About

A little over four decades ago, I came to this earth as a chubby little toe head. My parents had a really great idea to give all their babies normal names with bizarre spelling. The name they chose for me was ‘Bryun’. For those without a hippie decoder, that’s the same as ‘Brian’ or ‘Bryan’, but it’s phonetically correct (that’s what I was always told). I think the name confused even mom and dad, as my actual name was only used when I was in trouble. The rest of the time, I was simply called ‘B’.

Fast forward to now. I love my name! I love the telemarketer-detector when someone calls and asks for ‘Brun’ (obviously a viking iteration of Bryun) or ‘Byron’. I’m one of the few people who loves to get telemarketing calls and someday I’ll write a post about why. For now, let it serve as a red flag that the guy writing all this is a bit off his rocker.

Where was I? Oh, yes, we just fast forwarded. After a lifetime not much different than anybody reading this (ups, down, side-to-sides, plans changing, lessons learned, treasures discovered and friends lost), I’ve come to where I am now. I married the girl of my dreams (easy to do when you let her help shape those dreams) and we became parents. We liked the parent thing so much after the first one that we decided we try it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And two more times after that. You read that right – I’ve got eight people on this planet who call me ‘dad’.

As each of them have grown up, I’m amazed at how fast things go from poopy diapers to first dates and beyond. With each child, it becomes harder to remember when they weren’t a part of my life. I truly can’t remember what it was like to not have hundreds of feet running around each morning before school, what it was like to not come home to someone announcing “Daddy’s home!” or what it felt like to not have so many little ones to worry about and pray for each day.  I learn something new each day from each one of them, and am often reminded how little I really know about my place in this world.

This blog is a journey and an attempt to figure that out before I’m done here, however, and I’m happy to share the trip with anybody who wants to tag along.