My Lunch Date with Another Woman

Now that my summer craziness is finally dying down, I can write a couple of things that I have experienced over the summer that I have wanted to write about. This one started up a couple of weeks ago when Audrey had to join Ashley at work one day.

During this time, the girls had to go to work with either me or Ashley and since Ashley had limited mobility, Audrey went to work with her to help with things around her office. Addison went to a friend's house to play for the day. I decided to take Audrey out for a lunch date. I don't always get one on one time with the girls as I'll usually get them both together.

I picked up Audrey and we went to Chilis. It's really important to me that I treat her in special ways when we have this one on one time because I want her to expect those types of things when she starts going on dates with guys. Even though it's gonna be at least another 3+ years before that happens, I want her to be able to notice the differences between the guys who are worthy of dating her and the ones who are not.

I opened the door for her to get into the car. I told her that I liked her outfit and how it was nice, but also appropriate at the same time. I tell her how I love that she is not like other girls and that her uniqueness is what makes her special.

I love that Audrey has standards for the guys she dates. Only time will tell if those standards change or not, but the fact that they are already there give me some peace. Audrey will set the bar for the type of guys that Addison dates. The guys that the girls date will set the bar for how their little brother, Gatlin sees how dating should be and how he should treat girls.

At Chilis I asked her about how she felt about dating. She told me that she has no intentions of going out with a guy until she is 16. The best part about that is she said that because when she goes on dates at 16, she will meet the guy at the place they go to instead of ride with him because that way if the date goes poorly then she can drive herself home (I swear I didn't give her that idea). She said that she wouldn't walk through any doors unless he opened them for her. She said that she won't pay for a thing on any of the dates she goes on.

My favorite comment she made about dating was that she told me that she would not let a guy kiss her until the 7th date, but that isn't the best part. I asked her why the 7th date and she said that 7 is a holy number and it's not too long or too short. I have no way of arguing this because it was both moral and biblical, so I moved on after laughing for about 5 minutes straight.

We talked about her being in the youth group. This is something that I think is hilarious because the only guys who ever have their own kids in their youth ministry stay in youth ministry for at least 10-15 years. I'm going on year 5. The guys who I interned under, Kody Speer and Robbie Forrester, have both yet to have any of their own kids in their youth ministry. We talked about what her expectations are and will be. We talked about how she fits into the group and what she likes and doesn't like about the ministry. I think her being in my ministry will present some challenges, but it will also present some advantages for me as a youth minister. This will also mean more time with her, which is good because of the phase of life that she is about to go through. This is a highly influential phase and because of that, it presents some things to be aware of.

I'm already starting to pay more attention to the friends she surrounds herself with because they are playing a huge role in shaping her into the woman she becomes. Family plays a big role in that but many times, friends play an even bigger role. Last week, Ashley and I finally caved in a bought her a cell phone. We figured that we might as well skip the "why don't I have an iPhone when every one else does" argument and got her an iPhone 5s. We have set about a billion restrictions on it already because I am convinced that cell phones and social media play a huge role in a girl's negative self image. She now has a private instagram account and became addicted to texting about 1.25 seconds after the phone was put into her hands. I have been ok with that because the people she has sent most of her texts to have been family. She is in full blown junior high girl mode in that she lives to blow up people's phones with meaningless texts. My dad was the most recent victim (take that dad!).

Ashley also told Audrey that this is the year that she is allowed to wear eye liner. She has worn it to church for the last couple of weeks and Ashley is already regretting it and so am I because she looks like she is at least 15 years old and she still isn't a teenager yet. Ashley handles all of the dressing and makeup rules because I'm an idiot when it comes to that stuff. That's not to say that I would let her dress up like a prostitute when she goes out. It's more to say that I'm comfortable with her going out wearing a trash bag because clothes just aren't really a big deal to me (I made a good decision marrying Ashley).

After saying these things I am realizing something. The little 10 year old that I met almost 3 years ago is starting to become a woman. Audrey will always be the leader of mine and Ashley's children regardless of the point in life that they might be at. I am so proud of the woman she is becoming and continues to grow in to. I love her little quirks like her love for following rules, her need to be overprepared for everything she does, her love for John Wayne movies, her ability to be so gentle and patient with Addison, and most of all, I love her desire to please God in all the things that she does.
I am blessed with an incredible family and Audrey Bonine is a big part of that.

