***We have committed to give our family rest each Sunday. Read more here.

We don't go out to eat very often. We prefer to prepare food at home so that we can know what ingredients are (and are not) in our food. Plus, it's always delicious and much less expensive. Tonight, was the exception. We ate dinner at Pizza Hut. I know - not the most spectacular place […]

Running is something we used to do often - all four of us together. I would push our double jogger and run next to Stephanie, but lately it has been difficult to make happen. We keep changing campgrounds, jogging-friendly paths are not always easily accessible, and our jogging stroller isn't as much fun for the […]

This Sunday will mark Day# 100. It is hard to believe that we are that far along. We plan to have a surprise party for the girls when they wake up that morning - a mini celebration here in the RV. Stephanie and I are going to blow up ballons and decorate the fifth wheel […]

The campground we are currently staying at is the largest one we have been to so far. We are getting lots of exercise on hiking trails, going to the playground, and strolling around the lake. Unlike a lot of the campgrounds, no one picks up your trash here. Each camper is responsible to take his/her garbage to […]

The past 5 years we have sponsored a boy named Gift from Zimbabwe through World Vision. Without fail, we send $35/mth - it is automatically taken out of our account. But we haven't been very diligent about writing to him. As a family, we periodically pray for Gift and his community, but somehow we rarely get […]

Where does the money go from Goodwill's thrift stores? That is a question I have had for a long time. Today, we toured Goodwill's Career Center in Lexington. There are 165 independent, community-based Goodwills in the United States and Canada that offer customized job training, employment placement and other services to people who have disabilities, […]

Congratulations to Julie in CT – this week’s featured giver and prize winner. Julie's Story: I give my time to write stories for my church’s kids program on Wednesday nights. They needed some character building stories to supplement their curriculum so each week I write a “Wild West” themed story that follows a group of […]

***We have committed to give our family rest each Sunday. Read more here.

Today, we spent several hours creating mother's day cards and printing out pictures for Stephanie's mom and my mom. Our two girls were in charge of the card-making. Our oldest drew a picture of my mom standing with her four grandchildren and Stephanie and I sorted through pictures and printed some favorites. What did you do […]

We spend lots of time together as a family. That is one of the reasons we are on this 365-day giving adventure, but today I spent extra one-on-one time with our oldest daughter. I took her fishing at a lake near our campground. We hiked from fishing spot to fishing spot, talking as we went. […]

Before we began GiveEveryDay, Stephanie & I asked ourselves how we wanted to live our lives if we had only one year to live. We decided that we would want to (1) deemphasize our things, (2) spend time with our family, and (3) give to others. We want our days and years to be meaningful. We […]

We spent last week in Asheville, NC. Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains and known for its beauty, Asheville is a free-spirited city filled with people from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. We stayed at the KOA on the west side of town in Candler. It had super easy access from the freeway and all the […]

We were about to get in our truck and drive into town when a neighbor pulled up in their truck and asked if we had seen a black kitten with a scar on its nose. Their kitten had snuck out of their RV and vanished. The four of us decided we would hold off on […]

I have lived in cities with Ronald McDonald Houses most of my life, but have never been inside one until today. Our family visited the RMH in Winston-Salem this afternoon. It was like a being in a 31,000 sqft mansion except with less superfluous bling and more love. The RMH provides a "home away from home" for families […]