This post is sponsored by Tylenol. I think it’s really important, as a family, to have activities that sort of define who you are. Activities that are mutually enjoyable, that you can be sure will result in a good time for everyone involved. As the old saying goes, the family that plays together, stays together. But defining what that “play” means, specifically, isn’t always easy. Before we had kids, our “thing” was travel. We loved to get out in the world, and to experience different . . .

My faith journey has been a long and winding road. You’ve probably heard it before: parents in the ministry, conservative upbringing, youthful devotion, youthful rebellion. Then, a return to faith as a young adult followed by a return to disillusionment as a young adult. My husband, Mark, used to be a full-time pastor. Today he works elsewhere, and we’ve left the church our family attended for 15 years. We have yet to find another church home. Our regular church attendance has decreased to once . . .

This post is sponsored by GoGo squeeZ My sister and her family are in town for a week, and so we are doing the obligatory “act like tourists in our own hometown” thing. We’ve been to the beach, In and Out, and today we took a drive up to LA to visit The Grove, an outdoor shopping mecca. GoGo squeeZ was hosting an event there so we popped in to let the kids experience their Goodness Machine. Specially designed by a NASA engineer, the Goodness Machine is a giant “pouch” that launches a GoGo . . .

On Thursdays I post from the archives. This is from July 2009. I am slowly recovering from the Frenzy of Fair we were involved in last week. I am sitting here trying to think of how to explain what lead me to the fair, not once, but TWICE, in one week. Really, I have nothing to say for myself. Mostly I blame Rosie, my housekeeper. Rosie cleans my house twice a month on Wednesday mornings, in order to keep me from divorcing my husband arguing with Mark about the division of labor in . . .