I still remember the day I became a big brother, It was an incredibly beautiful day in Ireland. Blue skies, the sun was shining and the clouds were that huge puffy cotton like clouds that just seem to hang in the sky. I was 4 years old and my Dad took me to the hospital to see my mom and new baby sister. I remember seeing Jenn for the 1st time, as mom held her wrapped in a hospital blanket on the bed. She was beautiful. But then something even more awesome happened. My Mom and Dad handed me two silver six shooters with a red holster and a red cowboy hat. Thoughts of a new sister vanished and I ran outside to the parking lot to kill bad guys. Because that’s what four year old boys with toy guns do. Sorry Jenn.

We recently informed Desmond that he is about to be a big brother, he is much younger then I was at four, being he just turning 2 and all, but we felt it was important to explain to him the responsibilities that come with being a big brother. It is a big job, and one that at times is very difficult and also sometimes a job we do not want, especially when they come into your room uninvited and steal your favorite Micheal Jackson cassette tapes.

However the older I get the more important that job becomes to me, the more I love and care for my sister, and want nothing but happiness for her. This is the kind of big brother Desmond will be, and even now I can see the love he has for everyone around him, and I look forward to watching that grow over the years. God is awesome.

So onto the details. Jackie is doing good, she is tired and has the normal tough days of early pregnancy. She is about 9 weeks along. The baby will be here sometime in the middle of August. We already had our first doctors visit and it went very well. We will not be finding out the sex, so this is all the more exciting. I love my wife, she is a rock star. So pray for her, and pray for us, because life is about to take on a whole other level.

The more and more I look at Desmond the less and less I see of me and the more I see of Jackie. There is a saying out there that goes something like; the more you love someone, the more you see them in others. I think I totally butchered that. What I mean is, I love the two people in this picture so much, I see so much of them in each other. Desmond looks like Jackie, has her  personality, laughs like her, cries like her, acts goofy like her. It is a wonderful thing to watch. I not only have a best friend, and love of my life, but I also have a little version of that too with him. It is really awesome to see them interact with each other. Desmond clearly loves his momma.

A few weeks ago we went tot he zoo with the clan at easycheese.net it was good times all around. I have never been to the zoo in Atlanta and was pretty impressed with all they had to offer. I really did not expect much. Desmond had a ball with his buddy Danny. Seeing the animals was a real treat for them. I know Desmond favorite was the monkeys, duh! My favorite also.

What is love?

The other day Jackie and I were cooking dinner and Desmond was fussy, there was no calming him, we did everything we normally do. Gave him a cracker, changed his diaper, give him his cup, turned on elmo, played Thomas the tank engine, played trucks, you name it we tried it. Finally Jackie and I stop what we were doing, and just sat in the middle of the living room floor and over he came to us.

He sat down between us and started pulling and lifting Jackie’s leg and lifting it on to mine, and pulling my arm and wrapping it around her, back and forth until we both were hugged pretty close to each other, and him snugged tightly between us like a sandwich, hugged and wrapped in the arms and legs of his parents. He had the biggest smile on his face, he had accomplished his goal. We just laid there and laughed, and enjoyed the closeness of each other.

Life is chaos, we go and do not stop, we put a band-aid on things we push past the noise, we ignore each other, but a boy with 18 months of life in experience, in his own way made us stop and showed us what really is important.

That is love.

My latest favorite photo

So I am rebooting. I have a new theme for the website, do you like it? I think I do. I am also going to try and do better about updating. As much as I do this website for you all, I also do this for Desmond, this is my journal to him. I want to keep it going for as long as I can.  I just share it all with you too, so you can laugh along with me, as I figure this out.

So where are we? We are @ 18 months. It is true! 1yr, 6months, and 7 days. He is definitely now a little boy. He wants, he asks, he stomps, he cries, and he laughs. He is sweet, and thoughtful and very loving. He is Desmond. The boy I have been talking about for 1yr, 6mo, and 7 days. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that. What have I learned? I would not even know where to begin, but it is more then I have ever dreamed. I am learning to be a better son, a better husband, a good brother, and most of all I am learning to be a Dad. You put all of those things together, and I believe that makes you a Man, that is what I am starting to learn anyway.

