Saturday, December 22, 2007
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Feliz Navidad...
Time to update the ol' blog again... It's been a bit too long for comfort, but a necessary hiatus with all we have going on around here (as usual). We are now officially on Christmas break from school until after the first of the year and I am of course still getting used to the idea of not needing to make three to four round trips to the boys' school per day dropping them off, picking them up, coaching basketball, or having the usual lunch date with one or the other. I'm also just starting to relish the idea of not carting Aaron's string bass back and forth for a little while. Speaking of his bass, Aaron had his first concert with it last Thursday at Challenger. He was one of about five or six basses. I've rarely seen that many basses in a high school orchestra much less at the elementary level. It's as though it's the instrument of choice this year. I'm crossing my fingers that Daniel doesn't follow in his footsteps with his own bass, as it's already a little bit of a squeeze with one half aize instrument in the van, though I'm sure I could find a way to squeeze in two if I had to, especially if Daniel had a quarter size. So far he's only mentioned the possibility of the viola, which would be a welcome change, as he could carry his own instrument without accidentally knocking down three or four kids on the way in to school... Aaron did exceptionally well in his first ever orchestra concert. I was rather impressed at the level of learning of the kids given the majority of them picked up their instruments for the first time only a couple months ago. Aaron has also started to hum or sing some of the songs I have sung recently in the renaissance music program I did a couple weeks ago and is developing a nice sense of pitch, probably from his bass lessons.
Basketball is of course the other main event in our lives these days and again it's been a nice learning experience for all involved. Aaron's ball handling skills are improving by the week and he's played about three games so far. His team, the Spurs, haven't had the best of luck with several shots managing to roll out or bounce off the rim in their games, but the team is really coming together with learning offense and defense plays and playing off each other's strengths. As Aaron is a big kid, he's learning how to set up on the post and take a drop step for baskets down low. When he sets up his shots, he's a great shooter too. This past Thursday we had a combined practice with the Raptors team and at the end, the coach had all the boys line up in one long line to shoot free throws. Whoever made a free throw with a one-time chance would then get an opportunity to shoot a free throw for $20, though that subsequent free throw had to be from half court... Aaron was about fourth in line and the first three kids, two of them usually pretty good shooters, missed their free throws. Aaron not only got his free throw, he nailed it with a swish through the net and raised more than a few eyebrows of the other kids around him. He was just beaming broadly ear to ear with pride in his accomplishment and as a result of that shot, moved on to the final round. The coach said, "If Aaron makes it, he gets the $20 and everyone else is out of luck (because I can't afford $240 for everybody if they make it). Aaron fell short, but nobody else made the half court shot either. Aaron said he had a lot of fun in practice that night and judging from his pink cheeks and hard breathing, he got some good exercise in. One of the fun games the head coach did for fun that night was another free throw bet game. He had one player shoot a free throw at a time and for each player, the other kids would line up on one side or the other of the basket depending on whether they thought the shooter would sink the shot or miss. Those who lost their bet had to run a lap down the gym and back. Aaron ended up running close to a dozen laps, I think, before it was all through. Then they had the coaches shoot a free throw each (of course I missed mine).
We have an upcoming basketball tournament in TRF this coming week that I have to work crowd control for over three days, but the boys will get a chance to watch some good varsity basketball action. On the subject of varsity athletics, we went to see the Prowler boys swim team go up against the Perham Yellowjackets last Tuesday, as our friends, Rick and Chris, had a son in 7th grade swimming for the JV team, then Brett Drevlow, and of course Tom Kays' son as a senior on the varsity team. They came into the dual meet with high expectations and nobody left disappointed. It was a victory for the Prowlers by a score of something around 97 to 65. The swimmers were ecstatic with the win, as they were completely winless in over four years of dual meets, so this was their first taste of victory. My old classmate, Jill Lusignan, is the new head coach of the boys team and by the looks of things, she's doing a great job this year. They had most of their home meets scrunched into a nine-day stretch of December and I was thankful we managed to make it to the one meet we won. The next one is in February so I'm hoping to make that one too to see how the team comes along.
In other news, I've had some more humorous moments with the boys lately developing new vocabulary skills. The most recent examples have been one time last week when Daniel was asking me a question about whether dogs were "nocturnal" or "diurnal" creatures. Before I could answer, Aaron started asking what those words meant. Daniel shook his head at Aaron and said, "You wouldn't understand. This is for Dad and I. We're men of science..." :) While funny, I think Daniel does have an affinity for the subject of science and I wouldn't be surprised at all if he followed that route in academics. His other most recent new vocabulary word is "oxymoron." He tried that one out on me this week to hilarious results.
We've been starting to get ready (yes, just "starting" now) for Christmas. We went to the movies last night (Alvin and the Chipmunks) while I thought of what we were going to do. We'll be joining the Wignesses again for the actual holiday, but other than that, I hadn't made any formal plans. Aaron was asking me to put the tree up several times last night and I kept telling him I'd put it up, but that I wasn't sure when. So the boys fell asleep downstairs in the living room last night and while they were sound asleep, I assembled the white prestrung Christmas tree in the corner of the living room. The boys woke up with Aaron looking pleasantly surprised that all of a sudden the lit Christmas tree was up with all the presents underneath. Then Aaron repaid me with a suprise of his own... I fell asleep shortly after that and when I woke up early this morning, the tree was covered in ornaments that Aaron had dragged out of the basement and placed on the tree, so we ended up surprising each other. Now I think we've got some Christmas cheer in the house. The boys are really looking forward to opening their gifts on Christmas Eve and so far have resisted the urge for the most part to shake anything and try to figure out what's inside. We did cheat a little, bit, though, in that Mary Jo's gift came in today's mail and I didn't realize it wasn't wrapped before I opened the box. I have to say, though, that the boys, especially Daniel, were quite enthused about the gifts. Daniel was gushing over the book of constellations that glows in the dark and was already making plans to go buy the supplies it listed in the book to make your very own constellations from scratch. He told me, "This book is SO awesome, Dad!" That should be the limit of early opening of gifts for us, though, as we now wait for Christmas Eve.
