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Friday, July 25, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Finally Hot...
After a very long winter and a very short spring (snow in mid-May), we are now roasting in the midst of summer with baseball and apple pie. Well, not so much the apple pie, but roasting nonetheless. The boys have finished nearly a month of their baseball season, which has been more interesting than most, as Aaron's age group of 10-12 has really shrunk every year since he started playing. They started out with six different teams, which went to four teams in 2007 and now only two. Aaron's on the Red Sox, and they play the Twins every week as their only other opponent. It has been somewhat humorous, though, as before the start of the first game, one of the kids on the Twins team asked, "Who we playing this week?" A parent told him, "The Red Sox," to which he replied, "Oh geez! They're gonna kill us!!" Apparently he wasn't aware yet or had forgotten that there was only one team he would be facing the whole season. Either way, looks like that boy is in for a long season, especially as Aaron's team remains undefeated as of last Thursday's game with a record of 4-0. Daniel's Cubs are now at 3-1 (tied for first place?), and there are a lot more kids in his age group with enough players for at least four teams so hopefully they will stick with it long enough to reach the 10-12 age group where the kids get to pitch as in Aaron's division. The boys will be having swimming lessons once baseball is over the end of July (early August) and that should round out the summer's activities for the most part.
I continue to be busy beyond belief with all the transcription work I've been getting to the point I've taken to "conveniently" forgetting my cell phone so I can spend an undisturbed afternoon at the ballpark watching the boys' games. I've never intentionally left the phone at home, but it sure seems like there's been a run of occurrences lately that it just "happens" to be left at home. I got my first big sunburn of the summer from spending so much time out there this past week, so I'm learning to use an umbrella in all this sun. We started off the season with several thunderstorms and cancelled practices like last year, but thankfully this year we've had a good run of dry weather, albeit hotter than Hades on some days. Last season I only mowed the lawn three times max whereas this year summer isn't half over yet and I've already mowed it at least four. Good exercise and excuse to get out of the house, though.
I took the boys this morning after church to a pancake/french toast benefit breakfast at the Eagles Club for one of the local police investigators here in town who's been having substantial medical concerns as of late, and realized the night beforehand that he's actually a former schoolmate one year behind me at Franklin. Anywho, I've been friends with his mother, Bonnie, for some time now since moving back to TRF, and I went to sit down and chat with her at the breakfast, when I noted there were a couple older gentleman and a lady sitting there with her, and Bonnie asked me if I knew them. I didn't recognize any of them, so she introduced the first man at the end of the table, "Roger Thibert," and his wife. I of course then said, "I'll bet you know my dad, John," and Roger replied, "You bet I do!" with a broad grin on his face. He asked me to make sure to say hi to you, Dad.
Other than baseball and weathering the weather, we've gotten in a fair amount of fishing this summer with several trips to the dam. We went last weekend with Darren Panek and his son, Blair, and we didn't have as much luck as usual, though Darren hooked a small northern, and I got a good size rock bass that we threw back. I'm thinking of looking into one of the Pathways "father/son" fishing weekends up at Lake of the Woods that's run through the Lutheran church for next year. It looks like it would be a lot of fun for the boys and perhaps a lot more walleye availability than down here. Back to work now...
I continue to be busy beyond belief with all the transcription work I've been getting to the point I've taken to "conveniently" forgetting my cell phone so I can spend an undisturbed afternoon at the ballpark watching the boys' games. I've never intentionally left the phone at home, but it sure seems like there's been a run of occurrences lately that it just "happens" to be left at home. I got my first big sunburn of the summer from spending so much time out there this past week, so I'm learning to use an umbrella in all this sun. We started off the season with several thunderstorms and cancelled practices like last year, but thankfully this year we've had a good run of dry weather, albeit hotter than Hades on some days. Last season I only mowed the lawn three times max whereas this year summer isn't half over yet and I've already mowed it at least four. Good exercise and excuse to get out of the house, though.
