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A Fathers perspective of a huge family, finally…..

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Something every relationship needs…

All to often our lives and relationships become a gigantic skipping record.  We tend to get so wrapped up in the mundane events that are our routine, our memories lapse and we forget to make things special, or even pay attention to each other.  Add the responsibilities of parenting and there are times when the tunnel gets so dark, that our peripheral vision is lost.  This is what makes our relationships stall, there has to be an avenue of recharging a love this special.

Lets face some other hard facts, relationships are really tough work, if it were too easy and nothing but roses, then the relationship simply would not be real.  It is human nature to have a desire to feel special and men here is a newsflash, it is our innate duty to make our significant other feel worshiped.  I will admit there is a point in every relationship when you get wedged in a corner and you are unable of making the effort to go above and beyond.  This is the point when we seek the “something every relationship needs”:   a VACATION.  Vacation does not mean a family trip to the Alabama Riviera or Great Wolf Lodge, it means going some place where you can rediscover one another.  A location that can be romantic, but with not too many outside distractions.  We just had one of these vacations and it was nothing short of phenomenal.

After 7 kids and the birth of the twins, we had not gone anywhere alone in about 2 years.  It was beyond time to get away together.  This trip had been planned 2 years prior, it was an item we had bid on and won at out nephews Mighty Oakes Heart Foundation annual gala.  It was unbeknownst to either of us how important and magical this jaunt would actually be for us.  The name of the location was Three Forks Ranch and was located about 90 miles north of Steamboat Springs on the Wyoming border.

Take a brief moment to envision a cool mountain breeze with highs in the high 60’s, a rambling stream outside the door you left open all night while you slept, a beautifully appointed suite with amazing food and wine, and acres for as far as the eye can see to play…

Wow was the only word I could conjure up when we approached the lodge (see opening picture).  We were picked up from this tiny airport in Hayden, Colorado and trekked from a 2 lane highway, to a gravel road that snaked through grove after grove of Aspens, to a mountain paradise.  It was quite the journey, but we got a little unsure where exactly we were going to end up.  To say the least we were not disappointed, it was an oasis in the middle of 400,000 acres owned by the lodge!

This is literally an outdoor adult playground, you can do any activity and at any time.  We were one of 5 couples staying at the lodge so we had the place to ourselves!  We fly fished, shot guns, went on a 3-D archery course, shot sporting clays on an amazing course, ate fantastic food, and made many new friends.  All of that was out the backdoor and at our finger tips!  Most of these things we had never done before, and best of all we got to experience them together.  After a decade of marriage its an amazing feeling to go through the joys of discovering something new together.  It reaffirmed how incredible a woman my best friend actually is, but it was quite surprising how good of a shot she was having never touched a gun before.  So many more options of things we can do together were opened up!  I can not tell you how many times we both looked at each other and said this was the best vacation we had ever been on.

I am sure everyone reading this rambling I call a blog, will agree that they need a trip like this.  No matter how incredible you think your relationship is, take the time to go away together and forget the stresses, even if only for a long weekend.  While where we went is not for everyone, the idea behind it is what we all desire.  I would be an absolute fool to tell you that my relationship, or any for that matter, is perfect, but I can tell you we are getting better with time.  The more we can make our significant others feel amazing, the healthier our love grows.  Having seven kids, 25 employees, and college on the horizon, we are under an inordinate amount of pressure, but most people who know us would tell you we seem to have it all under control and with ease.   We must put on an incredible facade, however it is because of vacations we take yearly together, one on one, that make it more of a reality.  Life is short, our love is never-ending, and this family makes us unique, but I will never take for granted what my super woman means to me, nor should you.  Treat your family, every day, like this will be the last dawn you will experience together.  Do that, and there will be no regrets when that last dawn does come.  Enjoy the journey…

Huge thanks to my amazing nephew, MOHF, Allison Pratt and all the amazing people at Three Forks for an unforgettable trip.  See you next year!

