Most mornings at our house start a little sideways. Somebody can't find a shoe, somebody else is technically awake but in no hurry to prove it, and there is usually a negotiation underway over something I'll likely have forgotten by lunch. Once we get everybody pointed in the same direction, our crew loads into the car, and we drive a few minutes over to my dad's house for breakfast.

It didn't start out as an everyday thing. Years ago, it was just a Friday tradition, one morning a week around the table I grew up at. Then one Friday somehow became two mornings, then three, and before any of us noticed we were doing it every single school day. Nobody ever called a family meeting to make it official. It just quietly became the norm.

I have a lot of history in this town. I grew up in Bentonville and started at Elm Tree around 1995. I went to a few other elementary schools around the area over the years, but Elm Tree is the one that stuck with me. My favorite part was the Friday morning "Rise & Shine." They played "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang every single week, and I looked forward to it every Friday without fail. Something about starting the day that way just excited me. I never really figured I would leave Northwest Arkansas. It always felt like home, and the older I got, the more I believed it was the kind of place where I could put down deep roots and build a family and a career. So, I stayed, and one day I found myself standing in the Elm Tree front office again, this time holding a backpack that wasn't mine.

The first time I walked back into that school as a parent, dropping Brody, our oldest, off for his first day of kindergarten, the thing that caught me off guard was the size of it. Growing up, Elm Tree felt enormous to me, a giant place with hallways that went on forever, though I imagine that had more to do with how small I was than with the actual square footage. Walking back in as a parent, all of it felt so much smaller, in the cozy, nostalgic kind of way that sneaks up on you. The building had not changed nearly as much as I had. Same halls, same doors, a whole new reason to be nervous in the parking lot.

Brody went first. He is in junior high now, over at Lifeway Christian School, but Elm Tree is where he got his start. Vera is there this year as a fourth grader, which is her last year in the building. And this month Caylus, our youngest, starts kindergarten, his very first year, which means for a few months he and Vera will overlap in the same halls before she moves up. Put it all together and every one of my kids will have walked through Elm Tree at some point, the same building I did. I am not sure I have the words for what that feels like, watching your kids trace a path you walked thirty-some years ago without even realizing they are doing it.

None of this works without my dad. He is the one at the stove every morning, and by now the kids know their way around his kitchen better than they know ours. They call him Pawpaw, and most mornings he has bacon, biscuits, and eggs going by the time we get there. The kids put in their own orders too. Vera has recently gotten hooked on the miniature Eggo waffles, and Brody has worked a triple chocolate muffin into his morning rotation. The house belonged to both my parents, and my mom is a big part of why it still feels the way it does. We lost her in April of 2024. She was never the one doing the cooking, that was always Dad, but on the mornings she felt well enough she would come and sit with us at the table, and those are some of the mornings I hold onto the most. More than anything, she just loved having the kids around. She would sit and soak it all in, the noise and the chaos and every bit of it, and we never left in the morning without each of the kids stopping to give her a hug or a kiss goodbye. That house is not just where we eat. It is the place the whole day launches from.

One thing that has become a staple for us is telling dad jokes at the table. It usually kicks off with one of the kids hollering "jokes!" and then all of us pointing at each other, everybody silently accusing everybody else of being the joke. It's done with love, for the record. Nobody is actually getting roasted. From there I run through whatever I have, either one I heard recently or a fresh find from one of the "Dad Jokes" Facebook groups I follow online.

After breakfast, we all hop on our bikes and head to school together. Elm Tree is less than a mile from the house, an easy ride, and most mornings I will pull up a song for us to ride along to. The Despicable Me soundtrack is one of our staples. Something about it just adds a little liveliness and gets everybody moving. On the milestone mornings, like the first day of school, Danielle rides behind the pack so she can snap a few pictures, the kind of keepsakes we will be glad to have. It is a small thing, but it is the kind of small thing you only appreciate later.

I think about that a lot lately. So much of what matters ends up being the ordinary stuff you almost don't notice while it is happening. A table. A short drive. The same brick building three generations deep. I don't know exactly what my kids will remember about all of this someday. Maybe the breakfast food, maybe the bike ride, or maybe just the feeling of being expected somewhere every morning.

What I hope they carry forward is simpler than a memory. More than anything, and Danielle would say this even louder than I would, we hope this tradition makes it another generation. I would love to watch our kids do this same thing someday with children of their own, dropping them off at Elm Tree and swinging by our house for breakfast first. If that happens, I will know we did something right.