I took the boys this morning after church to a pancake/french toast benefit breakfast at the Eagles Club for one of the local police investigators here in town who's been having substantial medical concerns as of late, and realized the night beforehand that he's actually a former schoolmate one year behind me at Franklin. Anywho, I've been friends with his mother, Bonnie, for some time now since moving back to TRF, and I went to sit down and chat with her at the breakfast, when I noted there were a couple older gentleman and a lady sitting there with her, and Bonnie asked me if I knew them. I didn't recognize any of them, so she introduced the first man at the end of the table, "Roger Thibert," and his wife. I of course then said, "I'll bet you know my dad, John," and Roger replied, "You bet I do!" with a broad grin on his face. He asked me to make sure to say hi to you, Dad.
Other than baseball and weathering the weather, we've gotten in a fair amount of fishing this summer with several trips to the dam. We went last weekend with Darren Panek and his son, Blair, and we didn't have as much luck as usual, though Darren hooked a small northern, and I got a good size rock bass that we threw back. I'm thinking of looking into one of the Pathways "father/son" fishing weekends up at Lake of the Woods that's run through the Lutheran church for next year. It looks like it would be a lot of fun for the boys and perhaps a lot more walleye availability than down here. Back to work now...
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Yup, We're Still Here...
I don't know if I've ever gone this long without updating the blog before, but as it's been over a month since I've done so, you may wish to kick back, put your feet up, and relax for a while, as there's quite a bit to report on.
Basketball season has been the highlight of our existence since my last update, which of course is natural given we've spent every Monday and Thursday evening and Saturday morning since late fall in gyms at Challenger or Franklin working on our skills, the boys with playing and me with coaching. I learned as much if not more than the boys this season given how little experience I have with the sport and came away a lot more enthusiastic about next season than I already was. The boys played their final games on Thursday and yesterday with Aaron's team, the Spurs, placing 5th overall. Thief River has what they call "traveling teams" where a number of players are chosen to compete against other area/regional towns in basketball tournaments after the regular season ends for everyone else and the boys were hoping to be selected for them, as they hadn't been last year. The board of the basketball club held out on announcing this year's names, though, and instead of letting everyone know on Thursday evening, everybody had to wait and check their website themselves yesterday after the last championship game. The boys didn't make this year's traveling team, but they didn't spend much time moping about it, as they have baseball on the horizon and other activities to look forward to in its place. I can imagine they'll find plenty of things to do instead of the time they'd be spending with traveling team practice and games, but they'll of course give the traveling team another shot next year after some more work on their games/skills over the summer.
Aaron continues to play the string bass and enjoys the playing of it for fun, but of course would rather do without all the practicing. Now that we don't have basketball on our schedule, though, I'm considering getting him in to private lessons with the orchestra teacher at Kezar Music once a week to help with bowing technique, etc. I think he's learned quite a bit considering he's only been playing for a matter of a few short months. I think he's learning how to sing as a result of the greater exposure he's getting in orchestra to different pitches, rhythms, etc. Daniel still apparently has his mind set on playing the viola next fall in fourth grade, so that should be easier to tote around between practices.
In other news, most of you probably already heard about it, but recently our area was in the grip of a bitter cold snap with temperatures plummeting to the double digits below zero and wind chill "feels like" temperatures as low as 55 below. Despite the unpleasant temperature, though, we weathered it okay, as our van started up without any problems every morning and night even without being plugged in and the house stayed toasty warm the whole time. One thing different this year than last year is the pipes. Some of you may recall our pipes froze in the back bathroom around this time last year and we were without water for somewhere around a month while we waited for the pipes to thaw back there. Once they thawed, though, I had put foam insulating sleeves onto those pipes under the rear crawl space of the house, and this year when the temperatures dropped again, we didn't have the problem with freezing pipes at all. So it would appear I'm beginning to learn how to effectively deal with the consequences of a cold Minnesota winter on my own. The temperatures have bounced back above zero a little bit lately, but continue to go up and down quite a bit with as much as 40 degrees difference in highs and lows from one day to the next. It makes for a lot of indoor recesses for the boys.