His words are coming faster and faster, I can hardly keep up, and have given up counting. Yesterday it was “ahh dang” because Papa said it when there was nothing good to eat in the pantry, so Desmond agreed and said “ahh dang” too. His favorite words currently are “thank you” and “please” because he know these two words will usually get him what he is looking for and wants right away. Airplanes are a new fascination of his. He loves to see them in the sky and will chant “airplane!” over and over until we all point an acknowledge it too. He will also say ABC….D? Before he moves on to EFG he wants to make sure D is correct. He also loves to give kisses, but it has to be in pairs, if he kisses Jackie, he usually as to give me a kiss too, its only fair you see.

He had his check up done the other day, he was at about 34 inches and weighing in at about 25lbs. He was putting on quite the show for the Dr.  Doing a dance, talking, laughing interacting for the 1st time. It was pretty cool to watch. His shots went well, he cried for a minute, but got over it pretty quick. He started laughing when I started to put his shirt on over my head, he thought that was funny and silly.

Our days at home are good, there is lots of love between the three of us, we are kinda in limbo with homes and a daily structure somtimes, its difficult some days, and hard to find a balance of where we are going and whats next for us, but the one thing that never changes is love, we have love in a large supply around our home, we are being smart about our future and putting faith in that. Well that is all I have for today.

Desmond with a death grip on Bert!

We won some tickets to go see Sesame Street Live from the Credit Union and some radio station last week. Last night we picked up our tickets and found our way to the Centraplex to see the show. We had to get there an hour early because we also had won tickets to go back stage and meet some of the characters, and have pizza with them. We were a little worried how Desmond might do, as he is not into Sesame Street yet, and sitting still is not something he is into these days. We decided to give it a try, it was free to us so what did we have to lose.

With that being said Jackie and I both agreed it was a very wise decision to go after all, he LOVED IT! At the pre-party we all had to line up to meet “Bert and Ernie” we let a few of the older kids go first, and one by one smiles turned to melt downs. I guess the pressure was too much, some kids freak out when they see a larger then life puppet coming to get them. That was not the case with Desmond, I set him on the ground and he went running towards them. He has no idea who Bert and Ernie are, but he did not want to let go of them, he gave them “high-fives” grabbed onto them and just had a face of pure excitement on it. It was “wow” and “yaaay!” and claps all around from him. When they left we looked around at us, and says ” see it?” and pointed to the door they just went into to go back to the dressing rooms. Seconds later he is running towards the door like a crazed fan storming backstage. I was able to wrestle him to the ground, and we moved our way up to our seats.

We handed our tickets to the lady who was helping people to their seats, she looked at our seat numbers and did not know where to seat us, those seat numbers did not exist. She went off and asked someone else, she comes back and tells us to head down front. It turns out we are up front and center, best seats in the house! we couldn’t have been any closer. This was perfect, because again, Mr. Desmond does not sit in seats for more then half a nano-second. Once the show started he was hooked, the lights, the singing, dancing, giant stuffed animals running around stage, he was fixed on it, and I was fixed on him.

Its pretty wild how much enjoyment you can get out of watching your child enjoy something new. It was a new rush of feelings for me. I have experienced enjoyment of seeing his eyes light up before. But this was new and different. When it comes to being goofy in public with strangers I tend to shy on the side of “im too cool to do that, and I hope no one is looking at me” but last night, who cares, every parent in the complex was being a kid again and acting the fool with their children, the adults ate it up just as much as the kids. That was fun to me, Jackie and I caught ourselves looking at each other a few times and smiling at how much he was loving this. The characters ran out into the crowed lots of times during the show, and each time we were always right their to get a handshake, elmo came and saw us, and yes Desmond can now say “elmo”, actually its more like “eammmo”.

So there you have it, our first experience with something on that big of a scale with a small child. Thank you Credit Union and Light Rock Z90 whatever the heck station you are for the free tickets. We enjoyed them!

(nonyoutubelink)

Day 1:
Oh how we packed, and packed, and packed some more. We all know Jackie loves her lists, and her packing list was enough for 10 people preparing for Judgment Day (see picture). I also have this “thing” where I like to do things in one trip, like get the grocery’s from the car in one trip, or move from car to hotel in one trip. I call it  the “One Trip Hogan” and from the picture link above you can see I was testing the laws of physics and almost broke my streak, but I did it, in one trip, up 15 floors and through a parking garage. I got some looks, but I did it.

