Jul 19
We just got back from our first official Dixon family vacation. My parents were able to give us a few days at a North/central Arkansas community called Fairfield Bay. We loaded up the girls on Thursday and headed for a 6 hour drive into the mountains. With no plans other than cook dinner, swim, hike and love on our babies, we accomplished just that and it was valuable.
Growing up my little bro and I were blessed with the opportunity to go on many family trips and stay at all kinds of cool places similar to the Arkansas setup. We loved theses trips growing up and my parents always made them fun for us. Plenty of swim time, mini golf, chill time, site seeing, exploring, etc. and we always had a blast. Many great memories for sure.
It’s interesting – these family vacations now that I am in the parent role. Seems as though Traci and my desires were not about us, but what we felt our babies (yes, they’ll always be referred as such) would want to do. Weird how easy and self-less it was for us to plan it this way! Our main goal was to squeeze as many smiles out of those precious pumpkins as possible. Swim every day! No, no – swim twice a day, every day! Yippie! “Can I have another cookie?” “Heck yeah! Here’s TWO extra cookies!” I actually feel semi-awkward at how much I stared at their little butts while frolicking in the kiddy pools this week. I loved it and already miss the ever passing time we have with them in this stage. Family vacations are about the family which really is about the happiness of the kids which really is to increase the joy of the parents… interesting revolution there. We didn’t get a lot of rest and didn’t come back with a renewed sense of “go get em” but enjoyed the time with these angels. Priceless.
You can check out some pics of the trip at Traci’s blog. Peace!
May 09
This past Friday and Saturday, me and 6 other guys from our community group went North about 1 hour to spend some time “camping”. One of my buddies, Mike was able to secure a private compound with a “cabin” and multiple private ponds. Our goal was to get to spend some quality time getting to know each other while spending some time enjoying the outdoors.
We arrived Friday afternoon about 5:30 and begun to claim our beds and check out the amenities. After a short while, we got coals going for our beef fajitas with peppers and onions dinner. It was fab! Another pal, Justin pulled out a legit campfire-coal dutch oven and began to whip together a peach cobler to be cooked on the coals for desert. A little fishing at dusk then we headed back to the cabin for a campfire. T’was awesome. We stayed up for a while discussing current struggles and successes in our walk with Christ. Where we were, and where we wanted to be in our relationship with Him. A great time of sharing was followed up by a great nights rest.
Saturday morning we woke up to breakfast burritos a devotion of scripture readings and then headed out for some exploring and more fishing. There was a much larger pond that we began to cast into for a while. Funny as it was, there was a tiny little overflow lake just off the large one that one of the guys curageously threw his line into. With out fail, every one of the 8ish fish that was pulled from this golf-course-green-sized pond was larger than anything else we had caught all weekend. It was a blast. “Fish in a barrel” for sure. We then proceeded to get on some small fishing boats and paddle our way around the larger lake before a quick lunch then departure.
Time getting to know my brothers this weekend was great and I was actually sad to leave as early as we did, about noon yesterday. I believe that we began to break through the “small-talk chatter” and get into some real fellowship. I can’t wait to see where we go from here and how these friendships develop. We will definitely plan another one for the fall. This time, mandatory tenting! Peace.
May 03
Saturday morning I had to work. Saturday afternoon we took Addi and Kam to Grandma and Poppy’s house in Quitman to spend the evening. They love doing that and so do we. Saturday evening we hosted a dinner party at our place. Sunday Traci and I spent the morning eating breakfast at the Eatery, went grocery shopping, and explored the vegetables and herbs at Lowes. We went to claim our babies back, had a great lunch and afternoon at the Clarks. Later we went to “our” trails, ran a few, came home, grilled some hotdogs, put the girls to bed, then watched Extreme Makeover (Mineola) Edition. Relaxing Sunday for sure. Tonight we are going to plant a small garden in our back yard. I bought the girls each a small hand shovel. Great start to the week!