There have been a lot of funny moments around here in recent weeks, some of which I've already passed on to friends and family, but will recount here in the event I haven't covered everybody. A couple or three weeks ago, Daniel hadn't done his homework and I had him do it in the van on the way to school, a task he tackled rather begrudgingly to start with, but he had it all done by the time I pulled up to the front entrance at school to drop him off. I asked him to show me the homework to prove he was finished and when I looked at it and handed it back to him, Daniel extended his hand to shake mine and said with a grin, "Pleasure doing business with you..." Another rather grown up thing he said came about a week ago when I was playing a rather retro video game at home and after much effort avoiding disaster with my little spaceship in the game, I ended up with my last ship destroyed and hollered at the TV screen. Daniel looks at me and says, "Come on, Dad, die with dignity!"
As one might expect with such funny sayings from Daniel, he continues to do quite well in his school work, particularly reading, and he delights his teacher, Mrs. McGeary, with his quick wit. Just last Friday when I picked him up at school, Mrs. McGeary called attention to Daniel's "beautiful" cursive handwriting, a skill he's just recently learned and has been working very hard on. She sounded as though his handwriting was the best she has ever seen. This morning at Sunday school, though, I saw a sample of what she was seeing, as Daniel asked me if he could write the first few books of the Bible on the chalk board. He wrote in cursive that was so formal, it almost reminded me of the middle 1800's school teacher's primer books with the perfect examples of what proper handwriting was to look like. Very impressive indeed.
Speaking of church this morning, we sat behind Joe and Jodi Drevlow and at one point Joe was holding both his youngest (other than the new baby) daughters, Bunny and Bralynne, in his arms, while Pastor John began the communion liturgy. Just after Pastor John started speaking, it was pretty quiet in the sanctuary as we all listened to the pastor when Bunny (about 4 years old) looks over Joe's shoulder from where she's perched in Joe's left arm at me and then looks back at her dad and says, "Jim's taller than you!" She said it twice and it was just so funny how matter of fact she said it. If course you had to be there to experience how cute she was, but I really had a good smile/chuckle with that one... After church, we're here lounging around waiting for the Super Bowl to start and one of the boys' friends, Blake, says to us, "I don't know how you guys do it, waking up early every single day of the week." I didn't realize it, but that is really what we've been doing for over two months now with basketball on Saturdays and choir/Sunday school on Sundays. I don't remember the last time we actually got to really sleep in. You can bet that's exactly what we'll be doing next Saturday, though, with our first Saturday free since October/November... Maybe I won't be so tired during the week now (until baseball season starts, that is).
I still have a few more pictures to download from my camera of basketball and will hopefully get some of them posted here on the blog for all to see soon. Gotta get back to work now, though.
Basketball season has been the highlight of our existence since my last update, which of course is natural given we've spent every Monday and Thursday evening and Saturday morning since late fall in gyms at Challenger or Franklin working on our skills, the boys with playing and me with coaching. I learned as much if not more than the boys this season given how little experience I have with the sport and came away a lot more enthusiastic about next season than I already was. The boys played their final games on Thursday and yesterday with Aaron's team, the Spurs, placing 5th overall. Thief River has what they call "traveling teams" where a number of players are chosen to compete against other area/regional towns in basketball tournaments after the regular season ends for everyone else and the boys were hoping to be selected for them, as they hadn't been last year. The board of the basketball club held out on announcing this year's names, though, and instead of letting everyone know on Thursday evening, everybody had to wait and check their website themselves yesterday after the last championship game. The boys didn't make this year's traveling team, but they didn't spend much time moping about it, as they have baseball on the horizon and other activities to look forward to in its place. I can imagine they'll find plenty of things to do instead of the time they'd be spending with traveling team practice and games, but they'll of course give the traveling team another shot next year after some more work on their games/skills over the summer.
