In The Blink Of An Eye

This past week things ramped up at work. Staff was back in buildings and the energy of a new school year was everywhere. As back to school meetings were held, I was excited listening to buildings talk about growth mindset, resiliency and grit. One building I was in as they kicked off the year showed a video to help support a line of thinking: After the video, those in attendance where encouraged to share their thoughts. Normally I sit in the back and quietly listen. This day was different, something compelled me to share my experiences around how I try to start my days and things that I have learned through the process. I have picked up these techniques or habits from reading the likes of Brendon Burchard, Robin Sharma and others. If you search: early morning routines or how to start your day, you will find similar things to what I am about to share. When things are clicking, I... 1. Wake up early  - for me this means about 4:45 (M-F, 6:00ish on the weekends). The house is

Family selfie pulling into the driveway It has been a little over a week since we arrived back home from our trip and things have settled in for the most part. I have resumed my daily work schedule, had to start wearing pants to work last week, always a sign that things are ramping up at work. Tracey and the kids are bleeding out every ounce of time off. They spent part of last week at the Oregon Coast, another portion in Leavenworth WA camping and finishing up the week at Tracey's parents house. Before I respond to the title of this post, here are some of the stats from our trip (from one of Tracey's posts) and the route that we took: 34 days, 31 states, approximately 8120 miles traveled. Hit the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, a barrier island, Lake Champlain, and Lake Michigan. Lots of friends and family visited, a service project completed, numerous great cities toured, no natural disasters endured.  This trip marked the milestone of Tracey and I both traveling

We are home. More to come later. Last picture of the trip

Today was the day. The day that we packed up our things and began the trek back to WA. Saying good-bye is always hard and they have not gotten any easier over the last 19 years. Our journey back will be a 3 day, 2 night affair. The first leg brought us to Bismark, ND. Tomorrow the target city is Butte, MT but we may keep driving a little further depending on how we feel. We should be pulling back into Prosser sometime on Wednesday afternoon. As we wrap up the trip, here are a few more pics from our stay in WI and a couple highlights from the day on the road: That's my brother Leinenkugels Tour: Cory (Brother), Aunt Stacy, Jill (Sister-in-law), Tracey (Wife), Me (Myself and I?) Lots of Cousin time! Kellen was "in heaven" at Uncle Rich and Aunt Sue's place Tracey is always on the lookout for interesting things along the way. As we traveled to Bismarck we came across: The world's largest Prairie Chicken?! The world's larges

Our days in Wisconsin are wrapping up and as always it feels like the time went faster than normal. As I sat down to write this I was wondering what I would fill it with. I began thinking back to the days and nights, events or places we went and I began to realize that I could recall what we had done but had not taken a lot of pictures. Then I realized that my phone was put away most of the time so I will be drawing from photos taken by others. Our time in Wisconsin visiting family and friends is just that, time to visit and catch up. We usually slow down and need a day or two to recover from the travels up to this point. The invites start to roll in and various plans begin to form. And then inevitably we find ourselves where we are at now with discussions of the trip back to WA, doing laundry and repacking bags and mapping our schedule for the good-byes before we take off. A few highlights up to this point of our time here: The next generation hanging out - cousins and second

With all the build up and excitement that comes before our trips, this one had an element of unknown. This would be the first time I was back home since the passing of my Dad. I had gotten used to my new normal back in Washington, missing the weekly phone calls and chats we had on the phone. The first time on his birthday I could not call or the first Father's Day with him gone. I was not sure what it was going to be like or how I would feel walking into his house again with him not there. I also knew that we would be spreading Dad's ashes during our visit. Whether or not it was fate, coincidence or strategic planning by my brother, the day that was selected was 6 months to the day of his passing. Cory picked me up and then we headed to Barron to pick up our Step-Mom and his boat. Once we were all loaded we began the journey. Our first stop was at the cemetery. While there we visited the burial sites of Dad's Grandparents. He always spoke highly of them and really love