Betz Family Columbus

and now it's November

2026-11-02T10:57:07.242-05:00

time to throw out the rotting orange blobs...

the fall

2026-10-29T14:49:11.376-04:00

I'm talking autumn, not society.

a quick trip to Charleston

2026-10-20T13:40:06.638-04:00

We spent three days in South Carolina, to celebrate the marriage of Avery and Blaine.

May the best thing they ever have be each other.

professional shots, credit to Abbey Rice Photo

Peru 2 / Tuck's reflection

2026-09-27T22:02:42.722-04:00

Tucker shared this Peru reflection as part of the sermon at Broad Street Presbyterian Church today:

Peru was a country of many colors;

I remember, beneath the impressively large sky, women selling vibrant clothing and gifts made of baby alpaca wool;

the brightness of the garden we tended and murals we painted on the church rooftop amidst the dusty, drab Lima borough;

the vividly colored shirts of children we spoke to and played futbol with.

I’d like to maintain the same vibrant hope for humanity I felt in Peru.

Peru was a domain of delicious food;

I remember the countless Chinese-Peruvian chifa dishes, each equally rich in both flavor and tradition;

the saccharine flavor of Inca Kola soda, how it danced upon my tongue and stained my retainers bright yellow;

the unique group experience of indulging in roast cuy (better known as guinea pig) in the van together.

For me, Peru highlighted a sacred community built around breaking bread; I appreciate the ways Brittany makes our lunch table a primary place of fellowship for youth here.

Peru was a land full of life; I remember the fascinating bird calls that formed a wild symphony throughout our days in the jungle of Moyobamba;

Where we encountered geckos and humongous snails that my brother Tolliver and I were warned not to touch;

when we were in the Sacred Valley, the alpacas and llamas, with their alluringly soft fur and gentle grins, made us smile in return.

I am grateful for Peru’s tangible lessons in both respecting the boundaries of God’s diverse creation while still marveling at its sheer variety and splendor.

Peru was a land of people; of music and dance; of new ways to express worship; of immeasurable joy…

I remember this, more than vast landscapes, unforgettable food and incredible wildlife: Peru was a chance to be with people. Old friends, new friends, fully present with each other - this is where the immersion truly happened, not in the sightseeing but in the relational spaces we shared…

May we all remember our praise, our service, our love is a part of a global, multi-voiced choir.

Peru, part 1

GHHS Homecoming 2026

2026-09-21T13:10:20.982-04:00

Tolliver's first high school Hoco, and Tucker's last, was one for the books!

just trying to pay attention

2026-09-05T22:30:49.824-04:00

The boys went back to school weeks ago now, as referenced in the last entry. Since then there've been fall play auditions and homecoming court nominations, several marching band performances and lots of ice cream. Hank has crocheted a cardigan and more creatures than he can name, Tucker has composed stand tune arrangements and college application essays, and Tolliver is a Madison county wiffle ball tournament champ.

My tears changed their mind about six times yesterday alone. I suspect I feel torn because I am paying attention. And I'm not sure I want to ask more of myself than that.

all Betz are off

2026-08-13T08:47:48.372-04:00

First day of school in Grandview Heights - twelfth grade, ninth grade and sixth grade!

still an annual test of my stoicism, heightened by this last first.

And still, very few things are out of their grasp.

annual RiverFam

2026-08-02T15:23:01.762-04:00

The RiverFam text thread is year round full of invitations: moms to the movies, kids to play putt putt, big boys to babysit, always ripe with birthday greetings and bourbon discoveries and Glen Powell memes. Once a year the conversation happens in real time, over a weekend on the Ohio River, and the texts traded are mostly photos of kids learning to ski, parents tending to not-their own children and talent show preparations. It feels fortunate to claim each other as family and to watch everyone grow in the process.

While we were at the river, Tucker was further south, visiting a friend and touring UNC and Duke!

and so much more

2026-07-27T17:02:35.830-04:00

grilled meat and fireflies and nightcaps and bicycle rides
band camp and mini golf and sunsets and thunderstorms

frisbees and sidewalk chalk and tan lines and dirty toes

Juneberry juice and Justice camp and little league and guitar music

borrowed puppies and birthday parties and lake days and ice cream cones

now is the time to seize the day

2026-07-21T10:06:05.896-04:00

For the past five weeks, Hank has been rehearsing for Newsies at the Abbey Theater in Dublin. He made lots of new friends and worked hard to master challenging choreography. The cast performed eight times over the weekend, and as soon as the final performance wrapped, Hank asked if he could audition for the next show.

for all of this

2026-07-07T15:45:06.869-04:00

bone deep, held-breath grateful

We left Tucker on Gibraltar Island over the weekend, after multiple ferry and shuttle rides, where he'll take his first college course in aquatic biology through Ohio State's Stone Lab.