Living in the Village

I have had this on my mind for some time now and with me speaking in church this coming Sunday, maybe I will be able to refer to some of this while talking about this topic.

People say that it takes a village to raise a child, not just parents. I couldn't find this to be more true. However, the one thing that brings me concern is who that village is.

I lived in a neighborhood for 7 or 8 years where I actually hung out with my neighbors. They would walk over to my house or I walk go to theirs. It was heading into the 5th grade that my family moved to a house about a mile away where we were no longer in a neighborhood of any kind. We were literally a house on a hill all by ourselves with the nearest neighbor literally being a good 500 yards away. I still had friends from my new school and of course there was family, but the neighborhood friends faded from my life pretty quickly after the move.

I believe that kids conform to the village that they spend the most time with. When this expression was originally formed, it was a long time ago when kids had this one thing in common: their village was the place that they lived. There were very few exceptions to this. The kids in the village went to school together, played on sports teams together, went to each others houses together, and went to church together. Many of them would date and end up marrying each other. Villages were tight knit, they looked out for each other because they knew that they could trust each other (they had no other choice). Everyone knew everyone and everything going on in the lives of the people in the village.

The same village scenario is exactly the same today...... except that it is the polar opposite. For a few years in my life, I had friends separated into categories like colors in a crayon box. I had school friends, basketball friends, baseball friends, soccer friends, church friends, family friends, college friends, and sometimes just good ol friends friends. Most of the time, those friend groups never really overlapped. I never really realized this until the rise of Facebook when I thought about how many different ways I knew people and how many of my friends only fit in one category.

We have become a culture of options. There are options for literally everything. We have options on the food we eat, the tv shows we watch, the cars we drive, the technology we use, the schools our kids attend, the teams they play on, the churches we attend and the houses we live in amongst thousands of other things. Options vary from likeability to affordability to competition to potential and eventually all the way back to likeability.

Thanks to social media, smartphones, and the internet, we have every option laid out in front of us at all times. Any kid with a smartphone gets pretty much the same options and because of this, they get to choose which village they spend the most time with. They don't have to hang out in their neighborhood unless they want to and I'll say it again: We all eventually become a product of our village.

I say these things to go back to the village that raised me. The people who affected me the most from my village were people whom I still look forward to going back to Nashville and seeing every chance that I get. They are people who played a major role in forming me into the person I am today (so if you don't like me, it's definitely their fault...). To name a few:

Mike Hayes
Mike Dorris
Tucker Anderson
Molly Hayes
Mark Agee
Jeff Shouse
Alex Sylvis
James Anderson
Todd Lawson
Mac Hughes
Chad Hedgepath
Will Baxter
Henrietta "Metta" Vaughn and miss Julie
Jenny Hayes
Cindy Anderson
Pat Hughes
Keith Welch
Van Barendht
Mark and Nancy Barrett
Roger Chester
Mama Bear Hestle
Real Peloquin
James Lynn
Mark and Sonya Dupay
Tom and Debbie Willett

To almost everyone who reads this, these names mean absolutely nothing to you. I'm leaving a ton of people off but the people listed above have two things in common:
1. I am not related to any of them (My mom would disagree with that statement, but according to her, we are also related to Elvis. I would prefer to be "related" to a hall of fame athlete but I guess I'll settle).
2. They were/are all members of Berry's Chapel Church of Christ where I grew up.

I have realized on several different occasions that BC is the village that helped raise me the most. There have been plenty of other people who have played huge roles earlier in my life, but whenever I came to church, I knew that way more than just my own two parents were looking after me. Some of the people on that list were parents of friends my age in the church, some of them simply decided to take a vested interest in me, most of them were both of those things. The village that raised me was the church. Looking back, I think they played an enormous role in my decision to go into ministry. I got to see why God gave us the church and what the church does for so many of us and after seeing those things, I don't know why I wouldn't want to play a full time role in the church.

