TommyLog – Paying it Forward – Blue Harbor Style

Spent the past weekend on a mini vacation with the whole family at Blue harbor Resort in Sheboygan, WI. What a treat to be away with my most favorite people in the whole world.

For today’s TommyLog I want to focus on what happened last night.
While eating dinner, we were approached by this elderly gentleman holding some hand crafted wooden toys — he gave one to Drew. Drew was just so excited to see this wooden helicopter. I could see this man had a red gym bag and it looked to be full of wooden toys. He proceeded to go around the restaurant handing out wooden toys to all the little girls and boys in the place. WOW oh WOW! This guy was just awesome.

Because Emma was in the bathroom when Drew got his toy, Emma thought she had missed out… But No way–the elderly man had his eyes on and knew when Emma returned and walked over to give her a bunny rabbit toy. How cool is that?

After some research we found a newspaper article on the names Jack Brill and how he gives out wooden toys wherever he goes. Stunning!

Well the coolest part was what my son Tommy said next. He leaned in and said in a whisper, “We should pay for their dinner.” What an excellent idea and one that we followed. I love that Tommy had the “Pay it Forward” spirit and knew when the time was right. What a blessing Tommy is to our family!

Do Your Personal Best!

Watching your kids perform is just such a blessing. Having your kids teach you a life lesson, even better. This weekend I had the opportunity to watch Tommy run in a track meet at Little Chute High School. I was just stunned by the turnout…hundreds of kids at the meet. Waiting for Tommy’s race was hard, as I don’t “wait” well. The time for his race was upon us, I was taking pix as fast as I could. I didn’t even want to take a set in the grandstand for fear I would miss the action, so here I was right up against the chain link fence near the starters blocks.

The gun went off and there they went. Tommy was one of 9 runners in the 800-meter race. I could see early that he wasn’t the fastest. I could see he wasn’t the slowest either. After the race, I could see he was excited. He ran other to me and told me that his time of 3:01 was his personal best… and he was so ecstatic.

Tommy loves to run and any chance he gets he is out running, but I learned an important lesson that day. It’s not about winning or losing against the crowd, it’s about beating your personal best and he did that on Saturday. And for that I could not be prouder!

TommyLog – Air Show Goodness

This weekend was just tops…. Cheesefest parade, kids, and the Manitowoc Air Show. Tommy and I just had the BEST time at the air show together. Father son time is just the best and such a blessing. Kid time in general is a blessing, but when you get one on one time… BONUS!

TommyLog – Good leaders

Another amazing Clifford family weekend with the big kids is under the belt. October is here and fall is in the air. A quick chat about good leaders and what makes a normal leader a great leader??? It’s only been one day but I already miss Tim at work. he was a super boss and a great friend. He will rock his new gig!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPAZXaTgwGg

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