All posts filed under: Family

California or Bust

Taking the long way

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California or bust! We had barely slipped the bonds of the beltway as we began our Not All Who Wander Are Lost tour when the Dixie Chicks tune The Long Way Around popped up on Claire’s playlist.  We both laughed and agreed it was a good omen for our less-than-direct trip to Southern California. Today was the day to hit the ground running and make it to Cleveland.  Almost six hours of driving lay ahead of us, and we wanted to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, spend time with my colleague Kathleen Crowther and her husband Herb, and take in a Cleveland Indians game. We didn’t make any stops, but we did see our first set of absurd billboards.  As we crossed  the state line into Pennsylvania, a series of ads from the state’s coal and energy producers sprang up touting the benefits of “clean coal.”  Who knew?! The best was the billboard that asked, “Would You Take Energy Advice from Someone in a Meat Dress?” alongside a ridiculous picture of Lady …

Not All Who Wander Tour 2014

Not all who wander are lost: The tour

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I have always wanted to drive cross-country. So when Claire left for college in California as a freshman in the fall of 2011, I told her about my bucket list dream and promised that one of her trips from Washington (the east coast one) to California would take place in a car with her dad. Guess who begins her senior year at the end of August?  And guess who passes a major birthday milestone next winter? With those deadlines looming, we leave on our drive tomorrow, August 1st.  It was now or never. And we are pumped about this trip! As we’d both driven much of the “southern” (i.e., direct) route in shorter trips, we decided to wander around a bit in the Midwest, the Great Plains, and the Pacific Northwest before we finally make our way to Southern California.  I’ve dubbed it our Not All Who Wander Are Lost tour.  I just wish I’d thought ahead to have t-shirts made!  (Cue the eye rolling by Claire.) So over the next 20 days, you’ll get …

A Weekend (and More) of Celebration

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  A pre-July 4th visit to Mount Rushmore, the annual craziness that is the Takoma Park July 4th parade, our traditional Independence Day picnic at the wonderful Franklin Knolls pool, Claire returns after six weeks in Vienna, Andrew knocks it out of the park with a National Anthem, Dad turns 89, and two days with dear friends to celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary and an 80th birthday…I can’t imagine a better July 4th weekend (and a bit more). My celebration of things Americana began last week.  While on a work trip, a colleague and I took a short detour in the Black Hills of South Dakota to visit Mt. Rushmore. It was my first trip there, and the monument is as awe-inspiring as advertised. I took the expected pictures of the monument — from the front, with the state flags, and from the perspective down at the sculptor’s studio. Then I did something out of character — and took my very first selfie.  I was actually pretty pleased that I knew how to do it …

Farewell 2013; Hello 2014

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It is the season for musing on the year that is rapidly passing away and making resolutions for the year ahead.  I tend to use this blog to reflect on items throughout the year (see – among many others – thoughts on the Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service, preseason baseball, wonderful European travel, fathers, live music set in the midst of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, “stay-cations”, holiday weekends, our year in photos, and 21st birthday celebrations.) So I have only one additional reflection today…but I have several resolutions.  I’ve found that when I call out my resolutions publicly, I tend to keep them.  (Funny how that works!)  But first, let’s look back. I am a lucky man.  The picture above pretty much explains it all.  As Claire and Andrew have passed significant life milestones, I have often written about my wonderful children.  They aren’t perfect, but they do give me a great deal of pleasure (when they aren’t driving me crazy.  Have you seen those rooms!?!) However, I’ve been reminded over this holiday season how lucky …

Happy Father’s Day, Tom Brown

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This morning, our Sunday Forum at St. Alban’s Parish involved readings about fathers.  I decided on the spot to read a portion of a post I wrote  in 2010 on More to Come… on the occasion of what would have been my parents’ 60th anniversary and days before my father’s 85th birthday.  The original post was primarily about my father, and it seemed appropriate for Father’s Day. So here’s what I read in honor of Tom Brown.  (And yes, I teared up at the end and was thankful that Andrew and Claire were out in the hallway and weren’t embarrassed by their dad). My Mom was generally considered to be a saint, and dying at a relatively young age from cancer only cemented that view in all our minds….My father is a bit more complicated…which also makes him very interesting. Mother once described my father as having a mouth “always turned up in a perpetual smile” but apparently it wasn’t always so.  Several years ago Daddy sent us some thoughts he had written while on …

A Gem of a Day

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By just about any measure, it was a pretty wonderful day for a baseball game in the nation’s capital. Sunday of Memorial Day weekend…the start of summer. (Check.) Sunny skies with temps in the high sixties/low seventies throughout the afternoon. (Check.) A huge crowd at the yard.  Official attendance of 39,033.  (You look for these things when you’re scoring the game.) (Check.) Wonderful daughter along for the afternoon. (Check!) As we left home for the metro around noon for the 1:35 first pitch, Claire and I had on appropriate game-day attire.  (I think she still finds it amazing that someone who is 20 – her age – can play major league baseball, so I offered up the Harper shirt.) Strasburg was on the mound, and he was sharp! The Phillies were confused all day.  Eight strong innings and nine strikeouts later – with the only blemish being a balk on his next to last pitch allowing a man on third to score – he showed that despite the strange 3-5 W-L record this year, he’s …

It was twenty years ago today

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On a bright, clear, and wintery Sunday morning — December 20, 1992 — two infants, each barely over 5 pounds in size, entered and forever changed our world. Of course, we didn’t know it at the time, because we wouldn’t learn of their birth from the adoption agency until the next morning. But when I heard that they were born around 11:50 a.m. (and Claire will know who came out first and how much older that twin is than Andrew), I recalled that at the  very moment of their birth I was singing the ancient carol There Is No Rose of Such Virtue on the last Sunday of Advent. Knowing that their birth mother could deliver at any time, we were certainly – in that Advent season — looking forward to those births. And we’ve been singing ever since. Claire and Andrew came home with us on January 14, 1993. They received a royal welcome from friends and family, who decorated the house with balloons, left strollers and diapers on the front porch, and brought …