I could not have asked for better parents. They worked so hard to raise me and give me the very best life that they could offer, but now that I am a parent myself, I have learned something that I hope every current and future parent understands. Every parent has weaknesses. I know for a fact that I do. I think my parents had some and I think any parent has things that just aren't strongpoints. This doesn't make any of us bad parents. It simply means that we have to rely on the village to fill in the gaps, particularly the village that God has given us.

I learned more about taking action for the things you believe in from Mike Hayes than I did anyone else. I learned what it means to be family to people you aren't actually related to from Henrietta "Metta" Vaughn. I learned that there's no limit to creativity from Cindy Anderson. I learned that church camp never gets old from James Lynn. I think I am surviving being a crash course adult largely in part because of them.

These people truly are family to me. I spent more time with church friends than I did anyone else growing up. They really genuinely care for me. That's why when I come home, after reuniting with my family, I look forward to seeing them more than anyone else. I rarely track friends from high school, I have no idea whats going on with the guys I played basketball with, I only keep up with a small few of the people I went to college with. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy my time with them or that I don't care about them anymore. I wish them all the best. There's just something that cannot be fully explained with words when it comes to my relationship with my church family at BC.

Looking forward, I have two beautiful daughters that I am in co-charge of. I think they have the best mother this world has to offer, which is good cause you can't expect much out of me. However, as hard as we both try, we have areas where we are incomplete as parents. What has been wonderful is the village that has surrounded my new family since moving out to Huntsville when we were still learning how to be a family. We have already started to get Audrey involved with different women in the church that she looks up to. I know that so many people in our village are already playing a huge role in her life as well as Addison's. It's people like Dorothy Houchin, Karen Altom, Eugene Kelly, Matt and Danielle Springfield, Foy and Mitzi Mills, Toni Sikes, Sydney Andrus, Larry and LeeAnn Wells, and all of the Correas, to name a few, that will be a people whom our girls view as family during their time here and that one or both of them look up to and/or enjoy spending time with.

As a full time youth minister, I get to see the cause-and-effect of the village on a weekly basis. Whether it is something in worship, before or after worship, in a class or activity, or even out in the community during the day, I get to see the church in action. God gave us the church, not so that we have a place to show up to on Sunday, punch our Jesus card, and go home on a weekly basis, but so that we can be the church.

I love the youth ministry that I get to be a part of. One of the group's defining characteristics is that almost half of them are in families that do not go to our church and some don't go to church at all. A couple of weeks ago, the rest of our church family got to see how special this is. We honored our graduating senior class a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday night. Seven different seniors were honored and thanked for being a part of our youth ministry. Of those seven seniors, only two of them have families who are members of our church family. The other five seniors began coming to our ministry's activities because of the two who have been raised at the Huntsville church.

It's because of this village in Huntsville that I am confident in the rearing of my soon-to-be-born son, Gatlin, when he makes his grand appearance into this world, which we're expecting to witness in early August. It's because of guys like Nathan Spencer, Gonzalo Correa, Scooter Langley, Kelvin Riddler, Chris Kern, Jacob Chandler, Spencer Ehlert, and Brent Slott that I am confident in his rearing because I know that they are men who can help me be the dad that Gatlin and every other boy in this world need. I pray that maybe people can turn around and view me in that way to some degree one day.

I know that villages like the one I grew up in at Berry's Chapel and the one my family is a part of in Huntsville are by no means set apart from so many other church families. They don't exclusively exist in Huntsville, TX or Franklin, TN. They are all over this country and even this world. These villages raise some of the most amazing people currently living in our world today and my prayer is that this is a cycle that God continues to bless our world with.

