I blame my wife. I know Mother’s day is around the corner, but I do. I blame her. The Biebs has landed! Run for cover, get your provisions and prepare to hunker down! My daughter put a Justin Bieber poster up in her room. I have fought the good fight but alas I have been vanquished. It was a long worthwhile struggle and my daughter was even embarrassed to show me the poster and tell me that she liked his music now. I told her she was shunned and not to expect dinner that night. I blame my wife. And here’s why. I grew up listening to classic rock from my dad’s record collection. I remember …

Despite my best efforts, time continues its relentless, methodical march forward. My baby girl is another year older. This week has been pretty emotional already. We said goodbye to our new Marine once again as he went back to begin specialized weapons training and then off to his Amphibious Assault Vehicle School. We won’t see him again until Christmas—hopefully. As we watched him walk away, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the little five-year-old that wanted me to play Star Wars with him. In the blink of an eye he became a man. So when my daughter’s birthday hit, I was incredibly …

I was privileged to witness my brother-in-law graduate from Marine Corp boot camp this past week.  It was in beautiful San Diego. Our whole family was able to fly out there and attend the Family Day along with the graduation.  We took a tour of the Marine Museum which chronicled past exploits of the Marines and individual officers that stood out in times of combat. We saw weapons of war from every skirmish Marines have taken part in. We listened as a Marine officer took us through the program, explaining the how’s of breaking down a civilian just to build him/her back up as a Marine. We met …

He sat there with his leg in a brace, for the millionth time.  I asked him what had happened and he said he didn’t know.  He was running and started to turn and the next thing he knew his knee just blew up. He said he really couldn’t remember much after that because the pain was so intense. Another football injury. He’s had several, almost too many to count. His knee, his shoulder, his arm and shoulder, his ankles and don’t forget to throw in a few concussions and that’s pretty close to his list of battle wounds. The really sad and/or upsetting part about this isn’t the fact that this athlete…

An Indiana man is jailed because he pummeled his elementary age daughter’s assistant basketball coach for having to run laps after getting into an argument with another player. He reportedly punched the coach in the face and continued doing so until he was unconscious. Are you kidding me?  Really? This isn’t an isolated event. I did a quick Google search of the words “parent”, “fighting”, and “youth sports” and over 53,000,000 results popped up. I realize that not all of those are parents getting into fights at youth sports but 53,000,000 is a massive amount to not be some sort of epidemic! …

I’m sitting here on my couch. I can feel myself start to become one with the cushion. Millions of others are joining me right now as I’m glued to the television watching March Madness! It’s one of the most wonderful times of the year. I love the action and drama, the comebacks and the Cinderellas, and I especially love the brackets and contests. I’ve never fully understood why we don’t have a national holiday to celebrate this blessed time of year. Maybe one of our mayoral candidates can add that to their platform. But one of my most favorite aspects of March Madness is the memories. Filling …

A little boy sleeping soundly in his bed is roused from his sleep by an unseen intruder. A rough, calloused hand reaches from the darkness and drags the boy screaming out of the safety of his dreams. A few moments later that boy or another just like him is shown with a weapon of war slung over his shoulder, a sneer across his lips as he looks at the camera. These children are victims of an ongoing campaign of terror that has spanned decades in Central Africa. I, like millions of others, had never heard the name Joseph Kony until this past week. And now I, like millions of others, have heard …

This morning, my daughter wanted to wear some longer shorts or capris. Unfortunately for her, she’s had several growth spurts over the winter and is wearing clothing a full size above where she should be. And unfortunately for me, I got hit with the blunt end of the whiny stick today. She began to deconstruct why said capris were actually not big enough to be worn to school and how I should be on top of situations like this with emergency clothing provisions.  Actually what she said was more like this: “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddy!” (When you imagine the voice make sure it’s high and nasally…

Think back to when you fell in love for the very first time. When was that? For me, it was freshman year and her name was Carolina. I thought she was it! We dated all through our freshman year and into 10th grade. We were together all the time. And I mean all the time. Every weekend, we were at each other’s homes. My parents loved her and her parents loved me. Her mom even gave me a nick name—Lionel Joseph (from Trading Places). At school, I counted the minutes until that bell rang so I could see her between classes. I lived for those few moments spent in her presence. Even at the basketball …

My son is crazy! When his mother and I picked out his name, we never knew it would fit his personality so well. See, his name means badger and badgers are aggressive, wild animals.  And he is that.  If there is a group of people around, you can bet that he is in the middle of that group doing something to get their attention. But he does have a soft side. He loves to shower affection on those he loves.  He’s growing into a boy that has a sensitive and sympathetic soul. And since last week I gave all you future boyfriends a little advice about dating my daughter, it’s only fair I give you …

