Just Another Day…

Category: Text Post

  • One-On-One With Andrew

    On Friday I decided to take Andrew with me to run some errands and to get a haircut with me. The haircut didn’t work out so much (he started throwing a fit) but the rest of the day was great.

    We walked around downtown for a bit, sat outside and had a snack together, went to home depot and Starbucks. You could tell he liked the special attention he was receiving.

    When you have twins, right from the get-go your time is split between two children. It’s not like when they come one at a time and at least for a period they receive all of your attention. It’s such a gift even for us as parents when we get these opportunities to not have our attention split 2-3 ways.

    Moving forward we are trying to schedule more one-on-one time with each child so that they don’t feel like they have to compete for our time, and we can get to know them even better. For example, Brenda has been taking Max to the health club to go swimming a few days a week just so they can have time together, and it has clearly benefited Max.

    I’m looking forward to Sydney being a little bit older so that we can work her into that mix as well.


  • Done At Last!

    To say a weight is lifted off my shoulder having finally finished this would be an understatement. It took around 15 hours over 3 weeks (whenever I could get out there even for just an hour). Thank you Brenda for letting me finish it yesterday while you battled the twins alone!


  • Just maybe I WILL get it done this year!

    It’s been about 10 hours over 3 weeks, but it’s finally starting to look like something. I think a couple more hours and I’ll be done. I’m almost out of parts!

    So much for the estimated 6 hours for assembly.

  • Once Was Enough!

    I’m not sorry I did it, and maybe at some date down the road I’ll try it again, but I feel no hurry to repeat my skydiving experience.

    From the point of view of just knowing that you can do it, it was a very powerful thing to do. It was not all that long ago that I wouldn’t have had the courage to do this. But it’s a good exercise in mental focus – not allowing yourself to “go there”.

    As the plane was going up I was getting pretty tense, and it seemed like the flight up was taking forever. In reality I think it was about 10-12 minutes. I had the extra experience of seeing my friend Ed go out right before me, and that in itself made my stomach sink.

    Once out the door, it was kind of like having your mind just blown away – nothing seems to make sense to your brain. “Why are we doing this? How does this attribute to our self survival?”

    What I remember most is that after the initial 2-3 seconds, there was not that feeling of losing your stomach. It was just really, really, REALLY fast, and very loud. They wanted me to do poses, smile and give them the thumbs up for pictures and video, but I would have none of it. I was just too terrified. Now looking back at the photos and video, I wish I would have pushed myself to do it just to have a single good photo! Seeing yourself and your skin being stretched by 150 mph winds does nothing for your self image.

    Once the shoot was pulled it was a much easier ride down, something I can’t imagine anybody not enjoying. It was peaceful, smooth and a great view of everything.

    The landing was slow and easy, and we landed in a sitting position.

    I’ll have more photos and eventually a video cut of the experience. While I wouldn’t do it again, I’m very glad that I did it today.


  • Sydney’s Debut Video

    It took nearly a year for this to see reality, but here it is, Sydney Tomchak’s first video.

    This time shot and edited by Brenda, and get this…. it was done entirely on her iPhone! She would shoot footage along the way, add photos here and there, and just edit a shot or two as she had time. When she was done she exported a full 720p HD video. It’s just mind blowing what you can do these days.

    So here’s the video. Enjoy.

    [qt:/blog/video/sydneyFirstMovie-Blog.mov /blog/video/sydneyFirstMovie-poster.jpg /blog/video/sydneyFirstMovie-HD.mov 600 337]