Peru

2026-06-26T17:40:03.573-04:00

While the boys are away, I ask AI to tell me about Peru

and the computer provides, in hazy bullet points, what I might see in Cusco, in Lima

spits out tips to manage altitude sickness, which teas to drink and which plants to avoid touching

From where I sit in the corner of my own kitchen

the glowing screen gives me fast answers, a full itinerary

one good prompt away from a machine's sterile words attempting to make the world look alive

A week later I ask my boys to tell me about Peru

and they describe a night sky abundant with stars and planets

with great animation my teenagers demonstrate how deaf children kissed their chests goodbye

The boys share all the ways to lose a hacky sack, from roof tops to train platforms

tell about brown rivers and frigid waterfalls, old growth trees and ancient methods of stacking stone

the magnificent feel of alpaca fur at their fingertips

how one ground insect can create six colors of die for yarn

They recall playing rock paper scissors from a cafe balcony with school children down at street level,

the size of blueberries and snails, the taste of guinea pig, the sight of street cats and all the shades of dust

Count all the ways to communicate in a country whose language is different from their own, sign language and their best Spanish, "six seven" and so many big smiles

The boys tell me what it's like to wander a place long enough that it slowly becomes familiar

And I wonder at the limits of progress, how we'll ever know we met them

And I marvel at the way memories are held in human bodies, stories that will never hit a screen the way they feel inside a heart

The big boys, along with Broad Street Presbyterian Church friends, traveled to Peru for a cultural immersion experience through PC(USA) and local partners in Peru. The group visited three distinct regions: the coastal desert in Lima, the high jungle Amazon in Moyobamba, and the Andes mountains, including the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. They learned from communities working for justice, heard stories of resilience and resistance, built relationships across cultures, and reflected on what global solidarity and faithful discipleship look like in today’s world.

Ciao, Maine

2026-06-03T10:34:39.763-04:00

Technically we spent a full week of mornings in Maine!

The cabin at Seal Cove - directly across from Green Island and home not only to seals, but also otters and bald eagles - had a surprise piano!

loose itinerary / list of highlights:

Cadillac Mountain sunset
Beehive Trail iron rung ascent *intimidating exposures

down via Bowl Lake to catch frogs, turtles, salamanders, snakes and leeches

Little Hunter's Beach x 2 (worth the revisit!)

Thunder Hole

Sand Beach

Echo Lake (for fishing and wading)

Somes Lake (more fishing, and catching!)

Pemetic "Northwest Trail" (ravine up, ledges down) *strenuous scrambling

Northeast Harbor and Asticou Azaela gardens

Bar Harbor / tide pool trail to Bar Island

Southwest Harbor - Wonderland Trail tide pools

Jessup Path boardwalk to Sieur de Monts Wild Gardens

May-hem

2026-05-23T22:31:17.456-04:00

This entire month brought to you by swears and prayers.

Junior prom

2026-05-17T21:08:09.558-04:00

May recitals

2026-05-11T07:33:00.000-04:00

My favorite overlap on the Venn Diagram of all three boys is music.

Sunday May 3, Harp Ohio at the Grandview Heights Public Library

Hank: The Good Little King of Yvetot (plus harp 2 parts in several ensembles)

Saturday May 9, Columbus Museum of Art

Hank: Shadows on the Moon

Tolliver: Pieczonka’s Tarantella (with left hand assist from Mr. Dornbusch)

Tucker: Haydn’s Sonata in D Major

the rest of April...

2026-05-04T07:57:00.000-04:00

Spring has almost turned to summer. The boys have less than three weeks left of school, the youngest finishing the grade level with which I feel most familiar, meaning I can't help much from here on out. They are growing so fast.

Tolliver's muscle car was not only the fastest in his 8th grade class but the fastest in school history. The tiny plastic arm might've been a harbinger had we been more attuned. Every once in awhile time shrinks and attention sharpens...

We've celebrated birthdays and superior ratings, NHS induction and another Bobcat Revue, tennis wins and a sweet prom-posal. There is never not music. We've had time to sit on the porch and watch the cat nap in a patch of sun, birds build and scamper, buds begin to open - sometimes even staying long enough for something to reveal itself.

like sand

2026-04-16T12:45:00.000-04:00

How do you do the math to make one of these? Hank asked, carrying the blue plastic hourglass that sat on the bathroom counter, a remnant of the boys' learning to brush their teeth for an appropriate length of time.
I have no idea how to do the math to make an hourglass, but we talked about the volume of sand and the diameter of the center hole, about measuring and investigating and how he could maybe create his own formula...

