My daughter should have won an award for the most exuberant customer of the year. She just turned two and part of her birthday gift was a trip to an aquarium in the Smokies. She was ecstatic. Every tank was met with shrieks of joy and exclamations of, “WOW, big fish!” Her eyes were shining and she…
Every morning my dog waits patiently to be let outside for his morning explorations. When I open the back door, he can’t contain his excitement and virtually bursts out into the yard. He looks almost like a deer as he leaps to the fence to see if his doggy neighbor is outside. Then he jumps…
A 3×5 card hangs on my fridge with a three-line to-do list. The first two items are filled in with “Love God” and “Love Others.” The designer left the third line blank, and my daughter recently wrote in “Love Dogs.” My husband and I joke that, at only seven, she’s discovered the key to a…
We preach kindness to our children. We seek to show love, compassion, and respect to the people around us. Too often, though, we’re unkind and neglectful to one of God’s cherished creations: the woman we see in the mirror every day. I’m not talking about manicures and massages here—although I think those are important too….
My precious nine-month-old daughter was wailing. I mean, totally out of control. She’d been battling ear infections and new teeth and all the things babies hate. We followed the usual bedtime routines, and still she could not settle. She was gasping and hiccupping and looking desperately at her daddy, as if to say, “Please, could…
We fell in love with the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 1995, and we’ve returned almost every summer since. Each time we cross the Wright Memorial Bridge, the three-mile span that serves as the unofficial entrance, we roll down the windows and turn up our favorite Jimmy Buffett song. The smells, the sounds, and…