One Shining Moment

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go back to Westbury Christian School and speak in chapel. WCS is where I had my very first full time job ever. I was a Campus Minister, Bible Teacher, and Basketball Coach. This job is one that I will always be grateful for for so many different reasons. Obviously, it was nice to have a full time job after going four months out of college with no job offers. I love my family and was very appreciative of my parents for taking me in, but it was pretty difficult to have worked so hard for four years in college and feel like it was all for nothing. I wasn't familiar with Houston at all but I was very excited to try a new place and experience a new life with a new job that I would wake up to every day. I was also excited to be going to a job everyday where I would get to do my two favorite things with students: Bible and Basketball However,  the best reason that I'm thankful for WCS the most is because it is there that I met the most amazing woman I have ever met and her two incredible children. Ashley was entering her second year as a middle school science teacher, Audrey was starting the 3rd grade and Addison was in her final year of Pre-K. I actually knew them for a year before Ashley and I began dating (fun side note: if someone is ever dumb enough to turn this blog into a book, then I just decided on its title: Bible, Babes, and Basketball)

I had the honor of speaking at both middle school and high school chapel and Ashley decided that she would take the day off from work and come with me. When we walked in and started saying to people and walked around the buiding, I was amazed at how so many things had changed so drastically and how so many things had stayed the same. The student body looked older, taller, more like the adults they are becoming that they weren't anywhere close to being when we were still there. Some of the faculty were still there and welcomed us with open arms while others had gone on to other various jobs. My old boss, Greg Glenn had moved to Nashville to become the new head of school at Lipscomb Academy, which happens to be my alma mater. The guidance counselor, Mike White, has since moved up and filled the position. 

I got to see so many students and how so many of them had grown and matured. I got to see Galen Robinson from a ways off. G will be playing for the University of Houston basketball team next year. He's one of the high school players whom I enjoyed coaching and watching play the most and one of the people I wanted so badly to teach. I got to see Armani Crosby and Micah Flowers, two sophomores who were a part of my first junior high basketball team I ever had the honor of coaching. I got to see Laura Nelson who is the only student to attend every spring break mission trip the school has ever done since I helped start it 4 years ago and the younger sister of MJ, one of the most impressive students I ever had. I got to see Rosaline Akwarandu (very likely misspelled) who is evidently a big fan of this blog (I didn't really know anyone besides my family actually reads this thing. I see the number of pageviews but I just assume that my mom looks at it and clicks the refresh button repeatedly to make me feel good about myself as a writer. That only worked the first time, then I found out she was doing that.) and she requested another post (you're welcome). I got to see Jennifer Zalud who runs the copies to everyone in our school and might be one of the more fun people to be around amongst the entire faculty. I got to see Jennifer's son Jon who will be a senior next year and is the real ladies man according to Jennifer. I got to see Trey Austin who is coming off a second straight boys high school state championship as the basketball coach. I got to see Lindsey Loxtercamp who has about 4 different jobs at the school and was always someone I respected and enjoyed being around. I got to see Coach O and Laren McCormack who were the other campus ministers and basically saved the spring break mission trip in so many different ways when I made a billion mistakes getting it started. I could spend the rest of this post giving more shout outs but I think you get the picture at this point. 

It is evident that so many things had to happen in so many different ways in order for these different teachers, faculty, students, and friends to arrive at the point that each of them are in their lives. Something that amazes me more and more are the intricate plans that God has in all of our lives. Things really can happen for a reason when they happen in the right place and time. If Trey Austin hadn't recruited Galen Robinson, I never would have met G. If it wasn't for my relationship with David Akwarandu, I probably never would have gotten to know his younger sister Rosaline. If not for MJ, I doubt Laura Nelson ever goes on any of the mission trips. Without my computer not cooperating with me and forcing me to print a different way from all the other teachers while at WCS, I doubt I would ever need to spend hardly any time in the copy room and never really get to know Jennifer Zalud. Without Coach O and Laren, the mission trip would no longer exist (and probably never would have happened!). 

God lines different people up in my life and the lives of all of us so that we can have so many different impacts on so many different people. Something that Jesus spent so much time doing was telling people that they were to be a fruit bearing kind of people. This only registered with certain people listening to him. Something that he talked to them about was that those who cannot bear fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire (fire is pretty self explanatory for what that means). For so much of my life, I translated the command of "bearing fruit" in my life for needing to make disciples of Jesus out of those I come in contact with. While this is something I believe to be admirable and important, I also think that I have been partially wrong about this. I recently heard at a youth conference a reference that Jesus made about bearing fruit and what it takes to do so. In John 15:5, Jesus said "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

David Skidmore, the speaker, highlighted how Jesus said that we didn't have to run all over the world making disciples. We simply had to do what Jesus said and abide in him. This hit home with me in such a huge way. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that WCS is where I met Ashley and the girls. What I didn't completely mention is how we were able to meet in the first place. 