Aaron continues to play the string bass and enjoys the playing of it for fun, but of course would rather do without all the practicing. Now that we don't have basketball on our schedule, though, I'm considering getting him in to private lessons with the orchestra teacher at Kezar Music once a week to help with bowing technique, etc. I think he's learned quite a bit considering he's only been playing for a matter of a few short months. I think he's learning how to sing as a result of the greater exposure he's getting in orchestra to different pitches, rhythms, etc. Daniel still apparently has his mind set on playing the viola next fall in fourth grade, so that should be easier to tote around between practices.
In other news, most of you probably already heard about it, but recently our area was in the grip of a bitter cold snap with temperatures plummeting to the double digits below zero and wind chill "feels like" temperatures as low as 55 below. Despite the unpleasant temperature, though, we weathered it okay, as our van started up without any problems every morning and night even without being plugged in and the house stayed toasty warm the whole time. One thing different this year than last year is the pipes. Some of you may recall our pipes froze in the back bathroom around this time last year and we were without water for somewhere around a month while we waited for the pipes to thaw back there. Once they thawed, though, I had put foam insulating sleeves onto those pipes under the rear crawl space of the house, and this year when the temperatures dropped again, we didn't have the problem with freezing pipes at all. So it would appear I'm beginning to learn how to effectively deal with the consequences of a cold Minnesota winter on my own. The temperatures have bounced back above zero a little bit lately, but continue to go up and down quite a bit with as much as 40 degrees difference in highs and lows from one day to the next. It makes for a lot of indoor recesses for the boys.
There have been a lot of funny moments around here in recent weeks, some of which I've already passed on to friends and family, but will recount here in the event I haven't covered everybody. A couple or three weeks ago, Daniel hadn't done his homework and I had him do it in the van on the way to school, a task he tackled rather begrudgingly to start with, but he had it all done by the time I pulled up to the front entrance at school to drop him off. I asked him to show me the homework to prove he was finished and when I looked at it and handed it back to him, Daniel extended his hand to shake mine and said with a grin, "Pleasure doing business with you..." Another rather grown up thing he said came about a week ago when I was playing a rather retro video game at home and after much effort avoiding disaster with my little spaceship in the game, I ended up with my last ship destroyed and hollered at the TV screen. Daniel looks at me and says, "Come on, Dad, die with dignity!"
As one might expect with such funny sayings from Daniel, he continues to do quite well in his school work, particularly reading, and he delights his teacher, Mrs. McGeary, with his quick wit. Just last Friday when I picked him up at school, Mrs. McGeary called attention to Daniel's "beautiful" cursive handwriting, a skill he's just recently learned and has been working very hard on. She sounded as though his handwriting was the best she has ever seen. This morning at Sunday school, though, I saw a sample of what she was seeing, as Daniel asked me if he could write the first few books of the Bible on the chalk board. He wrote in cursive that was so formal, it almost reminded me of the middle 1800's school teacher's primer books with the perfect examples of what proper handwriting was to look like. Very impressive indeed.
Speaking of church this morning, we sat behind Joe and Jodi Drevlow and at one point Joe was holding both his youngest (other than the new baby) daughters, Bunny and Bralynne, in his arms, while Pastor John began the communion liturgy. Just after Pastor John started speaking, it was pretty quiet in the sanctuary as we all listened to the pastor when Bunny (about 4 years old) looks over Joe's shoulder from where she's perched in Joe's left arm at me and then looks back at her dad and says, "Jim's taller than you!" She said it twice and it was just so funny how matter of fact she said it. If course you had to be there to experience how cute she was, but I really had a good smile/chuckle with that one... After church, we're here lounging around waiting for the Super Bowl to start and one of the boys' friends, Blake, says to us, "I don't know how you guys do it, waking up early every single day of the week." I didn't realize it, but that is really what we've been doing for over two months now with basketball on Saturdays and choir/Sunday school on Sundays. I don't remember the last time we actually got to really sleep in. You can bet that's exactly what we'll be doing next Saturday, though, with our first Saturday free since October/November... Maybe I won't be so tired during the week now (until baseball season starts, that is).
I still have a few more pictures to download from my camera of basketball and will hopefully get some of them posted here on the blog for all to see soon. Gotta get back to work now, though.
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