Moran Family Fun

Officially, the reason Jared and I left our kids for a week and flew to the States was to run in the Air Force Marathon.  Unofficially, I think we really just needed some American food.  In the week we were gone we ate at Arbys two times, Texas Roadhouse twice, Dunkin Donuts (but after a four mile run so maybe that balances things out?), Wendys, Olive Garden, Chick-fil-a twice, Ruby Tuesday, Sweet Frog, First Watch twice, Dairy Queen two times in one day, and at Hardees.  Plus we ate more than our fair share of pretzel m&ms, candy corn, banana bread, and cookies. One of the first things I did when we came home was climb on the scale to see how much damage had been done.  I knew I'd gained weight because my clothes were fitting differently, but I was surprised to see just how much - seven pounds!  I guess running for hours doesn't give me a license to eat anything and everything in sight?  As yummy and indulgent as all that restaurant food was, I ended...

I will be the first to tell you that I am not an athlete.  I never played any organized sports growing up and the few times I actually did participate in some sort of sporty activity I did not enjoy myself.  The closest I ever came to playing sports was singing and dancing in show choir in high school.  I remember playing volleyball in the cultural hall at our church building as a teenager and just feeling so out of place.  I wanted to be there because that's where my friends were, but I didn't want to actually play volleyball.  Anytime the ball would come sailing over the net and make it's way toward me I would do one of two things - step out of the way so someone around me could get it instead or cover my face with my hands because, you know, there was a ball flying at my head. Way back in December Jared convinced me that I should sign up for the Air Force Half Marathon.  I'm not really sure how he talked me into it since I don't especially enjoy runnin...

It happened.  All the kids went back to school.  I know some moms jump for joy on the first day of school, but the first day is both happy and sad for me.  I love all the time we have to be together as a family during the summer break.  Even if we aren't doing anything exciting or particularly fun it's so wonderful to just be together without school and all the activities that come along with school filling our schedule.   So the first day this year was a happy day, but once all the girls left for school I was left with a "now what?" feeling and apparently the solution to that feeling was cleaning because that's how I spent much of that day alone at home.  Still, it's a big day for our whole family and I am always excited for the girls to go back to school. Not because I want to house to myself so much, but because they love school (most days anyway) and they were excited to start the new school year.  It's nice to hear about their day when they c...

This summer we've been working on a little musical production with a few other families from church.  We chose to do selections from Mary Poppins and assigned each child a part to play and a song to sing.  It wasn't anything big or super professional, but it was fun for our kids to get together one morning a week and sing.   I appreciated the structure it added to our summer, as our summers are usually somewhat aimless and unscripted. Last week, with summer break almost at an end, we put on the big show.  The costumes were ready, hair and makeup were done, and I sort of  had the songs I was playing on the piano figured out.  The audience wasn't large - just the families involved and three other people - and the "stage" was just one end of the primary room. Samantha played the role of Jane Banks.  She was excellent at giggling, making messes, and looking sweet. She also did a lovely job singing Perfect Nanny with Logan (aka Michael Banks). ...