Fifteen years ago, I said “I do” and Heather said, “You’d better.” For the record, we were on our honeymoon cruise and the Captain requested we all wear our hair “up” for dinner.
Church Isn’t Supposed to be Fun
Church isn’t supposed to be fun. Yep. That’s what I said to my youngest when he dug in his heels about going to our new church because he wasn’t having very much fun there. Just saying it made me want to pull my pants up over my belly button and comb the hair growing out […]
February 9, 2011 by 16 Comments
A Box Full of Ticket Stubs
What do you want for your birthday? My answer to that question has changed over the past three decades. It used to be all about toys and electronics. My wish list was full of expensive gadgets I had no chance of getting. As I’ve gotten older, I want less stuff and more experiences. Last Saturday […]
February 2, 2011 by 3 Comments
Let’s Go Gigging!
When I was a boy, my family spent many of our Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in Port Aransas, Texas. We were there for one purpose: to gig flounder. Every night we’d put on our waders and load up our equipment and head to the ship channel where we’d spend most of the night walking around […]
December 15, 2010 by 6 Comments
It was a Good Home
As of 11AM this Friday–and assuming there are no ill-placed tornadoes in the next two days–we will no longer own a home in Oklahoma. I drove up to Tulsa earlier this week to get the last bit of our stuff from the house we’ve owned for the past seven years. Even though we’ve been living […]
May 19, 2010 by 6 Comments
Month One
It’s hard to believe we’ve been in Austin almost a month. The time has flown by as we’ve established our residence, registered our cars, and waited in line to get our drivers licenses. Actually, the time hasn’t flown by while we’ve done any of these things, but the rest of the time it has. I’ve […]
June 29, 2009 by 2 Comments
Boring Words
Here’s the transcript of an actual conversation that occurred between the three Hodges men in the bathroom of our local movie theater as we stood staring at the wall doing our business. Elijah (age 6): Dad, where did you learn to do that preaching stuff you do? Caleb (age 7): I know. Wade: Where? Caleb: […]
February 10, 2009 by 8 Comments
Hard to Spin
Last week, while at church camp, Caleb (age 7) was asked in a small group what character in the Bible he’d most like to be. His response: Peter. When asked why, he said, “Because he got to cut a guy’s ear off.” I’m not sure how I can spin this positively except to say: 1. […]
August 6, 2008 by 3 Comments
God is Real
Last night we took the training wheels off of Elijah’s bicycle. It was past time. I had already raised them so high that they only touched when he rounded corners in our neighborhood. As we were taking them off, I told him that once they came off they weren’t going back on. This was a […]
August 21, 2007 by 12 Comments
A Trip to the Pet Store
Yesterday, after a great Easter Celebration at Garnett and a huge Easter feast at Macaroni Grill, we took the boys to the pet store. This was the third time I had been there in the past few weeks. The first time was with Caleb when we were grabbing some father-son time. He decided that we […]
April 9, 2007 by 7 Comments
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons