The Spontaneous, The Different, and The Consistent

On memory-making as a family

Not long ago, my oldest came into the bedroom. I ask him to knock but I’m not sure if he did that time. He’s hit or miss with knocking.

“Dad, Dave Matthews Band is playing Friday. Nate’s going. Can we go?”

Source

I don’t wear cargo shorts but I did cut my teeth playing Dave Matthews Band songs on the guitar, so the kids know his music from our car rides and my inconsistent playing.

I have a meteorologist in the family—Jeff—so I needed to check with him on weather. Jeff said it might rain but it might not, which was no help because I needed something concrete.

“I don’t know, man. It might rain. I have some work to do on Friday.”

I am concurrently underselling this idea while checking ticket prices. I don’t want to sit on the lawn if it rains. I don’t want to buy covered tickets because they’re out of my budget. The lawn was, too, but more justifiably out of my budget.

“Okay,” my son says. He has a penchant for respecting my authority even if I haven’t provided a good reason.

And the door closes.

By Wednesday night of that week—one or two days later—I’m staring again at ticket prices. I ask Courtney if we should go.

“What do you think? Make a run of it? Go to the concert?”

“Let’s do it!”

I buy five covered tickets. The last time I’d gone to a concert was two years prior, after I had spent four hours in a dentist’s chair getting post-root-canal work done. Redemption time.

Parenting: The Stewardship of Memory Making

My simple definition of parenting isn’t spiritual in the strictest sense. I view parenting as memory making. Every day I’m building memories for the kids: some good and others not so good.

The spontaneous decision to buy tickets is part of the way I want the family to build memories.

My stewardship statement for family and relationships is this:

I am a present, engaged, and loving provider who ensures the most important family and friend relationships are tended to regularly, and those in my life know they can lean on me whenever needed.

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My areas of stewardship video (explained from a previous post): what are they?

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You might not be able to draw a straight line from that statement to a Friday night concert, but it all ties into how I want to tend to those family relationships.

Spontaneity is just one of the ways we build family rhythms that create memories and nurture those relationships. There are many, but two others that are anchoring for us.

Finding “Different” as a Family

When you’ve lived along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana most of your life, it isn’t that hard to find “different.” For the past seven years—ever since COVID came into the world—we’ve taken what I call a “scenery trip” for Spring Break. That first year was just the Texas Hill Country for a couple of nights as the world shut down, but we made the most of it after we found putt putt.

Then, for a couple of years we just followed my sister, Shana, wherever she went with her family (we aren’t that creative). Arizona one year, Colorado the next. Then we got into our own routines—Arkansas, Tennessee a couple of times, and New Mexico most recently.

New Mexico Disc Golf

We merged “the spontaneous” and “the different” in April 2025 when we decided to take the family to California for a wedding I was officiating. We did the napkin math and thought, since my expenses were largely covered, this was the cheapest we would ever be able to go to California together. They threw frisbees down a vineyard hill and apparently made a short about it.

The Consistent

And every summer we load up for the same trip over and over again. Pine Cove Family Camp. This is our consistent space—many times with the same families who have become extended family for us over fourteen-or-so years.

Listen. I’m not a camper. I don’t do spunky. I am not big on game nights. I have never purposefully dressed for a theme night. After our first year at camp, Courtney and I got into a huge fight on the way home as a mark of just how bad of campers we were.

But we keep going back, and not only because of the views on my many walks.

The consistent space gives us a benchmark—year after year—to ask certain kinds of questions. How has the past year been? Where do we need to grow? Where have we grown? How much weight have I gained or lost? (Because of all the pics the camp staff take of you.)

I re-up every year unsure of how I’ll pay for the next year, but we keep going. We don’t go because we must. We go because it’s good for us.

It Doesn’t Happen by Accident

I sat that Friday night amidst 16,000 or so strangers, save for the handful of people we knew were somewhere in the crowd. It didn't rain (the forecast was right). The kids had not been to a concert before. I didn't know how they'd respond to the size, the noise, or anything. The opener was one of my absolute favorites.

And as we stood there listening to that first song, I was holding back tears—hoping nobody saw me. Sure, I could have a few hundred more dollars in the bank, but I would’ve paid many times more for that memory—for them, for me, for us.

We don’t stumble into well-tended relationships. I’d love to hear what you do.