Most mornings at our house start a little sideways. Somebody can't find a shoe, somebody else is technically awake but in no hurry to prove it, and there is usually a negotiation underway over something I'll likely have forgotten by lunch. Once we get everybody pointed in the same direction, our crew loads into the car, and we drive a few minutes over to my dad's house for breakfast.

It didn't start out as an everyday thing. Years ago, it was just a Friday tradition, one morning a week around the table I grew up at. Then one Friday somehow became two mornings, then three, and before any of us noticed we were doing it every single school day. Nobody ever called a family meeting to make it official. It just quietly became the norm.

I have a lot of history in this town. I grew up in Bentonville and started at Elm Tree around 1995. I went to a few other elementary schools around the area over the years, but Elm Tree is the one that stuck with me. My favorite part was the Friday morning "Rise & Shine." They played "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang every single week, and I looked forward to it every Friday without fail. Something about starting the day that way just excited me. I never really figured I would leave Northwest Arkansas. It always felt like home, and the older I got, the more I believed it was the kind of place where I could put down deep roots and build a family and a career. So, I stayed, and one day I found myself standing in the Elm Tree front office again, this time holding a backpack that wasn't mine.

The first time I walked back into that school as a parent, dropping Brody, our oldest, off for his first day of kindergarten, the thing that caught me off guard was the size of it. Growing up, Elm Tree felt enormous to me, a giant place with hallways that went on forever, though I imagine that had more to do with how small I was than with the actual square footage. Walking back in as a parent, all of it felt so much smaller, in the cozy, nostalgic kind of way that sneaks up on you. The building had not changed nearly as much as I had. Same halls, same doors, a whole new reason to be nervous in the parking lot.

Brody went first. He is in junior high now, over at Lifeway Christian School, but Elm Tree is where he got his start. Vera is there this year as a fourth grader, which is her last year in the building. And this month Caylus, our youngest, starts kindergarten, his very first year, which means for a few months he and Vera will overlap in the same halls before she moves up. Put it all together and every one of my kids will have walked through Elm Tree at some point, the same building I did. I am not sure I have the words for what that feels like, watching your kids trace a path you walked thirty-some years ago without even realizing they are doing it.

None of this works without my dad. He is the one at the stove every morning, and by now the kids know their way around his kitchen better than they know ours. They call him Pawpaw, and most mornings he has bacon, biscuits, and eggs going by the time we get there. The kids put in their own orders too. Vera has recently gotten hooked on the miniature Eggo waffles, and Brody has worked a triple chocolate muffin into his morning rotation. The house belonged to both my parents, and my mom is a big part of why it still feels the way it does. We lost her in April of 2024. She was never the one doing the cooking, that was always Dad, but on the mornings she felt well enough she would come and sit with us at the table, and those are some of the mornings I hold onto the most. More than anything, she just loved having the kids around. She would sit and soak it all in, the noise and the chaos and every bit of it, and we never left in the morning without each of the kids stopping to give her a hug or a kiss goodbye. That house is not just where we eat. It is the place the whole day launches from.

One thing that has become a staple for us is telling dad jokes at the table. It usually kicks off with one of the kids hollering "jokes!" and then all of us pointing at each other, everybody silently accusing everybody else of being the joke. It's done with love, for the record. Nobody is actually getting roasted. From there I run through whatever I have, either one I heard recently or a fresh find from one of the "Dad Jokes" Facebook groups I follow online.

After breakfast, we all hop on our bikes and head to school together. Elm Tree is less than a mile from the house, an easy ride, and most mornings I will pull up a song for us to ride along to. The Despicable Me soundtrack is one of our staples. Something about it just adds a little liveliness and gets everybody moving. On the milestone mornings, like the first day of school, Danielle rides behind the pack so she can snap a few pictures, the kind of keepsakes we will be glad to have. It is a small thing, but it is the kind of small thing you only appreciate later.

I think about that a lot lately. So much of what matters ends up being the ordinary stuff you almost don't notice while it is happening. A table. A short drive. The same brick building three generations deep. I don't know exactly what my kids will remember about all of this someday. Maybe the breakfast food, maybe the bike ride, or maybe just the feeling of being expected somewhere every morning.

What I hope they carry forward is simpler than a memory. More than anything, and Danielle would say this even louder than I would, we hope this tradition makes it another generation. I would love to watch our kids do this same thing someday with children of their own, dropping them off at Elm Tree and swinging by our house for breakfast first. If that happens, I will know we did something right.