When I was just 16 years old, I went on my first foreign mission trip to Honduras. It was on the way down that I learned that a group from Houston, TX would be joining us. It was on this mission trip that I became good friends with several different people from the Houston group. Three of these men really stood out though. They were Steve Hawley, Greg Glenn, and Preston Hill. We would all go on future trips together and looked forward to seeing each other every chance we got. At the time, Greg was the athletic director and basketball coach at WCS. The summer that I met Preston was the summer that Ashley married her late husband, Michael. I did not even realize it while on these trips, but I had somehow made a decent impression on all three of those guys. It was because of that first trip when I was 16 years old that Steve Hawley remembered me and recommended me to his boss. It was because of that trip that I got a call from Greg Glenn, the head of WCS at the time, 8 years later offering me a job. It was because of that job that I met a tall, beautiful brunette wearing a black top and khaki pants on my second day of work named Ashley, who told me that she was the daughter-in-law of Preston Hill and lost her husband a little over a year and a half ago at the time. It was because of that trip that took place almost 12 years ago that gave me the opportunity to date Ashley and have the approval of her in-laws (Preston and his family)almost immediately. I thought going to Honduras 12 years ago was something that was supposed to change me and make me more humble, giving, thoughtful, and loving. I thought that I was going to make disciples of Christ and while that might have taken place in some ways, I think God might have viewed that as abiding the way he calls us to. People who have done mission work will tell you that you end up being more changed at the end of the mission work than the people who you went to help change, that you always get more out of it than you put in. With a wife, two daughters, and a son on the way (oh yea, it's a boy!)I have absolutely no idea how I could possibly get more out of abiding than I already have, but I won't be putting limits on God, I like to think he lol's when people do that. When Michael passed away, Ashley decided that the best move for her was to take a teaching job so that she could have summers off and spend as much time with the girls as possible while also being able to be close to them during the school year. She got in touch with a friend of hers named Casey Farris who was the middle school principal at WCS. He offered her a teaching job there where she assumed she could suck it up during the school year and be able to focus on Audrey and Addison as much as possible. That's all she wanted God to do for her. I think he might have lol'd there. (I apologize for the excessive use of lol. I think it's dumb too but I figured the WCS students who apparently read this might appreciate it. It won't happen again)

The NCAA men's basketball tournament ended a little over a month ago. One of the traditions that CBS, who broadcasts the tournament, has is when the winning team is crowned champion at the end, they play the song "One Shining Moment" by David Barrett while showing various clips of the entire season of the winning team. As ridiculously cheesy as it is, that is where I stole the title of this post from (don't judge me). The concept of the song is that the team put in so much work before and during the season with the dream and goal of the one shining moment when the team can stand on the pedestal and raise the national championship trophy with pride. I like to look at the message of this song in a different way. Most championship teams will tell you that there was a game or even moment in a game when everything changed and they took on a different attitude and you could feel something different about them. I think that seems to be how God prefers to do his work. Oftentimes we do not know it, but God has these moments where we meet people or say or do something that impacts us and those involved in a tremendous way. The moments may not be shining, oftentimes they are anything but that. However, God has a plan. All we simply have to do is abide.

The family at Easter 2015

When You're Expecting...

So we are expecting our third child this year. Originally, we thought that it would be late July for the arrival date but it's looking like it could be a little later than that. if you haven't seen the announcement video then click here. I am realizing that the closer we come to having this baby, them more things pop into my head about this baby.

Ashley and I started dating when Audrey was 10 and Addison was 5. That basically goes to say that I was invited to the party that is their lives until 5 and 10 years after they started (selfish). I have had several different guys whom I have known for a while notify me that they and their wives are expecting daughters and that they'll be contacting me about advice on what to do when raising daughters. My response is that I can't but that I will be happy to as soon as the daughter turns 5.