What I do know about is the way time slips, how it flies, how it spreads across the calendar and how we try to squeeze it in. I am acutely aware of the way it feels to hug the boy who was, just yesterday, the size of a kitten, a jellybean. I see time in long hair hanging over the math that's suddenly way harder than long division. There is aural evidence in time's ability to bury sweet little lemon drop voices in gravel.

What I do know is that time does not heal all wounds. That time forces the regular role of buying new pants to cover ankles, of buying more cereal to keep bellies full. That perceived as running out, say around things like a senior year on the horizon, it can lead to urgency and temptation to control. That it often feels like tumbling forward with each new question, propulsion with every syllable.

Hank stands with a tool meant to measure time mere inches from my face. I remind myself to pay attention. In a few years, in a blink, he will have more answers than I do.

these boys!

2026-04-09T19:03:00.007-04:00

10/10, no notes

some combination of fish, donkeys and cousins

2026-03-31T18:08:00.000-04:00

plus a couple college visits to round out spring break...

lately

2026-03-25T14:52:00.000-04:00

Carrie Newcomer concert, fresh eggs, Newsies audition prep, Ohio for Amy Acton, LEGOS, Columbus Gay Mens Chorus, OMEA contest, garage band, Butterfly Guild's Annie, favorite cat and crochet projects, among other things

The Little Mermaid

2026-03-16T08:01:00.000-04:00

2026 Grandview Heights High School spring musical, Prince Eric

Golden

2026-03-11T09:16:00.005-04:00

Dear Hank,

There's a choir of plush creatures guarding the edge of your quilt. I like to watch you wade through them and settle into bed with a giant brick of a book, imaginary worlds that make your small body grow enormous.

You turned ten on the 10th and have a LOT to say, often using several words when one could do. You have eyes the color of fresh churned mud, as big as mercy. You are always humming. You run a dizzyingly fast engine for art and experiment, a very hardworking empiricist. You act as professor of facts both significant and trivial and analyst of things like hawks and cereal and batteries. I admire your perseverance, a real Hermione Granger energy. You inhabit a perpetual state of possibility, a future brimming with promise, crowded with plans. Your friend group is joyful and kind and you are a reflection of the time you spend with peers, yet still more you than ever. You are fun and interesting and thoughtful; you make us laugh and make us think.

I resisted a powerful urge to purchase you an enormous present - a huge ruby or a Rembrandt or a real red panda, something extraordinarily astounding. But you know how hearts work, emotional connections over material gains and all that. I love you to the library and back, ten thousand times. Loving you (and your brothers) feels like the whole point of being alive.

I am here for you, open-armed and always.

Mom

going on seventeen

2026-03-08T19:06:00.002-04:00

Dear Tucker,

It's been a whirlwind of a weekend! You spent another birthday on stage, where it seems like the light shines on you and out of you at the same time. Once they're grown, most adults are mainly walking, talking versions of the stories they've told themselves. I'm so grateful several of your chapters are being scribed in Grandview's musical theatre department.

When I listen hard enough, I can still hear your two year old voice singing Super Boy and the Invisible Girl. And I remember her with you on March 7th too.

At seventeen you are mostly shiny and sharp on the outside ("that square jaw, those broad shoulders" according to Scuttle). You are able to sustain conversation on global politics and aquatic biology, but I like your fragile, vulnerable side too, full of moods and obsessions. If we had been high school kids at the same time, I'd have been psyched to be friends with you.

When you were ten I noted in your birthday letter that you seemed to live outside any whirlpool of urgencies. That's still true, time far more philosophy than rule. You are a perfectly lanky work in prog-mess with a strong nothing-is-beyond-salvation mindset, because of course anything can be fixed with duct tape or hot sauce. You are years away from cognitive maturation, that ripple of meat in the frontal lobe responsible for impulse control, at the age when adolescents tend to roll the dice and roll their eyes, learning to keep promises and secrets, working on the connection between effort and outcome. Someday I hope you'll understand the ultimate expression of love can sound like nagging? As you get older, I feel like I see more of your humanness, and I hope you see more of mine. You are a smashing success in so many ways, brave and kind better than intelligent or handsome. You have an ear attuned to melody, in poetry and song and science, a presence that can change the temperature in the room, a smile marquee bright.

You go around a lot like Prince Eric, making the whole world feel like an ocean of love -- and what a way to drown! Our job -- to witness you take off, swim deeper, to be the buoy along the shoreline -- feels like a gift. As much as you think I love you, I love you more.

Mom

keeping up with winter

2026-02-23T15:27:00.001-05:00

We've seen local high school productions of SUFFS and The Addams Family, spent time with cousins and friends, at dances and fundraisers and on band trips. There've been camp overnights and snow days, concerts and scenic construction. Instead of "How fast can I get this done?" I'm trying to channel "How relaxed can I be while we do this?"