family
- Devil’s Lake is a beautiful park. Dave, if you read this, yeah, it’s worth going for a day trip or an overnight. Lots of nice hiking, the water is beautiful and crystal-clear.
- What the park service considers “paved, flat, and level” in a hiking trail isn’t so much what I’d consider “paved, flat, and level”. It scares me a little bit what one of their “difficult” trails would look like. :-)
- Tent camping when it gets down to 40F at night is kinda chilly.
- Tent camping when it rains overnight is more of a pain.
It's Monday again already?!?
Well, it was a busy weekend. The whole family showed up Friday night for one last get together before we head our separate ways this fall. The result was two days of playing cards, music, football, and making at least one obligatory Hubbs shopping trip to Walmart and Sam’s Club. Aaron and Andrew also got haircuts… Andrew opting for the “I wanna look like Chris” haircut. I don’t think he’ll be maintaining his, though, so he should have hair again by the time he gets out out to Oregon.
Hit the gym this morning to run and do a little lifting, and yeah, it feels good to be sore again. I’ve been too much of a slacker the past couple of months. Gotta get back to it. The pounds don’t lose themselves.
Nine Years
Hard to believe it’s been that long already. Nine years ago tonight, on a hot, sticky night in Charlotte, NC, Becky and I exchanged our vows and became Mr. and Mrs. Chris Hubbs. (Our first stop after the wedding was in a Home Depot parking lot that had an available dumpster, but that’s a different story.) God has blessed us greatly, and it’s been a wonderful nine years.
So today we are celebrating in Orlando. Becky woke up at 2:45 CDT this morning to finish getting ready so she could catch her 5 AM flight from Cedar Rapids to Minneapolis, and from there she headed down here to Orlando. I picked her up at the airport about 1 PM. We grabbed a little lunch and then came back to the hotel. I think she spent some time at the pool while I grudgingly attended the afternoon’s technical sessions at the conference.
Tonight we ate dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. It was my first time at a Ruth’s Chris, and given the price I wouldn’t be able to eat there very often even if there was one close to Cedar Rapids. That being said, tonight I had what was hands-down the best steak I have ever had in my life. It was a filet, cooked medium, and just the smell of it on that sizzling plate as it came to the table was almost worth the purchase price. I will say this: Ruth’s Chris knows how to do service right. When we made the reservation online, the form asked if it was a special occasion, and I noted that it was our anniversary. From the time we arrived at the restaurant and gave our name, each staff member who spoke with us first wished us a happy anniversary. Then they gave us dessert “on the house”. It was tasty, too. Bravo, Ruth’s Chris of Orlando.
Two more days of conference and then we have two days on the beach before heading home. Nice.
Fun with Family
We had the whole clan over this weekend - well, almost the whole clan. Ryan came in from Chicago, Aaron and the folks from Wisconsin, Andrew from his job in Illinois. Becky’s folks were already here visiting. We were only missing Rebecca, who is finishing up her six-month DTS in Panama. She’ll be home in about 10 days - sure looking forward to seeing her.
We took a whole ton of pictures over the weekend and I’m in the process of uploading some of them to a Memorial Day Weekend set on Flickr. Here’s a couple samples. Enjoy!
Devil's Lake Camping Trip
Yes, as promised, we went camping last weekend up at Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin. My brother Andrew pretty much organized the whole thing; his girlfriend Heather is visiting and it was good to get to see everybody. Some thoughts from the weekend:
Now, mind you, I don’t want to sound whiny. It was a fun weekend, a good time was had by all. Many pictures are available on my Flickr site, and I’ll append a few of them here. We had a fun time just crashing around the campfire, playing on the beach, and hiking. We enjoyed watching the rain whilst sitting indoors at McDonald’s eating breakfast on Sunday. :-)
Overall, it was a good weekend, but good to be back home, too.
24 Hours of the Hubbs: A Celebration of the Mundane
When I decided to do 24 hours of Flickr, I wasn’t really sure what my Saturday would entail. Nonetheless, I gave it a go. As Saturdays go, it was fairly basic. We went to some neighborhood garage sales, cleaned out the garage, went shopping, and watched a movie. So while some of the pictures are cute, none of them are particularly artsy or profound. Oh well.
Here are a few samples of the pictures; you’re welcome to visit the whole set on Flickr.