This goes to say that I'm pretty much in the dark when it comes to this baby being born. We won't know the gender for another couple of months. Obviously, I will love this child unconditionally no matter what, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't pulling for a boy. Having 3 girls who are the opposite of tomboys tends to get kinda lonely on the testosterone end of things. The only other boy in the house besides me is our year old boxer puppy who is possibly the worst behaved dog ever. Addison just came in here 10 minutes ago to notify us that he had jump up on her bed and peed in it. Needless to say I'm the only appreciated male in this house and we could use one more. However, a healthy girl would be a total blessing beyond my wildest dreams. There will be a lot of estrogen in the house if this happens, but I am already preparing for it. I have been watching a lot of the tv show "Last Man Standing" starring Tim Allen to help prep for what could be to come. The show is about a manly man who lives with his wife and three daughters. I'm not exactly like Allen's character but some of the scenarios in the show do happen in my house. It's fun to watch and relate to on some level.

I am setting a lot of expectations for this kid and even more expectations for myself. This is very likely going to be the only child that Ashley and me have together. Something that I am making it a point to do is to gratify the girls through this. It is imperative to me that they do not think that I am partial to this child in any way. I love them just as much as this baby and that will never change. I also want to do all of the things that a good dad should do. I want to always be there for the kid. I want to help pick him/her up when he/she falls, I want to teach and discipline him/her. I want to teach the child how to ride a bike, tie a shoe, a dribble a basketball. I need to also convince myself that this isn't entirely realistic. Something that I have learned in being a dad to Audrey and Addison is that I will fail in parenting this child at times, just like I have with them. This doesn't make me a bad father or a bad person. It simply proves that I am human and make mistakes and this leads me to the biggest expectation that I have for myself: I want to admit my faults to this child. I think that this is something that parents can sometimes miss. It's something that can cause a kid to be very stubborn down the road if this becomes something that the kid never sees.

James the brother of Jesus said to confess our sins to one another and I think that this includes our kids. Now don't read this as me telling you or anyone else how to parent. Hopefully it's something that I look back at and use for myself in trying to parent and raise kids. My goal is to raise a child in Christ and when I fail at that, which will inevitably happen, I plan on admitting the fault and making it a point to do better.

The One Year Mark

So I'm catching up after a long break from writing. I'm discovering that this can be therapeutic for me amongst other things. Something that I want to do more this year is write more. I still plan on reflection more than anything else because I'm the last person that should be giving marriage or parenting advice because I don't have it figured out by any stretch of the imagination.

This past September, Ashley and I (and the girls for that matter) hit the one year mark. I can't help but be blown away that God has put these three amazing girls in my life. They have been the one of the greatest challenges of my life and I mean that in a very good way. I'm discovering that the greatest challenges in life also double as the most rewarding things in life. I think the top of that list is my relationship with God. It is by far the most rewarding because I think He's the source of all of my other rewards. 

My family and I have had some amazing times together. We took up camping, drove 13 straight hours on a road trip to my original hometown of Brentwood, TN, dressed up as a s'more for Halloween as a family, got the worst behaved puppy in the world, had our first snow days (I only thought that would be possible if we ever moved to Tennessee), and collectively did some foreign mission work. I have learned that as a husband of a non-tomboy woman and dad of two not-even-close-to-being-a-tomboy girls, you learn to play several different roles for the sake of your women. This past year, I have been the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, the assassin of closet monsters, the cushiony landing strip on the couch (we call it the "Run-N-Jump"), Goldie Lox (the girls were the 3 bears), and my favorite, daddy.

I wanted to share some things that I have learned in the past year. Hopefully I look back on this at some point and it benefits me or maybe someone else who's somewhere along this road.

