A typical Friday night.

Friday nights are rather unique at our house compared to other nights. Homework is a dirty word and is put off until later in the weekend. The girls are each doing something they want to do. Tonight Jacquie is making a banner for tomorrow's girl's high school soccer game. This is the first game of the season. Jacquie has been playing soccer for the last 11 years. She is the keeper (goalie) for the JV team. She has been practicing hard for the last several weeks and I know she is excited. We've had great weather all week so the outdoor practices have been tolerable. Unfortunately, tomorrow will be in the 30's. Possible snow. It could be worse. We could be living in Antarctica.

Grace is spending her Friday night babysitting. A Bruce Springsteen concert is in town and one of her clients is attending. She does a great job watching and playing with kids. Hardly a weekend goes by where she doesn't have a babysitting job. It could be a late night for Tricia and I as we will wait up for her.

Caroline is in the kitchen trying to expand my waist-line. She is making chocolate chip cookies. Is there anything better than hot chocolate chip cookies at 10:30 pm? Maybe hot oatmeal raisin. Last week she made some creme puffs that would make anyone with a sweet tooth weep. I did. They were beautiful and they tasted as good as they looked. I wish I would have taken a picture. I think I just gained another pound thinking about them.

Elisabeth has spent most of the evening on the computer. She loves playing solitare and looking at family pictures. She's planning on cheering for Jacquie in the sleet/ rain / blizzard? She loves hanging out and is usually up for anything. She's taught herself to not be ticklish and she loves to prove it to her dad. I'm often challenged to test her new found skill.

What we do.

Hopefully over the next few weeks I can get the girls to write about their interests. I think it will be more interesting to hear from them and not from a boring old dad. I found another picture of the girls that I like.

This picture was taken around Christmas of 2007. As you can see blond hair runs in the family. When the girls were little it was quite a chore for Tricia to get them ready. We always joked about trimming 80 nails. It's still a chore to get ready to go anywhere but on a different level. Dad takes the older girls to school in the mornings. Last year, I special ordered a cargo work van that has a long seat behind the driver and passenger seats. Imagine a school van with a divider cage. Anyways, one of the first things I did to "outfit" my new van was to put in lighted mirrors. I ordered them on the net for one purpose. Makeup. Not my makeup mind you. I bet I'm one of few contractors in the state of Nebraska that has lighted makeup mirrors. When you have four daughters, that's something to be proud of.

We can tell that cabin fever is setting in with the family. The evenings seem to drag on and on. It has been an extremely cold winter. We were treated with a 60 degree day last week. We were also punished with a 5 below zero morning a few days later. With spring coming we are looking forward to getting outside. One of the things we enjoy doing when the weather is nice is kayaking some area lakes. I wanted to find an activity that I could do with the girls. Applying makeup was out of the question so I bought some kayaks. It's a great way to spend some quality time. I loving coming home from work and asking who wants to go out on the kayaks. The girls love towing each other or having their dad pull them when they get tired. Caroline is our prankster and she finds it hilarious to drag her paddle to make a little more resistance.

Last fall Caroline and I took a trip with my brother and his son. We hauled the kayaks to a lake in Western Nebraska. This lake is big for this part of the country. It has 30 miles of shoreline and is literally in the middle of nowhere. We paddled for a few hours along the shoreline and camped on a sandy beach. Camping in sand takes some getting used to. I have camped all my life and I have backpack camped for the last 25 years. I've never camped in sand before and to sum it up I will give you one piece of advice... the five second rule doesn't apply when you drop something your eating. Cari and her cousin had a great time playing in the water and my brother and I had a great time watching. We try to take the girls out camping several times a year. It's getting harder with their schedules but they still enjoy going. When we go family camping it's not quite as primitive as going with dad. If it was, Tricia wouldn't be along for the ride. I can think of nothing better than loading my kayak with a tent, bag, jet boil stove and some junk food. Tricia can think of nothing worse. I go on a self-guided river trip every year in Western Nebraska with a couple of guys and it's three days of sandhills, cows and isolation. The river is beautiful and the terrain is rugged. I come back from these trips with an appreciation for how easy we have it. I always think of the pioneers and how they must of struggled to make it across the country. I camp by a fire for fun for a few nights and they did it to survive everyday. They weren't able to go home and take a hot shower. I think its so important to expose my girls to camping and "roughing it" for a few nights a year. I hope they'll do the same with their kids someday.

Introductions

Hi.

We're the Arant family in Omaha, Nebraska. The guy losing his hair in the picture is Brian. His best friend is next to him and her name is Tricia. Together we have four daughters. Jacquie, Grace, Caroline and Elise.

Having a house-full of daughters is a challenge to say the least. It takes a very large calender on the fridge to keep track of the activities and schedules of everybody. This is what Tricia is paid the big bucks to do. Not a week goes by where we don't burn a tank of gas hauling girls to school activities, church, soccer or baby sitting jobs. At least gas is cheap. yah....

Our oldest daughter is Jacquie. She is 15. Sitting next to her is Grace. She is 14. Then there is Caroline and she is 12. Elise is on the end and she is 10.