For years, we’ve been traveling the country (and the world) with our children in tow. Lots of travel guides assume you have a money tree, mine do not. We’re a real family, with a real mortgage, with a real desire to show our kids the world. Enter: our practical travel guides. My husband was a wildlife and fishery science major at Texas A&M (whoop!), but because of the hiring freeze during the 1990s, he shelved his dream of becoming a park ranger and became a fundraiser instead. Ha! But, the outdoors never left him. He has helped our family enjoy more than 20 national parks, and counting, a ..read more

We’ve been known to take a road trip, or 20, to a national park. Just check our van’s odometer or our back windows for all the national park stickers. What you may not know, though, is that my husband (aka Mr. Whitaker) received his B.S. in Wildlife and Fishery Science from Texas A&M. The year he planned to apply as a park ranger, they had a hiring freeze so we decided to get married and both pursue our master’s degrees instead. Ha! During his time in grad school, he began interning with the university foundation and fell in love with fundraising. But, he never lost his sense of wonder wit ..read more

We blinked and it’s November. Anybody else feel like that?! As hard as the last couple of years have been, I still see so much good in the world. For the last four years I have loved putting together a small gift guide for y’all (2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020). It’s my hope that these little ideas spark big love in your gift giving this season. I’m sharing mine a little earlier knowing that many folks are closing shops earlier or battling the ever-favorite “supply chain issues.” As I put this year’s ideas together, keep these things in mind: This is just a small snippet of all the things I love ..read more

If you’ve been around here for a little bit, you know that I write letters to my kids on their birthdays and share them here. A few years ago, a priest friend of the family encouraged me to do the same, for myself. So, at the suggestion of Fr. Tom, here’s this year’s birthday letter! Happy birthday to me!! I am such a birthday super fan, so enjoying every last minute of today won’t be hard for me. Pretty sure I’ll drink a Dr Pepper, hug some friends (yay, we get to do that this year!), won’t clean the kitchen and maybe throw that last load of laundry in the dryer. The day-after-my-birthday-Kat ..read more

Mr. Whitaker and I love agriculture. It’s why we have four degrees in the field, between us. Both of us agree, though, that if we could go back and do it again, we’d both major in horticulture. Of course, I would exclude indoor plants because I kill them everytime. But seriously… When we moved into our home more than a decade ago, we loved all the brick work around the planting beds. For about five minutes. Our kids stood on the brick by the front door and promptly broke it (even though we fixed it a ridiculous amount of times over the years) and that’s when we started dreaming about overhauli ..read more

This pass-through hallway initially started as nothing. But, as the kids started going to school and backpacks started accumulating all over the house, we knew we needed a better solution. We added a hook system which worked beautifully for nearly a decade. But, leave it to reels on Instagram, the tail end of a pandemic and a desire to give this space some real purpose and we had ourselves a fun little weekend project. I really liked the idea of wainscoting, especially if it was dark blue (that one was inspired by this project from In Honor of Design), and a simpler storage solution for our ..read more

This post is about three weeks overdue. May, am I right? On May 16, our sweet Anna-Laura was confirmed in the Catholic Church, on her birthday, by her Godfather. I’m not sure it gets any sweeter than that. Bishop David Konderla, or Fr. David to us (old habits die hard), was a priest in our diocese for many years. He worked at the diocese with Scott as the Director of Vocations and then as the pastor at St. Mary’s in College Station for the students at Texas A&M University. Having him at confirmation was such a joy. His homily was outstanding and I will sit with his words, and the joy of hi ..read more

Clare is another year into the teenager gig and we’re all still alive. Ha! But seriously, with each passing day she looks more and more like her older sister. It’s fun to see that budding relationship. Let’s get to that birthday letter. It’s a busy week around here! Dear Clare Bear, I just can’t quit that nickname. Hope that it doesn’t make you cringe. This past year, one thing has really stuck out to me: your heart. When your older brother Will was little, he was always the one who noticed other kids on the playground who were feeling alone or scared. And he always went to them. You do the sa ..read more

At the height of the pandemic in 2020, we did the only reasonable thing… We packed our bags, cooked our food, iced down the beer coolers and hit the road for wide, open spaces and almost no people. It was glorious! So many people have asked about our trip and just how we did it, so buckle up for a serious dish on national parks and roadtripping with a big family. And in about 6 weeks, I’ll share this year’s national park road trip. It’s gonna be epic! WHERE WE WENT Mesa Verde NP (Colorado), Arches NP (Utah), Canyonlands NP (Utah), Capitol Reef NP (Utah), Zion NP (Utah), Bryce Canyon NP (Utah ..read more