Easter Trip To Palm Springs ~ Rededication

We just got back from a great Easter in Palm Springs, hanging with my in-laws.  We stayed at the Vintage Club.  This place is just FREAKING AWESOME!  My father-in-laws locker at the golf course is next to John Elway and Bill Gates.   

I love my father in-law, he really is a down to earth person who in his own words "got lucky". I believe he got lucky, but I also believe he worked very hard to get where he is now.  Do not get me wrong, he LOVES to give advice solicited or unsolicited.

I am lucky that my family and myself get to enjoy this life-style once and awhile.

The first three days I SLEPT!  I took a nap each day with Nc, I did not realize how exhausted I was from all the stress at work.  We have been going through reductions in work-force and restructuring. I seriously did not feel normal until Easter.  My family kept asking what was wrong and there really wasn't anything wrong, I was just so tired, emotionally and physically.

Easter Sunday was a beautiful 75 degrees.  The club brings in a little carnival with rides and a petting zoo.  There really is not an Easter egg hunt, but more of how fast you can fill your basket up.  They divide the kids by age and than the eggs are spread out in the tennis courts.  I am talking about thousands of plastic eggs in these courts.  They release the flood gates and the kids grab the eggs.  It is like watching locust go across the tennis courts.  In minutes the eggs are all gone!  

That afternoon Rs played his first full 9 holes with his Papa and Meme.  He did great, he held to our two most important rules:

1. Keep up
2. Have fun

Rs actually made a par on a Par 3.  It was wonderful to watch this little man make a 7 footer and pump his fist as it rolled in the hole.  Thinking about it makes me giggle now! 

Funny part is that we had to play with Elmer.  Who is Elmer?  Well he is a stuffed gorrila that Rs's kindergarten teacher gave him for the weekend to travel with and journal each day.  I seriously was concerned that we were going to have to buy a seat for this gorilla on the plane.

The trip was great for me personally.  It fired up the juices again for golf and the competition around it.  I have been playing golf for 28 years.  The last 6 years we have been working to establish a family.  Our youngest is now old enough and we have found a babysitter that we trust, I believe some freedoms have opened for both KD and I.  

Golf truly is who I am and brings me so much joy. Especially to be able to share it now with my boys and soon my wife ;-) YES, KD starts lessons next week.  She figures that with two boys she completes the foursome.  I could not agree more!  I also think she likes the idea of golf vacations in the Carolina's.

When I am playing golf and competing I feel better about myself and it builds confidence in who I am.  I want to go to the gym and eat healthy to perform at a higher level.  By doing those things and performing better, I feel better about myself.  And when I feel better about myself I am a better father, husband and employee.

Golf is part of my identity, as is being a father, husband, and my career.  I believe it is OK for these things to define you, how can they not!  The work is the balance and looking at the rewards that each of these bring into my life.  I work through the challenges that these also bring to make me stronger.

For instance I spend 40 plus hours a week at work and probably another 10 to 15 thinking about it.  When things are going good, I feel good and when they are going bad I sometimes personalize it.  Same thing with my marriage and the relationship with my boy's, it is highs and lows. As KD says, "there are peaks and valleys, and after 15 years there are going to be some HIGH peaks and LOW valleys".  For another 50 years we will still have these, but as we grow together hopefully the peaks will be higher and more often and the valleys are less and not as low ;-)  But these define me, because this is my life!

My favorite thing I say and I say this every morning and sometimes a couple of times a day:

God (or whoever) grant me the serenity to accept the things that I can not change and the courage to change the things that I can.

In the upcoming days I will share my plan and goals to achieve some of my dreams to compete at the State and National level for amateur golf.  With this also comes the balance with being a father, a husband, and my career.  I will keep you all updated on my progress.  Hopefully some one out there may learn something form my success and more importantly failures!

"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." 
- Dale Carnegie