We did the trip in about 4.5 hours with stops, thanks to some very skilled co-workers with their back road secrets, thank you Doug and Kristi. When we go there the first thing we did was hit the pool, the slides and the beach! We wore that poor little guy out. I never seen someone so excited to be in water, because this time it was about fun and not “lessons”. After the beach we ate at Sharky’s (thanks April) and walked the beach. From there we went home. Desmond slept 14 hours! Now that is some serious fun.

Day 2:
When Desmond finally woke up, I noticed he was quickly gathering his bucket, shovel, and shoes, and putting them all by the front door, he quickly ran up and down the hallway putting each item in a pile. That boy wanted to go to the beach! So we did! I was excited to be at the beach to build me some sand castles. The thing I had not accounted for was Godzilla plopping his big fat SUMO butt on each castle I made. So I dug a deep hole and put him in it, this contained him long enough for me to complete my master piece. Of course as soon as he got free, he sat right on it, and we both had a good laugh about it. Good times.

That night we ate Pineapple Willy’s which is now a new favorite for us, and somewhere we will be going to from now on (nice job Char). I got me some ribs, a big boy drink and I was a happy dude. Jackie got her self a nice po’boy sandwich was was big enough to feed two. Desmond tore down on some ribs himself. A wonderful night, on the beach eating dinner with the ones I love most.

Day 3: Shell island! This was a fun time, we went and took a little ferry over to shell island. This was fun for the little guy, his first time on a boat, his thoughts on it? Vroom! Vroom! of course. Shell island is very pretty and secluded (no hotels or anything), although there was a lot more people there then I expected. There are lots of shells, but all the good ones were taken by the time we got there. I am sure if you got there early enough there would be lots to pick from. My advice on this is go early and wear lots of sun screen, because it was hot hot hot!

Day 4: Seaside is one of our favorite places to go, its only about 20 minutes from PCB and we have stayed there lots of times. Its so clean, white and just very small beach town type atmosphere. The water was so blue it was just a beautiful setting. We walked around some gardens, walked over a bridge, and just had a beautiful morning outside.

That night we headed to a hidden restaurant called “The Boatyard”. This was excellent! I had a hankering for a cheeseburger, and they did not fail. It was one of the best, maybe the best cheeseburger I have ever hard. Right up there with the ones in Jamaica. I was so full after it. Desmond tore down on some sweet potato fries, in fact that’s all he wanted. Delicious! We will be going there again.

Day 5: It all comes to an end, we hit the beach one more time, hit the pool, enjoyed some sun, and wrapped it up.

I must say, this was by far one of the best vacations we have been on. It was our first as a threesome. I was worried about it with a small child, but Jackie and I found ourselves doing things we normally would not do on vacation. Stopping and taking a moment to watch Desmond’s face light up on the little things we blow right past normally. Jackie did such an amazing job packing the food, getting the things we needed together so we could go out to eat at some great places. Our meals at home on the balcony were just as enjoyable as a $40 meal out, and for that hard work on her part he got to enjoy so much more. Thanks babe for all that effort. You did an amazing job planning that.

I think PCB will be our new destination spot, it was fun, not too far and really hope we can convince some you all to come down with us sometime, because we will be going lots more often! I have posted all the pictures from the vacation on the gallery. You can follow that link here. I will have some video later in the week

PANAMA CITY 2009

One of the best things I remember about growing up was that my parents were always taking us somewhere new each weekend. Ireland may not be very big, but there is something to see every 2 miles. In the 12 years I spent there, I got to see a lot of it. It felt like every weekend we were heading somewhere new, it was a new adventure every time. Those are some of my favorite memories, and now it was my turn to make some for Desmond.

Recently, Jackie and I have been getting more adventurous on getting out with Desmond. He is getting old enough now were he cares about what he see’s. I realized this the other morning when I caught him peeking out the front door window. He was standing on his tippy toes looking out the window at the water sprinklers as they soaked the front yard, he just kept saying….woaaaaw! He would look back at me, point, and again say woaaaw! So Jackie had the great idea of Callaway Gardens. We have been wanting to go for months. We kept putting it off, making excuses like, its too far, hes not old enough, it will be too exhausting. Well we almost did that again Friday, but we didn’t, and headed off Saturday morning.

