Back to School 2023

In early August Cynthia and I went to Pensacola Beach/Navarre and stayed at an AirBnb on the beach. It was awesome and relaxing and awesome.

Waiting for our shipwrecks at Peg Leg Pete's.

Sitting in our same spot each time at Flounder's.

The beach behind our Airbnb.

Out past the barrier reef was a bloom of pink meanie jelly fish. They look like brightly colored steering wheels. We also saw a 5-6 foot tiger shark swim past.

We also visited the Naval Aviation Museum while we were there. 

Then when we got back we went to the state fair! Some of our small group friends met us there and we tried out the Deep Fried Bacon Brisket Mac-n-Cheese Grilled Cheese sandwich. 

It took a year off the end of my life, but it was so good.

The ladies all went on a ride together. I'm not a fan, so I just watched.

One of my favorite pictures of the entire summer, haha.

Emily at band camp! She is the percussion lead in marching band this year, which is super cool. She's a very talented kid.

Then I took Rose to new student orientation at Coe. There are 422 incoming freshmen, so it's a small school. Rose is majoring in Psychology and is excited to start college.

They have each kid ring the bell before they start school and then they will ring it again when they graduate.

Cynthia discovered a gift card to the Macaroni Grill, so we went there for dinner the day before school started. Both girls started school on the same day.

Rose bein' Rose!

June 2022

June was a good month! But it went by fast as it usually does. School is out for the summer, which means that Rose will be a senior in the fall and Emily will be a freshman. This will be the only year that they both attend high school together. And it means that Rose will be graduating around this time next year! That's hard to believe. Also, she applied to Coe College and was accepted! Welcome, class of 2027:

Since Cynthia works at Coe Rose's tuition is free, so we're only on the hook for room and board (which isn't cheap, either). Even though Coe is close enough that Rose could easily live at home, we felt like Rose living in the dorms and being on campus full-time would be an important part of the college experience and a step towards becoming a fully independent grown-up living on her own.

For Cynthia's birthday one of the things she asked for was a series of drawings of each of the houses we've owned. It's gonna take a while to get all three done, but I had the Des Moines house done in time for her birthday. With some help from Alice:

The finished drawing:

Alice in a rare moment when she's not tearing the house apart or climbing the curtains:

I made the trip out to Boston for the first time since the pandemic (and I'll be going out again in July). It was good to finally meet so many people in person that I had only spoken to on zoom calls. Also, I feel like I barely know anybody there anymore. The company has hired roughly 500 people since the beginning of 2020, so there are a lot of new faces.

Somewhere over Ohio:

Random: this groundhog apparently lives under our shed in the backyard. We occasionally see him waddling around out there:

I made the 30-mile roundtrip bike ride to Center Point. A few years ago I made this trip regularly, but then got tired of riding the same route all the time so since then I've changed it up.

I usually turn around to head back when I'm just north of the Center Point train depot:

Cynthia went with some friends to see the Indigo Girls:

Emily and Alice taking an afternoon nap:

That cat is growing like a weed:

We went to Double Z's to see Stryper! I've never seen them before and it was a pretty cool experience. Those dudes are gettin' old, but they can still rock like it's 1985. I was impressed, they can still tear it up and Michael Sweet has an incredible voice. And the only non-original member of the band is the bass player. There were a couple stages set up and Fresh Fighters played the smaller one in the background of our lovely date night pic:

It was cool to see all the die-hard fans and people who knew the lyrics to every song. Out of their 90-minute set I think I knew about 6 songs. And they have a new album coming out this summer. Lots of energy:

I always heard that Stryper threw Bibles into the crowd at the end of their shows... and guess what? They still do. We caught this one: