for the first time. Let me know if it works. The quality will suffer but I'm giving it a shot. If you want a copy of the PDF send me your e-mail and then I'll add you to our e-mail list.

Sorry for those of you who do an RSS feed I think it post on there every time I edit.
I got it to work the first time, but then realized I didn't want my address and numbers on there so blurred it out. 

Then when I reposted it, the pictures wouldn't enlarge. I think this will be my last try! haa haa...
Blogging ain't easy! haa haa... 

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Blogging Ain't Easy!

It's hard to stay fresh and think that anything I say is interesting to anyone else. I wonder to myself, "if this wasn't my blog would I read it?" The truth of the matter is I'm not sure. Most of the blogs I read are from people I know or have met. There is a big relational factor for me when reading blogs. So I wonder if that is the case with everyone else?

I ran into someone in Seattle a few weeks ago who said they where having fun reading Raising Daddy and I kind of laughed, but he was serious. So I took it as a complement and moved on. I guess there are a few of you who read this blog cause there have been over 400 hits since I started and I would guess I only account for 200 of them (just kidding I made sure my hits don't count). Thanks for reading and stroking my ego.

It is difficult to write a blog because it seems so self serving which for me it is, because I don't think that I give much valuable information and really I just talk about myself. That said I'm going to keep writing cause it gives me a place to share my thoughts (while my little one sleeps.)

Let me leave you with a few blogs that I have been reading lately:

John Stumbo's Blog ~ A pastor who has contracted a devastatingly mysterious illness that doctors are having a hard time diagnosing. John shares what God is teaching him through this.

SkyBox ~ Sky Jethani author of Divine Commodity & Editor of Leadership Journal shares thoughts and resources on ministry and leadership.

Stuff Christians Like ~ Funny yet insightful writings about Christians.

Added Bonus of just funny stuff:
Cake Wrecks ~ When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong. Makes me laugh every time.

Fail Blog~ Funny video and picture mistakes there is some inappropriate ones but there is an option at the top of the page to only view G-rated entries. 

Hope you enjoy these distractions.

Raising Daddy Tip Of The Day
If you download children's music online make sure you listen to it before you play it for the kiddos. Sometime the song might not be what you think it is.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Planning a Romantic Getaway


This year Lisa and I celebrate our 5th anniversary on June 12th. It's amazing how quickly this anniversary came. We have been talking about trying to do something special, but there are two little hurdles that we have to consider. 
1. What about Kaden? It can be difficult to be focused on each other and relax if our little toddler wants to jump in and share what's on his mind.
2. What about finances? We have been trying to be good stewards of our money and be more aware of our finances.
So this is what we came up with. We're going to leave Kaden with one of my sisters for an evening. and head to the cost overnight. We found a nice little hotel right on the Lincoln City coastline. It is a little more spendy then we wanted, but it is our 5th anniversary and we haven't taken much time for ourselves since Kaden was born. (justifying my spending is something I am working on, honest!)

We're getting excited to get away and hope it will be a nice time of relaxing and regrouping. Not sure how romantic it will really be since I don't really consider myself  much of a romantic. Whenever I try to do something like that it falls apart and turns into complete silliness.  It doesn't help that I can't keep a secret either... I've found that "romance" has a hint of secrecy involved.

So here is a picture of the place we will be staying for our anniversary.
The Oregon Coast never looked so good!!
Ok this is more like where we will be staying at; I told you we were on a tight budget!

Stay tuned for the real pictures of our "Romantic Getaway."
Raising Daddy Tip Of The Day
Make sure you have extra paper towels around if you teach your kids how to blow raspberries or zirberts on your face. It can get pretty wet!