Best friends…
Mastering the cast
Rainbow trout
Beautiful male rainbow
Could be the big one…
22 inch rainbow
Last fish caught..
Nap in the hammock by the stream.
My favorite activity
A natural!
Shore lunch
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The Perfect Storm

As this time of the year approaches, we as parents get both excited and a bit frightened for the coming weeks.  It is the start of the school year, and with it comes a whole myriad of emotions, both on our part and the kids.  The other part of this tale is that working in the pediatric world of dentistry, the weeks leading up to the start of school equates to pure madness at the office.  Urgency ensues, and everyone wants to get that appointment done before the truancy officer comes knocking.  It seems as if school administrators have become entirely to harsh for missed school due to doctors appointments, but thats for another time.  Our very busy days, turn into sheer madness in the last week of July to the third week of August.  Some days we can barely catch our collective breath!  The slow down has hit, finally, and we can play catch up on the summer that was a complete blur, or so one would think.  Then this past week hit….brace yourself.

August 17th:

The last Monday of summer break for most of the local schools, which is the equivalent of panic to get that last appointment in before the first day of school.  The schedule is packed and that is not even counting the home front, oh and we started back to regular hours, 8-5.  No more summer hours, and everyone is a little grumpy!  We had a mutual separation from our long time (8 years strong) nanny and this was the first full week of the new nanny!  As one could envision, my best friend is beside herself with animosity about how all this will work out.  Can she hack life with SEVEN boys, not to mention twin 10 month olds?  Combine that with a schedule that has maybe one opening, which of course will be filled by some sort of emergency, and we have the makings of a manic Monday.  All things considered the day goes fairly smoothly and the week begins.  Over the weekend our 8 year old, Gray, has a recurring pain in the lower left quadrant of his abdomen that raised a little concern…should we make a visit to the doctor?  See, earlier this year, Beau the Maniac, has the same sort of thing only a bit more acute, the result was an appendectomy.  Anatomically speaking, about the only thing possible to be wrong in a males lower right quadrant is the appendix being enflamed.  So one of our team of family members that help at the house takes the little man to the doctors visit.  That visit turns into an appointment at the imaging center for an ultrasound of his belly, so momma leaves to head that way.  He has all the clinical hallmarks for an appendectomy.  The result…inconclusive…what do we do, or better yet what does the doc decide to do…Room 310, here we come, admitted for observation.  Bear in mind this is gauntlet week and its the middle of the day, but we are parents and one of us must go…ugh.  They spend the night in the hospital with no decision and I managed to get 6 kids in bed, but she had to sleep in the hospital….I  will take the 6 kids!

August 18th:

Same song and dance, as far as the routine of chaos that we call the end of summer.  Crazy schedule, tripping over each other, and the natives at home are restless for school to start.  Oh, and I have to get this done by myself, which is no small task. I have never once taken for granted how invaluable and irreplaceable my beautiful wife is and its days like these that make me even more appreciative for all she does.  The day flies by and there is not even any time to go and visit my son in the hospital.  Still no decision, but leaning towards no surgery!!  The only problem is there is another twist to this story.  We had our god daughter spend the night on Sunday and by Tuesday we find out she had Hand Foot and Mouth disease…things just got potentially worse.  So Gray gets discharged, which takes all but 8 hours, another day lost, but he doesn’t have to get his belly operated on and that makes us ecstatic.  The only problem is he misses the “meet the teacher” day, as does momma.  I think I mentioned once or twice we have a lot of kids and even when one is under the weather, the other 6 still need parenting. The good news is, thanks to the team that makes this family function, the day is saved!

