Right On Time

I love these Spiderlillies. Someone who lived in our house before we moved here planted them. I didn't even know they were there - waiting to surface - until our first Autumn in our home. They come up and bloom every fall. What was amazing this year is that they surfaced last week, then bloomed on the first day of Autumn. We could have set our clocks by them. Now, that's obedience to their creator! They will bloom for a couple of weeks, then disappear until next fall when they'll appear again. Right on time.

Defying Gravity

My wife took this amazing picture of Savannah and me "floating" above the trampoline. I had just done a "seat drop", which bounces us high above the canvas. It looks like we were defying gravity, and for a moment, I guess we were.

We jumped on the trampoline Monday night after we ate dinner together on the patio to celebrate Family Day. Right after this, I threw the football with David, my son. He can throw a mean, tight spiral.

Mornings With Lorri and Friends

I had the privilege of being a guest on Lorri Allen’s radio show this morning. Lorri is the host of Mornings With Lorri and Friends on Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 161. If you ever get a chance to listen, she does a terrific job hosting the show. It’s on every weekday from 7 to 8 a.m., ET.
Lorri’s boss, Scott Miller, was co-hosting this morning and the three of us talked about the importance of sitting together at the family dinner table several times each week.
You can see from yesterday’s blog that yesterday was Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children™. This phrase is a trademark of Columbia University in New York, which launched Family Day seven years ago.
Scott admitted his family sits together at dinner, but always has the TV on while they eat. I commented that the TV has become a member of the family, but we need to turn it off a few times each week so that we can give our kids our undivided attention during those precious few moments together.
You can hear the conversation here. Thanks again to Lorri for having me as a guest on her show.

Family Day

Today is Family Day. Here is some information about it from the official website:

Family Day — A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children™ is a national movement to remind parents that what their kids really want at the dinner table is THEM! Family Day encourages parents to frequently eat dinner with their kids and be involved in their children’s lives. The conversations that go hand-in-hand with dinner help parents learn more about their kids’ lives and helps them to better understand the challenges their kids face.
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University launched Family Day in 2001 after CASA’s research consistently found that the more often children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs. Family Day is celebrated on the fourth Monday in September.

The benefits of frequent family dinners:
CASA’s 2006 report The Importance of Family Dinners III found that compared to kids who have fewer than three family dinners per week, children and teens who have 5-7 family dinners per week are:
-At 70 percent lower risk for substance abuse;
-Half as likely to try cigarettes or marijuana,
-One third less likely to try alcohol;
-Half as likely to get drunk monthly.
-Kids who frequently eat dinner with their families are also likelier to have better grades and confide in their parents.
-It is never too early to start the family dinner tradition. Begin making family dinners a regular feature of your daily routine today!

Here are some other important things you can do to keep your kids off drugs:
-Set a good example.
-Know your child’s whereabouts, activities and friends.
-Set fair rules and hold your child to them.
-Maintain open lines of communication.
-Surround your child with positive role models.
-Learn the signs and symptoms of teen substance abuse and conditions that increase risk.

I plan to eat dinner with the family tonight. I hope you are going to support this, too.

Family Night!

We played the Disney version of Monopoly tonight. It was fun, but it didn't take long for David to begin to wipe the rest of us out. That guy is hard to beat at this game. We went for ice cream, then came back and played. It's good for the kids to still be young and at home on Friday nights. I know the day will come when we wish for moments like these again.