We had an absolute blast, the weather was perfect, the flowers were blooming, and he just soaked it all up. It was woaaw this and wooaaw that with Desmond all day. He saw turtles and got to feed the fish, he even ate a little fish food himself, I was not surprised. We planned on doing bike rides, but did not. We will definitely plan on this next time, because we are for sure going back. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. Enjoy!

A few weeks ago I wrote a little post about Uncle Jack (you can read that here). After that post he gave me a call on the phone and told me how much all I had said meant to him, and if he had known how much I liked giving his brother (my father-in-law) a hard time he would have put me in training much sooner. So he wanted me to do something for him. He wanted me to tell his brother how young he was looking lately. He did not give me the details as to why he wanted me to say this, he just wanted me to randomly tell Jackie’s dad that he was looking young today, and to do this every time I could remember to do so. So over the next few weeks I would just out of the blue say “you know Bob, you are looking young today” or “there must be something in the water at this new house, because you are looking mighty young today”. I do not know if this was an inside joke between them, or what, but Jackie’s dad would just chuckle.

Saturday evening Uncle Jack passed away peacefully. We already miss him, but take a huge amount of comforting in knowing he is no longer suffering, and is now home.

Sunday morning when I went outside, Jackie’s dad was working on the breaks of the car, and I said “you know Bob you are looking mighty young today” I almost didn’t get the words out of my mouth, because I started to tear up. I bent down and I hugged him and told him that his brother told me to tell him that, and that was why I had been telling him that for the last few weeks. He laughed, and smiled and we both agreed that that Uncle Jack was something else, and from now on, this was how we would remember him.

I watch a lot of TV. I also love certain characters on my TV shows. In a lot of ways I try to find a little of myself  in each one of them. Lets start with LOST. On that show there is a character by the name of Jack Shepherd. He is the level headed fearless leader of a group of survivors of a plane crash on a deserted island. He is the one person everyone looks toward in times of struggle and desperation. Jack is the guy you want to have on your side. He is the guy you know you can trust to give you the right advice when you need it most. Jack Shepherd is all man, but sensitive to everyone’s needs.

Another show I watch religiously is 24. One this show there is a character named Jack Bauer. Now Jack Bauer is a different breed of man, he is the guy who keeps his feelings bottled up inside to protect the ones around him. He always puts himself in harms way to protect the ones he loves (although he would never admit he loves anyone, to protect them of course). Jack Bauer can be a little scary, but he has to be to get the job done. He has saved the world countless times over and over again, and has asked for nothing in return. Jack Bauer is completely selfless, undeniably brave, and without question completely fearless.

This brings me to the Jack you might not know. We know him as Uncle Jack. You will not find him on any TV show or lost on an island, or saving the world from nuclear bombs. You will however find that when you get to know him, you instantly begin to love him. He is my wife’s Uncle, the older brother of her Dad. The one thing I love the most about Uncle Jack is how hard of a time he gives his younger brother. You see I love to give Jackie’s Dad a hard time, its what I do best. It breaks the awkward father-in-law/son-in-law dynamic that plagues those relationships. It is our way of bonding and building a friendship. Uncle Jack however gives his brother a harder time then I could ever dream of. I love to watch him interact with his brother. Uncle Jack is my mentor when it comes to giving my father-in-law a hard time. I am a total amateur compared to him. I want to be just like Uncle Jack, and give his brother a hard time on that level.

Uncle Jack is fighting a battle that is very real.  It is a battle with cancer that is of the worst kind. It is a reality and hard emotional pill for all of us close to him to swallow. Jackie, Desmond and I went for a visit to see him over in Alabama this weekend. Seeing him and talking to him as we watched Desmond playing on the floor in his living room you could see why Jack was named Jack. He has everything those other Jack’s have but he also has so much more. He has the look of calm, the spirit of peacefulness and the love and comfort in his eyes that he is going to be OK, and we all should know that.  The warmth in his hug and handshake as we left to come home felt good deep down inside my heart.

So you may not know Jack, but Uncle Jack needs your prayers, he needs your love. So I ask you just close your eyes right now, think of him, send him your strength and prayer, give him just a moment of your time, and God will do the rest. If you don’t know Jack, just take a moment to know him now.