I can’t begin to tell you how I feel about my daughter. She captured my heart from her first little squawk and hasn’t relented the grip since.  She was my princess from the start.  I may have babied her a little—OK, a lot—but I’ve corrected that and we have an amazing relationship now. She is kind to a fault, has the most  tender heart and loves people without regard to their station in life.  She has a few of our bad qualities (we’re working on those), but possesses all of our good traits.  She and her brother are the greatest thing I have accomplished in this life.  And as she gets older, …

Vikki was a typical teenage girl. She was very pretty, outgoing, a cheerleader, worked a part-time job and was active in a local youth group. She was also in a violent dating relationship.  Vikki was part of the one-in-five high school girls that have or will experience dating violence and part of the 94 percent of victims that are between the ages of 16 and 19 (clotheslineproject.org). Vikki’s boyfriend never physically struck her, but what he did do was threaten her life. It started with a controlling behavior, restricting who she could call and then who she could be with. Slowly he …

Allow me to introduce to you a young woman who is real but could represent an untold number of young women today. We will call her Tammy, but that's not her real name. Tammy grew up in a home with an overbearing mother that tried to control every aspect of every family member’s life and a father that was emotionally unavailable. He had long ago resigned himself to the fact that his wife ruled the home with an iron fist. I don’t mean to say that she was physically violent, but she had a hair trigger temper and when she was unhappy about something everyone on her street could hear about it. …

I was pretty dumb as a teenager. I made some pretty bone headed decisions and spent way too much time caring what other people thought of me. Some of you went to school with me and may even know what I’m talking about. I was the guy that had to be the center of attention. If there was a crowd, you could bet that I would be doing something to try and make them laugh. Such as the time I was on the Winter Sports (school dance) court. When they announced our names another friend and I did the worm down the red carpet instead of walk with our dates. Or the time at DECA State when we decided to see…

Growing up in my home was fun. I had two parents who loved us and were involved in our lives and activities. We took vacations in the family station wagon (it even had wood paneling) and smaller road trips to historical landmarks. We had Friday pizza and movie nights. I remember walking in the local movie store trying to pick from the hundreds of titles. I could hop on my bike, ride to my friend’s house and be gone for hours without having to worry about anything. I had a fun childhood. I never got into a lot of trouble. But when I did, I did. And my parents were strict but fair. Everything …

I'm writing this from my couch. My two-year-old son is asleep next to me after a long day of rough housing, and my daughter is up for a little late night Wii Cooking Mama. This week has been a fantastic "stay-cation" for me. I've done nothing but sleep late, play with my kids, and visit with friends and family. It's been incredibly relaxing. It has been the perfect way to end this year. And what a year it was. For our household 2011 has been a year of discoveries. We were able to see everything new again as we watched our youngest experience life with fresh eyes and we encountered unknown …

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except for a 9-year-old boy who couldn’t sleep, because he was so excited about what Santa was going to bring him!  I tossed and turned and barely slept at all that Christmas Eve. I worried myself sick about what I was going to get. And to tell you the truth, I don’t remember what it was that I wanted so bad. From that moment forward, I gave up being curious about presents. To this day, you can try to tease me, give me clues, or shake a present in front of me, and I don’t care. I’m completely fine with …

I recently spent some time in a “tobacco” shop in one of our neighboring communities. I’m very close with someone that worked there at the time and wanted to see what took place there. I walked away incredibly heart broken and disturbed at the amount of people walking in and out with synthetic drugs. It opened my eyes to a horrifying trend in today’s youth culture. I watched as a steady flow of people came in and bought “potpourri” in different “scents.” I saw men and women buying a white powder that claimed to be for massages. The store even had masking agents, synthetic urine, and cleansing…

Parenting is hard. There’s no question about that statement. It is difficult. There are so many things to think about, guard against, and strive for that at times it can be overwhelming.  I watched a news report a few weeks ago about one more thing to worry about. It was on KPHO Channel 5 in Arizona and it reported that teens have been using vodka soaked tampons to get drunk during school. Both boys and girls are inserting them to get a quicker buzz without getting caught drinking. The danger is that the alcohol does not go through the liver but straight to the blood stream. If a person has …

Let me tell you about Waylon. Waylon grew up in a home where nothing he did pleased his parents. If he did well in school or in an activity, they didn’t seem to care. If he did horribly in school or in an activity, they didn’t seem to care. No matter what Waylon did in his young life, his parents mostly responded with, “Don’t bother me.” Fortunately, Waylon had brothers and sisters who took care of each other. They stepped in and tried to love and support each other when it became clear that their parents didn’t care. This is the environment in which Waylon became a teenager. This is where I …