August 19th:

Here we go, the first day of school…the office will slow down, the boys will get in bed early, and the house will see order.  Everyone gets off to school without a hitch; Brenden 11th grade, Colin 10th grade, Beau 3rd grade, Gray 2nd grade, and Quinn kindergarten, hard to believe time has gone by so fast.  Of course the morning consists of the normal lunacy of getting everyone ready.  Blair comes to help and take first day pictures, what a great day to see your kids grow up to become these young men in uniforms and ties, and its off to school.  Oh, and Gray is just a little stopped up….but the afore mentioned hand foot and mouth disease had reared its ugly head.  The twins start to run a fever…

August 20th:

The morning starts with Quinn running a fever, and the twins have more of the same, with a couple of lesions popping up on the lips.  The trouble with contagious diseases and having a big family is there is no such thing as containment, especially when the two youngest happen to be twins!  The mess ensues and it is going to get ugly, in more ways then one.  The thing about this disease is it is extremely painful and dehydration is very common.  My poor dreamboats do not know what is going on, other then they have a fever and are hurting.  So sad….

August 21st:

Ahh, its finally Friday, except that the third day of this virus is the peak and it did hit a high.  We are all working on very little sleep, agitated, yet epithetic to the struggle these little men are going through.  It is just not fun to have half the house struggle while the other half sit around with nothing to do but wait for the storm to pass.  The up side is school has started well and everyone is happy.  This is 15 year olds first year at a new school and is living full time at the house, finally all the boys reunite!  It will take some adjusting on all of our parts, but the is life in a family, right….

The weekend is more of the same, blisters on hands, feet, faces…we are a family of lepers at this point!  It is ugly and I am not so sure I have willed a week to be over as much as this one.  Would have been possible to squeeze and more suffering and stress into seven days…probably, but it would have been tough.  The upside is we bonded together, both at the office as a family and at home.  It is hard to keep a strong unit down with the love and determination that binds this one together.

Bottom line is this, struggles build character, adversity makes us realize how much we can conquer, and perseverance leads us to the new tomorrow.  The sun will rise and tomorrow will bring new surprises.  I heard someone say once that “this too shall pass”…words we could all live by, and low and behold it is passing.

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Father’s Day

Ah, that beautifully warm and sunny day in June that we pay homage to the patriarch of the family household. There are no brunches, or jewelry sales, or flowers to buy, no dressing up to make that reservation you made a year in advance to dine overlooking the gardens.  It is, however, the final day of the U.S. Open golf tournament, a day of grilling, outdoor activities, and saying thanks to the one person that taught us the hard lessons in life, dear old dad.

So we might ask ourselves, why is a father so important anyway?  They do not provide infants with nourishment, they do not sustain life, and, for most of us, they don’t really provide us with those mushy moments of support when the tears are flowing.  We are, however, the absolute pillars of support for the American family structure.  There are some staggering statistics of sadness for fatherless youth.  I found a mind boggling blog titled, The Fatherless Generation.  The numbers contained in the”Statistics” section, paint a very grim future for todays youth that grow up without a father.  One could argue that a lot of our decaying society could be restored if the family structure of the days past was recreated.  What I mean by that is simply a two parent household, with both parents contributing equally to the upbringing of the children we bring into this world.  After all, were not both people involved in the creation?

My guide in life as a father was, and always will be my dad.  The blueprint that he laid out gave me all the insight I needed to be a great father to my children.  He came to every game, most of the time coaching the team, he listened to every crappy song I put on the radio and acted as if he liked it, he has always been an ear I could borrow in times when all I needed is a little advice.  In other words, he was present at every turn of my life, every bad decision I made, he caught me when I fell flat, then told me what I could do better, not criticize me for failing.  I would not be the man I am today without the tutelage of my dad, so to him on this day of the Father, thank you for being there and loving me unconditionally.  I love you Dad.