A good time was had by all...
This weekend we had very nearly my whole family over to visit. My sister is still in Panama, but otherwise, my parents and all my brothers came in on Friday and got to stay through Sunday afternoon.
We had massive amounts of food and celebration; fortunately then we were able to send some of the leftovers home with them, otherwise we’d be eating them for a week and there’d still be some to go bad. There is still a bit of birthday cake hanging around, though… I’m looking forward to another piece of that carrot cake - yum yum.
Things are staying busy with the family these days - Mom and Dad are busy as usual; Ryan is waiting to hear on his acceptance to Georgetown grad school, Andrew got accepted to George Fox University and will be headed there in the fall… and not leaving Aaron out: last week he bought a b-e-a-utiful Taylor acoustic guitar. We had to keep a towel around just to wipe up all the drool. :-)
I’ll post some pictures once I get them off of the camera.
Party Time
This weekend my parents and brothers will all be coming to visit. (My sister is in Panama doing missions stuff.) The occasion: the first of what will, God willing, be a long lifetime of birthday convergences: Addison has her first birthday on the 13th, and then I celebrate the big three-oh on the 14th. I’m sure we’ll eat far too much food, stay up too late talking, tell lots of bad jokes, and play innumerable rounds of Dutch Blitz or some other equally competitive game.
Good times will be had by all. Best wishes to everyone who reads this and their weekends!
The Penguin, and New Friends
Thursday was get-ready-to-head-home day. We picked up a cartop carrier that Ernie had salvaged for us. It is in excellent shape, and with all the post-Christmas shopping Becky did, it’s a good thing we have it! There’s no way we’d have fit all the stuff into the van. Then we started packing up to go home. Can’t believe we brought so much stuff along. Seriously, we took the back seat out of the Caravan, and it’s still packed up nearly to the ceiling, then we have the cartop carrier almost full, too. Goodness.
Thursday evening we headed in to Charlotte to meet some of our “weird internet friends” for supper and to hang out. We met Brandon, his wife Sarah, and Andrea at The Penguin near downtown Charlotte. The Penguin is a nice hole-in-the-wall place; very small, very loud, very eclectic. The jukebox would be playing heavy metal one minute and jazz the next. Very unpredictable. The burgers were good, and the specialty that we had to try was deep-fried dill pickle chips. They were fantastic.
After supper we went back to Brandon and Sarah’s apartment for dessert and to watch Brandon’s beloved Texas A&M Aggies who were playing Cal in a bowl game. The Aggies ended up losing. Sorry, Brandon. We ended up getting back to Waxhaw about 11 PM. It was a fun night, fun to finally meet some people we interact with online all the time. And yes, they’re normal people… not weirdos… just like I’m a normal, non-weird person. Heh. :-)
Post-Christmas Mayhem
The day after Christmas found us trying to sleep off all that food we ate the day before. :-) We enjoyed leftovers for breakfast and lunch, again ate too much food. We played Upwards for the first time. It’s like Scrabble, but gives you the opportunity to stack letters on top of other letters to make new words… kinda fun.
We took a little walk and Brandi drove herself and Laura around the yard in her little battery-powered Corvette.
Then late afternoon came and it was time to pack up and head back to Waxhaw. We just barely fit everything into the Suburban. Traffic was kinda heavy but we made it back and crashed. Another enjoyable day. Pictures below.
35 years and counting...
This post is only a day belated, but let me wish my parents a very happy 35th anniversary! Don and Marj Hubbs were married on December 26, 1971. 35 years and 5 children later they are still going strong, and are a blessing to each of us. Congratulations Dad and Mom!
Christmas!
Christmas morning dawned and we packed up four adults, two small children, and lots of presents and luggage into the folks' Suburban and headed up to Faith and Ernie’s home in Conover, NC. It was just about a 2-hour drive from Waxhaw - not bad at all. This gave Laura the first chance to meet her cousin Brandi, and oh, did they ever have fun. Brandi is almost 5. Faith and Ernie adopted her from China 3 years ago. She is a sweetie.
