For Paul, and Other Stepdads who Rock It


My  cousin Paul is one of the best dads I know. 

His fridge is covered with drawings and report cards. Every Facebook post boasts pictures of the latest report card win, the latest father-daughter dance at school or kid’s ballgame (he’s the Coach, of course). 

He’s never afraid to get dirty, be silly, or wear a tutu to baseball practice to encourage his team.  Paul has only even known these children he calls his son and daughter for the past few years. But you’d never know by seeing him with them that he wasn’t there the entire time. These children, along with their mother, are his entire life. 


Beyond this relationship, others outside his immediate family have noticed his fatherly qualities and been grateful for them. Paul is a “father to the fatherless” to many it seems, and I’m just proud to know a man of such caliber.

Paul, I’ve known you since you were a tiny thing, and I’m so proud of the man you’ve become. 

Proverbs 20:7

“The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.”

Living in the South: Creekside

Tina Bausinger

It's pictures like this that inspired our own creek visit. It’s pictures like this that inspired our own creek visit.

A couple of weeks ago I innocently asked my cousin Rachel if we could visit the creek she’s always talking about when we visited.

Let me tell you something: the Bartons and Hignites take such a request SERIOUSLY. Before I knew it, we had three cars, two trunkfuls of BBQ supplies, rafts, and other sundry creek essentials piled to a precarious capacity. The girls, Mancub and I showed up with nothing but the 110 SPF sunscreen I found especially for my skin tone: pale Irish vampire. This is a necessity if we don’t want to end up the shade of red usually reserved for fire hydrants or Target insignia.

It’s not that we MEANT to be a pack of freeloading panhandlers. We just didn’t know what we were in for. We thought we’d show up, swim around for a couple of hours…

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