What is being a father though my eyes?  I have seven, yes 7, sons, which is a huge privilege, and a monstrous responsibility as a father.  These seven boys will be shaped into men under our watch.  A metamorphosis will occur, they will go from sweaty little boys that run and play, to young gentlemen that will know all of the social graces a good man should practice daily.  I will teach them to love, to throw a ball, to do algebra, to open the door for ladies, to give compliments, and most of all to be a dad.  Every day, they get to see a family that does all of those things, and it should become second nature to each of these boys.  Not a day goes by that I don’t tell my wife how beautiful she is and give her a kiss.  Children see and emulate everything we do, no matter how good or bad it may be.  Why not give them a role model, a hero to follow?  Now I would never suggest that I am a hero, by any stretch of the imagination, and neither would my father, but none the less he is my hero.  The point is, as a parent, we are our children’s hero’s, we are the ones they want to be like.  We should all take that responsibility more seriously then anything we do, this is our future we are shaping.

The point of this day in June is to become aware as fathers.  Let us all place what we do under our own microscope and re-examine the men we are and the fathers we want to be.  Be a great dad, be present in your children lives and most of all love unconditionally.  This is the greatest job in the world and I love nothing more, on this warm June day every year, then being dog piled by the boys I brought into this world.   To each of my sons, Brenden, Colin, Beau, Gray, Quinn, August, and Liev, I love each of you and would die to protect you.  Happy Father’s Day to all you dads that give so much of yourselves to create a better tomorrow.

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8 months in the books…Can I blink now?

I woke up the other day and realized, one I had not posted to this blog in quite sometime, but also that my babies were now 8 months old.  I am not so sure I can remember any section of my life go by so quickly.  Why, as we get older, does life fly by in such a rapid fashion?  Not only that, but why can we not recall ANYTHING!  One would surmise with all the chaos that is contained in our lives, adding a couple of infant twins would be no big seismic event, but oh were we wrong.

The ultimate problem with time, as compared to life, is time has a finite end and life continues to tack on activities with no end.  Amazingly we accept all these extras and continue to thrive, survive, and persevere.  It may not always be a graceful acceptance of new responsibilities, but it always seems to just “work out” and life bounds onward.  Just when we think there is no earthly way to add another thing to our already overbooked calendar, we do and again life goes on.

This past 8 months has seen the addition of another practice to our already growing business, the birth of our first set of twins, and reuniting all of the 7 boys under one roof!  I will go out on a limb and say, that is pushing the limit of overload.  The funny thing is I do not feel like my life is spinning out of control, quite opposite, I have an overwhelming sense of completeness.  Weird concept to most people, considering we have 7 kids and 25 staff members we are responsible for, normal folks would likely run for the 7 seas!

Now the good stuff, the Dreamboats!  These boys have made our family so very spectacular.  What began with two little 6 lb 11 oz miracle boys, has evolved to two happy, very squishy, and amazingly fun additions to our already large family.  Every morning evolves around entering the nursery to find one of the boys, most of the time August, humming, until he sees you.  Then the smile explodes and pure excitement, with legs kicking like a hummingbird, the scene is similar to a freshly caught flounder flung on the dock. Then you pick him up, squeeze, and give tons of kisses.  There is no better start to your day then the pure love felt from your baby to their father.  Days when you “wake up on the wrong side of the bed”, are usually turned around rather swiftly.  These little guys are amazing, and having twins has been the highlight of parenting.  I truly believe having a singlet would be boring, almost a mundane series of schedules, twins bring a lot of beautiful twists and turns.  The rest of the day is filled with more of the same smiles, laughter and family fun times.

It is an amazing life, I feel blessed beyond belief each and every day I have the privilege of taking a breath.  Being a father to so many wonderful children and sharing every experience with my best friend, brings with it an overabundance of joy, pride, and love.  For seventeen years I have watched the matriculation of boys to men and babies to young men, it has been a spectacular ride, so far.  Most days I feel as if I have reversed the aging process, I feel young and energetic keeping up with this crew…well most of the time.

Well, its off to the races of nightly activities.  Carpe diem and bon appetit……

Mustache outfits in honor of no shave November!
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