Favorite Photos of 2022

As a father of five children (currently age 7 to 16) who tends to travel often, I have found that spending quality time with each child is sometimes more realistic than spending quantity time with each one.

Several years ago I developed a monthly routine of having a “Daddy / Daughter Date” with each daughter and a “Father / Son Time” with my son on their special day of each month. While I am sharing my favorite photos of 2022, I’m going to use their special day to highlight each special kid.

Piper’s special day is the fifth of each month. This is a photo I took of her while we were running our daily 5k at Rock Mountain Bible Camp (Susquehanna, PA) this past November.

Jodi and I have been walking and / or running at least a 5k every day for more than 1,346 days (I run all of them, but Jodi is smart and allows herself occasional walk days). We started that crazy 5k streak on May 1, 2019. Piper decided that she wanted to join us, so she started walking and / or running at least a 5k every day on May 1, 2020.

On October 8 she was playing co-ed soccer and got crushed by a large, male goalie while attempting to score a goal for her team. Her leg hyper-extended and she fell to the ground. She tried to get back up, but couldn’t. We rushed her to the E.R. and discovered that she had a broken leg.

Obviously, she was in a lot of pain. (Thankfully she had already run her daily 5k earlier that morning.)

You would think that her daily 5k streak would have ended there, but it didn’t. The next day she begged us to take her to the local high school track so she could crutch her way to a flat 5k.

We did it.

She did it.

It took her well over an hour to complete her 5k.

For the next several weeks she faithfully crutched her way to a daily 5k, keeping her impressive streak alive.

Today’s photo was taken roughly six weeks after she had broken her leg. No more crutches. She was back to running.

Sure looks like a champion to me!