1. Anyone who tells you marriage and/or parenting is easy is a liar. These are two legit challenges that are almost impossible to be completely prepared for. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining by any means and Ashley, Audrey, and Addison are my 3 favorite people in this world. However, it takes some adjusting to go from single bachelor to married with two kids. Ashley and I have had our rough patches for sure, most of the time it's been my own fault, but I can tell you that going through those things makes you love someone even more. Ashley is my best friend. It's been that way since we started dating and I hope it stays that way forever. 
2. Anyone who says that marriage and parenting is a joy is a truth teller. One thing I will add is that I think making it a point to spend most of that time with my wife makes it the most beneficial. At some point the girls will grow up and move away and hopefully even get married....... to a millionaire!!! (kidding........ sort of....). When kids have grown up and moved out of the house, I don't want to have to rediscover the love I once had for Ashley. I want to grow even deeper in the love that has already grown so much. I want to enjoy the empty nest instead of simply sit and long for the kids to visit. I want to spoil grandkids with my bride. I want us to win the couples golf tournament together (I know, a little ambitious but a guy can hope, right?)
3. Embracing adult life isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I originally thought that I could never mature the way so many people would. I'll stand by some of the things that I loved as a kid and still love but a lot of it has changed. Cracker Barrel has become amazing all of a sudden. One of my goals this summer is to have a decent looking lawn. Video games are still fun. I just keep getting better with a grill and camping is more fun now than it used to be. Car seats in the back of my car reek of sexiness to my wife and so is the sight of me folding laundry so those things are kinda worth it.
4. Recovery time is absolutely vital. Now that I am in youth ministry and Ashley runs one of the bigger non-profit organizations in the city, we have a lot on our plate and can get stressed out. We both work with all different shapes and sizes of people and the jobs can be draining for both of us at various times. I think some of the toughest times we faced in our marriage this past year came when one or both of us were extremely stressed out. Recovery time together and sometimes even apart has been absolutely critical for us to be able to identify some negative impacts on our relationship as well as some positive ones. I heard it recently said that when God gave the Israelites the 10 Commandments, he made remembering the sabbath number 4 because in order to get commandments 5-10 down, we need to be well rested.
5. Never ever be too busy. Busyness is the number one excuse I hear from everyone all the time. This word is particularly prevalent after hearing the word "no". I have come to the conclusion that in this day, age, and culture, everyone is busy all the time and there are very few exceptions. Hearing it has become tiring. I have realized that claiming busyness as an excuse is more of an attempt to justify one's priorities than anything else. When I want to spend time with family, I make it a point to shove things aside for whatever time I can make. I don't want the girls to go through high school thinking that the only people we didn't minister to was them. 
6. Your kids will follow your example. When I first moved in with Ashley and the girls, they always wanted to do everything just like mommy and I was the guy who was simply along for the ride. As time has gone along, they have picked up different things that I might say or do or be into. Addison has gotten into watching Saved By the Bell on Netflix. Audrey has become very interested in her relationship with Christ. Addison will now eat frog legs. Audrey has expressed interest in playing basketball in the future. They both have taken up my love and joy for worship music (and in return I have experienced a renewed interest in Disney music). I have realized just how careful I must be at all times to set the right example. My safest bet is to just do what Paul said, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1).
7. My wife has reinforced my belief that she is the most amazing woman that I have ever met. Here is a short list of the things that she does on a weekly basis: wife, mom, PCC director, children's committee, youth ministry, junior service league, Huntsville leadership institute, amongst other things. Even with all of this on her plate, she still manages to be the woman that she is. She is patient with me as I learn my new role of husband and dad. She cares for people no matter what the circumstance and she never claims to be too busy. I still can't believe she picked me.
8. Your hobbies will take a backseat to your children's hobbies. I originally thought that this would be absolutely miserable but it has been a total blessing. The girls gave me my first pedicure a few months ago and it really wasn't that bad minus the feminineness. I no longer play video games at my house. We only have a Wii in my living room so that we can play Netflix on it. My Xbox 360 is currently in the trashcan. I am a lot better for that. I'm not nearly as engrossed with basketball as I used to be. The girls hate watching basketball (I know, I can't believe it either.) and for that matter that hate watching pretty much any sports not named Texas A&M football. I'm trying to convert them to at least pretending to care about Tennessee football but it's a real struggle so far.

There are more that could go up but I think I'll save some for later. I know that year two is already off to an amazing start and it will only get better, especially with Baby Lankford being on the way!!! We are so excited about this new addition. I can only assume that I'll have a lot more to be writing about giving all you readers (yea I'm talking to all both of you) some more material to make fun of me for. Regardless of whether you find this stuff funny, ridiculous, inspiring, or whatever else, this life is one of God's gifts to me and I am forever grateful.