Spain Dad, a baby blog

“Where are you from?” the kid asked. He had been watching Alleke since she hopped off my lap and announced to everyone in English that she was a flamenco dancer, and then proceeded to prance and twirl up and down the aisle of the train car. The other passengers didn’t seem to mind the impromptu [...]

I spent this past weekend praying with cloistered nuns in a monastery. When I arrived, I turned off my phone and took the miniature video camera out of my pocket and tossed it in the suitcase.

We visited our college friends, Dan and Julie Perkins, on their organic farm in Indiana last Friday. Their son, Harper, was waiting in the red Radio Flyer wagon with his muddy boots when I lifted Teo into the wagon behind him. Dan pulled the boys in the wagon ahead of us through the fields, pointed [...]

Some shots from Toledo, a day trip from Madrid. You can also watch this slideshow in fullscreen…

April, today is your 30th birthday, and you asked me to write something for you. So, earlier this week when I sat down to write, my first thought was, I wonder where we were ten years ago? and then realized we were actually in Spain, visiting for the first time. I found the journal I [...]

Photo by Jeffrey Beall. I set down the suitcase and took the envelope out of my back pocket. On the front was handwritten, “Room #526.” I was studying the arrow signs pointing down two long carpeted hallways when April and Alleke rolled up next to me with their suitcases. “Oh no,” April said. “What?” I [...]

We spent last week in Portugal for our family vacation. Our budget was small, so we decided to stay with friends, borrow another friend’s car, and spend our days at the beach or playing in the front yard. All I can say is the best things in life are free! Although we spent a lot [...]

Last night Alleke and I hiked down to the beach to the look at the stars. We lay there in the sand side by side looking up at the sky, spread out in front of us like a map of a million cities. Eventually I turned over and asked Alleke,”Can you count the stars?” She [...]

I set down my knife and fork and turned around in my chair to watch Alleke and the handful of other kids who had come with their parents to dine at this restaurant, which amounted to a few checkerboard tables in the corner of an empty square at the end of one of the tiny [...]