London Day 1: Buckingham Palace and Finding Gluten Free Pizza!

England, travel
London Day 1: From DC to Buckingham Palace with jetlag and gluten free pizza

London, baby! This year my husband, Alan, starts a fancy new job that we expect will keep him busier than he has been for the last couple of years. Therefore, we decided to give our family an all-out overseas vacation. This was the boys’ first time overseas, so we figured a United Kingdom trip would break them in the most gently to international travel. After all, everyone speaks English there. Ha. London day #1 Day one took us from the […]

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Touring Old Town Alexandria with a Ghost Tour

Alexandria, travel, Virginia, washington dc
Tour Old Town with a ghost tour

Summer is back! And we are headed out on a ghost tour in Old Town Alexandria! We have very exciting things planned for this summer. The boys got out Wednesday, and I took them to Sweet Frog. That is one of my favorite traditions with the boys. It’s one of the few things we can all agree to love. Living in the D.C. area, the day trip options are endless, and Old Town Alexandria is more than worthy of its […]

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15 Beautiful Garden Ideas for Fall

fall, halloween
fall gardening

Happy Fall, friends!! If fall is the season of change, I feel like we may have taken that a little too literally this year. This fall finds our family in a new house, just down the street from our old house. Also, I took a new job! This is my first in-person job in eighteen years. Oh! And our oldest son went away to college, and Alan changed jobs. But then, Alan changes jobs every one to three years. The […]

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Best Biblical Archaeology Books for Exploring Evidence of the Past

Archaeology, Bible, Bible Archaeology, Bible verses, faith
best bible Archaeology books

I think it is a healthy thing to go digging for physical evidence of the reason for your faith. Faith is a beautiful thing, but it should not be blind. Our faith should be built on evidence. For me, the very first evidence of a holy God was creation and sensing his presence. As a small, four-year-old child, I had never been to church. Yet, there was something about the name and mention of God that always rang true for […]

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Over 35 Years of Miramar Beach

beach, Florida, travel, vacation
Miramar Beach

This year our family’s over thirty years of vacationing at the grandparents’ condo in Miramar Beach comes to an end. When I got engaged to my husband Alan in 2002, I took my very first trip to Miramar Beach. Alan’s mom, who we call Nonna now, took me to her parents’ condo. We walked on the beach, ate out, went shopping, and had a great time. Nonna’s dad was a contractor. He built these condos in the 1970s. How cool […]

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Tips for Talking to an Anxious Teenager

parenting, parenting teenagers
best tips for talking to your anxious teenager

Today I have a mental health expert here to help us with talking to our teenagers when they are anxious. I am certainly no expert in this field. I don’t know about you, but I have three teenagers and need all the help I can get. Whether your teenager identifies as “anxious” or not, chances are they will have times where they absolutely are anxious. I think it’s unavoidable. Our mental health expert is here to provide us with tips […]

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6 Important Considerations for Homeschooling

faith, home school, homeschool
what to conside when deciding to homeschool your kids

Today I have a guest post for you on the topic of important considerations for your homeschooling decision. This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, as we have homeschooled at our house several different years, in a couple of different ways. There was so much that went into this decision. Our expert today is here to share with us what we should think about when we are making this important decision. Going to school is […]

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Last Chance to See the Cherry Blossoms in D.C. Before Major Tidal Basin Reconstruction

travel, washington dc
DC cherry blossoms

Did you know 2024 year is an important year for the D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival? It is the last year before major sea wall renovations force the park service to take down over one hundred and fifty trees. Don’t worry. Trees will be re-planted. This legitimately needs to be done due to flooding on one side of the Tidal Basin. It isn’t the entire Tidal Basin that is flooding. It’s just the area on one side of the Thomas Jefferson […]

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Exploring Our Family History in Tannehill State Park: A Beautiful Place to Take Your Family

family, road trip, summer, travel
Tannehill Ironworks Historical State park

Last year my cousin Amber sent me a VHS video clip of an interview she did with our Maw-Maw back in the 1990s. In this video, Maw-Maw told us there is a cabin in Tannehill State Park that once belonged to our great-great grandparents. Once I learned we have an ancestral home on display in Birmingham, Alabama, I knew we had to go check this out! My kids love it so much when I drag them out on these sorts […]

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Traveling by Train from Naples to Sigonella Navy Base (in Sicily)

military life, travel
Traveling by train from Naples to Sigonella

On the last day before our flight out of Italy, Alan and I needed to get from halfway up the boot in Naples, down to the island boot tip of Sicily, to fly out of Naval Air Station Sigonella. Our whole vacation was built around our military space available flights. To learn more about flying to Italy using military space A, if you are active duty or retired, click here. All of the flights back to the U.S. were leaving […]

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