We opened presents and presents and more presents. Every time it seemed like we might be done, Ernie would find some more presents under the tree and we’d keep opening them. I can’t begin to keep track of what all I received; Becky is actually sitting right now documenting it all as I write this blog post… at least that way I’ll be able to write thank-yous! The one memorable thing I’ll mention here is a refrigerator magnet from Becky’s sister Cynthia; it has a cartoon of the Mona Lisa holding a fish in one hand, with the title “The DaVinci Cod”. Hehehe. [Edit: Becky corrects me that this magnet was given to her folks, not to me. :-( Still, it is pretty cool.]
After that came Christmas dinner, and Faith had prepared enough for an army. We ate leftovers again on Tuesday and there was still far too much left over. But it was sure tasty. The rest of Christmas day was just a crash day; we watched some football, took naps, and enjoyed watching the girls play. God has certainly blessed us richly with family, friends, and material goods. I, for one, need to step back more often and realize how blessed I am.
Never buy a Unicorn when it's Sleeping.
Day 4 of our trip (Saturday the 23rd) was a nice day to catch up. After sleeping in, we had a late breakfast with Becky’s folks. Or, I should say rather at Becky’s folks' place; I’m sure they had eaten hours before we got there. :-) The girls had some time to play with toys, and we helped prepare some food for Christmas dinner. Then in early afternoon while the girls were taking naps, Becky and I headed in to Charlotte to do a little shopping.
Charlotte is growing like crazy these days. There are new Target stores and Harris Teeter grocery stores seemingly every 2 miles or so. We stopped at one of those Target stores to pick up a few things. While there, Becky and I were browsing the toy aisles and noticed a little girl probably 4 years old with her parents in tow. She noticed a large stuffed pink unicorn slouching on the lowest shelf and told her father she wanted to get it. Without missing a beat, her father replied, “oh, but it’s asleep. Never buy a unicorn when it’s sleeping.” And that was the end of it. No questions why, no discussion; I imagine the little girl had something to think about for the rest of the afternoon. It was all Becky and I could do to make it ‘round the corner to the next aisle before breaking into hilarious laughter. I can only hope I’ll be that quick on the mental draw when Laura gets a bit bigger. :-)
Saturday night after supper we put the girls to bed and then Becky’s folks came over and we played games for a while; first several rounds of Sequence, then a few games of Pass the Pigs, which was a new one to me, but is basically a little dice game with specially-designed plastic pigs in place of dice. Then it was off to bed in preparation for church on Sunday.
Building Up Endurance
So how was your Thanksgiving? We spent the weekend in Wisconsin with my family at my parents' place. It was the first time we’ve had everybody together in about a year. We ate far too much, shopped a little, played lots of Speed Scrabble, and I did some reading. We made it home last night about 5 PM, in time to get unpacked and get the girls to bed. It was a great time, wonderful to see everybody again.
Becky says we’re building up endurance for road trips over the next month or so. The trip to Wisconsin is only about a three-hour drive. Not too bad. Now this Friday we’re headed for Omaha (to see the Andrew Peterson Christmas concert!), which is just over four hours away. But those drives will all be wimpy in comparison to the road trip we’ll be taking in three weeks, a mere 20 hours to the great state of North Carolina. Fortunately, we’ll split it up over 3 days on the way down there, two 10-hour days plus a day in Nashville in between driving. By the time we get home on New Years' we’ll be ready to stay home for a while, methinks.
I should note that I am not opposed to road trips - I have taken long ones in the past. But it’ll be a whole different experience with a 2-and-a-half-year-old and a nine-month-old occupying the two back seats in the van. We will get some mileage out of the portable DVD player for sure.
The road goes ever on and on…
Adventures in Fatherhood
Tomorrow morning Becky will be taking off for Chicago to spend a weekend with her friend Juanita who is up here visiting to celebrate her (Juanita’s) 30th birthday. They’re going to see Blue Man Group while they’re in town, which makes me a bit jealous. But that’s cool.
So, from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon, I will be spending a lot of quality time with my two little girls. (I will get a little break on Friday night when my sister watches the kids while my brother and I go to a Randall Goodgame house show…) Everyone who hears that I’ve got the kids for the weekend asks me if I think I’ll survive. I’m not quite sure what the big deal is - isn’t a Dad supposed to be able to manage for a day or two with the wife gone? Sure, we’ll be ready to have Becky back on Sunday, but I’m glad she can go. Goodness knows I’m gone often enough. Seems only fair that she should get to go when the occasions arise.