I think that just about covers the major highlights of our adventures for the month of December thus far. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! We will be thinking of you all this year as we celebrate here in the Minnesota tundra...
Basketball is of course the other main event in our lives these days and again it's been a nice learning experience for all involved. Aaron's ball handling skills are improving by the week and he's played about three games so far. His team, the Spurs, haven't had the best of luck with several shots managing to roll out or bounce off the rim in their games, but the team is really coming together with learning offense and defense plays and playing off each other's strengths. As Aaron is a big kid, he's learning how to set up on the post and take a drop step for baskets down low. When he sets up his shots, he's a great shooter too. This past Thursday we had a combined practice with the Raptors team and at the end, the coach had all the boys line up in one long line to shoot free throws. Whoever made a free throw with a one-time chance would then get an opportunity to shoot a free throw for $20, though that subsequent free throw had to be from half court... Aaron was about fourth in line and the first three kids, two of them usually pretty good shooters, missed their free throws. Aaron not only got his free throw, he nailed it with a swish through the net and raised more than a few eyebrows of the other kids around him. He was just beaming broadly ear to ear with pride in his accomplishment and as a result of that shot, moved on to the final round. The coach said, "If Aaron makes it, he gets the $20 and everyone else is out of luck (because I can't afford $240 for everybody if they make it). Aaron fell short, but nobody else made the half court shot either. Aaron said he had a lot of fun in practice that night and judging from his pink cheeks and hard breathing, he got some good exercise in. One of the fun games the head coach did for fun that night was another free throw bet game. He had one player shoot a free throw at a time and for each player, the other kids would line up on one side or the other of the basket depending on whether they thought the shooter would sink the shot or miss. Those who lost their bet had to run a lap down the gym and back. Aaron ended up running close to a dozen laps, I think, before it was all through. Then they had the coaches shoot a free throw each (of course I missed mine).
We have an upcoming basketball tournament in TRF this coming week that I have to work crowd control for over three days, but the boys will get a chance to watch some good varsity basketball action. On the subject of varsity athletics, we went to see the Prowler boys swim team go up against the Perham Yellowjackets last Tuesday, as our friends, Rick and Chris, had a son in 7th grade swimming for the JV team, then Brett Drevlow, and of course Tom Kays' son as a senior on the varsity team. They came into the dual meet with high expectations and nobody left disappointed. It was a victory for the Prowlers by a score of something around 97 to 65. The swimmers were ecstatic with the win, as they were completely winless in over four years of dual meets, so this was their first taste of victory. My old classmate, Jill Lusignan, is the new head coach of the boys team and by the looks of things, she's doing a great job this year. They had most of their home meets scrunched into a nine-day stretch of December and I was thankful we managed to make it to the one meet we won. The next one is in February so I'm hoping to make that one too to see how the team comes along.
In other news, I've had some more humorous moments with the boys lately developing new vocabulary skills. The most recent examples have been one time last week when Daniel was asking me a question about whether dogs were "nocturnal" or "diurnal" creatures. Before I could answer, Aaron started asking what those words meant. Daniel shook his head at Aaron and said, "You wouldn't understand. This is for Dad and I. We're men of science..." :) While funny, I think Daniel does have an affinity for the subject of science and I wouldn't be surprised at all if he followed that route in academics. His other most recent new vocabulary word is "oxymoron." He tried that one out on me this week to hilarious results.
We've been starting to get ready (yes, just "starting" now) for Christmas. We went to the movies last night (Alvin and the Chipmunks) while I thought of what we were going to do. We'll be joining the Wignesses again for the actual holiday, but other than that, I hadn't made any formal plans. Aaron was asking me to put the tree up several times last night and I kept telling him I'd put it up, but that I wasn't sure when. So the boys fell asleep downstairs in the living room last night and while they were sound asleep, I assembled the white prestrung Christmas tree in the corner of the living room. The boys woke up with Aaron looking pleasantly surprised that all of a sudden the lit Christmas tree was up with all the presents underneath. Then Aaron repaid me with a suprise of his own... I fell asleep shortly after that and when I woke up early this morning, the tree was covered in ornaments that Aaron had dragged out of the basement and placed on the tree, so we ended up surprising each other. Now I think we've got some Christmas cheer in the house. The boys are really looking forward to opening their gifts on Christmas Eve and so far have resisted the urge for the most part to shake anything and try to figure out what's inside. We did cheat a little, bit, though, in that Mary Jo's gift came in today's mail and I didn't realize it wasn't wrapped before I opened the box. I have to say, though, that the boys, especially Daniel, were quite enthused about the gifts. Daniel was gushing over the book of constellations that glows in the dark and was already making plans to go buy the supplies it listed in the book to make your very own constellations from scratch. He told me, "This book is SO awesome, Dad!" That should be the limit of early opening of gifts for us, though, as we now wait for Christmas Eve.
I think that just about covers the major highlights of our adventures for the month of December thus far. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! We will be thinking of you all this year as we celebrate here in the Minnesota tundra...
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