I sense a Happy Meal in Laura’s future for this weekend. :-)
Best-laid plans... don't always work out.
Last night I was headed to bed at a relatively early hour, and as I prepared to go to sleep I decided I’d get up and run this morning. I haven’t run much lately, and I need to. This morning was going to be relatively warm, good for running.
Then the Bears staged an amazing comeback and won the football game. I had to keep watching. The game ended at 11 PM, I figured I’d still be OK.
Then Laura woke up at 3 AM. And again at 4:30 AM. She pitched a fit when I told her she had to go back to sleep. I left her in her crib. At 5:00 she was back awake. So I brought her into our bed. She was awake until 5:30 when I finally got up to get ready for work. By 6:20 when I was leaving the house she was finally sleeping. Hopefully she sleeps in a while.
Needless to say, I didn’t get any running done this morning. And I think I’ll be finding something to drink with caffine in it here very soon now.
Children are an amazing blessing. But that doesn’t mean they won’t keep you up at night one way or another. :-)
The Interweb is Fun!
So yesterday after church I posted a recording of Andrew and me singing a song in church.
Talking to Andrew later in the afternoon, apparently shortly after lunch he gets a call from his girlfriend in Portland. She says “hi, how ya doin, have you heard this song before?” And then he recognizes the song she’s playing him… yep, it’s that song we did just hours before. He was dumbfounded. “We just sang that song in church this morning,” he spluttered. Then he realized. I had already posted it on my blog, she had already read it, and she was calling to let him know. Too cool.
Oh, and Heather, if you read this, leave a comment or something to say hi. :-)
Park Concert coming up...
This coming Sunday night my brothers Aaron and Andrew and I will be doing a concert for my church. Noelridge has annually had a church potluck in the park on Labor Day Sunday; for the past several years we’ve had the Faris family (talented bluegrass types from Kansas), but now they’ve moved up in the world and we can’t afford them any more. (Good for them!) So as their amateur replacements, the Hubbs brothers will be providing the musical entertainment this year.
I’m looking forward to this immensely. I have blogged before about the fun of playing music with my family, and this is no different. The music will be stuff that we’ve goofed around with before but never really performed; stuff by Caedmon’s Call, Derek Webb, Andrew Peterson, Andy Osenga, and others.
I only have a couple of more tasks in preparation: I need to try to drum up an electric piano we can use for the night (I know who to call, I just have to make the call) and I need to practice. I need to practice a lot.
What: Noelridge Park Church potluck and concert in the park Where: Noelridge Park Pavilion When: Sunday, September 3rd, 5:30 PM Bring: a dish to share and a lawnchair.
Odds and Ends August 2006
Odd: 13, the number of runs we had last night in our softball game. Also the number of runs our opponents had. After 7 innings it was just too dark to continue to play (8:30 pm or so), so we called it a draw. It was a beautiful night, and a fun game.
End: The end of the run yesterday was about 2 miles from where I started it. Enough, at least, to get my blood pumping. I did the first mile without walking at all. Woohoo!
Odd: 15, the day of the month today. Which means that it’s my brother Ryan’s birthday today!
End: This is the end of the post.
Everybody loves a party!
Yesterday was Laura’s second birthday. So, we invited a bunch of friends over to celebrate. Actually, this was her second birthday party this year; we had one with my family on Saturday, and now one with friends. Two years old, two parties. Don’t get any ideas about next year, kiddo!
So the Scotts, the Finleys, the Wilburs, the Garner women (freshly-minted First Officer Daniel was supposed to get home last night sometime after being gone for six weeks!) and my brother and sister came over. It was waaay to warm and humid in the backyard, but we sweltered through it and munched on hot dogs, salads, fruit, and the requsite cake and ice cream. Laura opened a few presents and then there were gift bags for all the kiddos that were a big hit. I think it’s safe to say that a good time was had by all.
We took a bunch of pictures, but I didn’t get them off the camera last night. I’ll try to remember to add them to this post when I get a chance. I still can’t believe she’s two already…
Happy Birthday Laura!
She’s too young to read this, but still, I can’t believe that my little girl turns 2 today! It seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital, and now she’s a little fireball, talking a blue streak, playing with her little sister, and enjoying her new fishies. Scary to think that it only speeds up from here…