Sunday, June 18, 2006
Take Me Out To The Ballgame....
What a busy June it's been so far since school let out. The boys started Little League/T-ball season on the 12th and haven't looked back. They're on a schedule of four practices a week and last Thursday was their first game. Aaron's team, the Orioles, beat the Royals 14-9 and Aaron got a base hit with every at bat. Daniel seems to enjoy fielding, especially first base from the way he kept jumping up and down hollering "throw it to first!!!" I'm driving back and forth to the community college at least twice and sometimes three times a day dependong on the schedule to drop off and pick up the boys and their friends. Aaron has made huge strides in his physical ability, most striking in his catching ability followed by batting and throwing. I think he'll surprise some of his teachers come school in the fall. I picked up a dozen practice balls that are basically wiffle balls the size of a regulation baseball and we're able to hold batting practice out front without worrying about breaking the neighbors' windows or ruining their prize gardens. I think we may have the narrowest baseball diamond in TRF. Home plate is on the north end of my lawn, first base just south of my front walkway next to the Dutch elm out front, second base is the tree in my south neighbor's front yard, and third base is the red children's bench in front of the porch. I typically handle pitching and Drew plays catcher for the most part. Given how few of us on any given day, we tend to run out of batters, so there's a bit of base stealing going on so we assured of another batter up. Aaron's second game of the summer is on Tuesday, I think, against the Cubs and their team pictures are that day as well.
We had the 10:30 service at Trinity outdoors this morning on the south lawn. The clouds rolled in and we were expressing our thanks to God just as the thunder rolled in. We made it through the whole service with high winds and no rain, though. The new pastor advised the ushers to stand east of him and try to catch any of his sermon notes should they fly away; otherwise, he'd cut the sermon short. We had a Mexican fiesta afterwood hosted by the youth who are attending the national gathering in San Antonio this month complete the pinata. I sat next to Sandy and Dan Drevlow with Fella in between them wtih his daughter. Sandi asked if I was busy on the weekends and suggested if we were interested having the boys and I as guests at their place in Erskine where they have a paddle boat, swimming, etc. That sounds like a nice way to unwind. Sandy also mentioned we can enter Funny Bunny in the county fair this year and assured me she would be well cared for, as they water and feed them every hour on the hour to ensure they made it through the heat okay. That should be fun having our first ever animal exhibit at the fair. I know the boys are proud of that rabbit.
I think I'll kick my feet up on the couch here now and enjoy the few hours I have left of Father's Day. It's one of the quietest days of the week thus far, so I'm going to take advantage of the silence as long as it lasts. Catch up with ya all later....
We had the 10:30 service at Trinity outdoors this morning on the south lawn. The clouds rolled in and we were expressing our thanks to God just as the thunder rolled in. We made it through the whole service with high winds and no rain, though. The new pastor advised the ushers to stand east of him and try to catch any of his sermon notes should they fly away; otherwise, he'd cut the sermon short. We had a Mexican fiesta afterwood hosted by the youth who are attending the national gathering in San Antonio this month complete the pinata. I sat next to Sandy and Dan Drevlow with Fella in between them wtih his daughter. Sandi asked if I was busy on the weekends and suggested if we were interested having the boys and I as guests at their place in Erskine where they have a paddle boat, swimming, etc. That sounds like a nice way to unwind. Sandy also mentioned we can enter Funny Bunny in the county fair this year and assured me she would be well cared for, as they water and feed them every hour on the hour to ensure they made it through the heat okay. That should be fun having our first ever animal exhibit at the fair. I know the boys are proud of that rabbit.
I think I'll kick my feet up on the couch here now and enjoy the few hours I have left of Father's Day. It's one of the quietest days of the week thus far, so I'm going to take advantage of the silence as long as it lasts. Catch up with ya all later....
Friday, June 02, 2006
No More School!!!
It's Friday and the last day of school at Challenger. Hurray! The neighbor boys that are home schooled and have been done with their schooling for over a week have been counting the days until Aaron and Daniel get out of school so they can have somebody to play with during the day. I'll be heading out to Challenger at noon for one final school lunch with Aaron.
It's been an eventful few weeks since the last blog entry. Too many things to remember, so I'll touch on the highlights.
We made it through a rather hot spell last weekend with temperatures into the mid 90s. The central air conditioning wasn't working, so I had the ceiling fan plus a floor fan running downstairs and three fans running in my bedroom and just barely taking the edge off the heat. It was about 45 percent humidity, so that was better than Florida heat, I guess. We've had a straight week now of about 78-degree temps, so a lot more comfortable lately.
This past week we've had the opportunity to visit with Fern Williams' daughter, Debbie, and her children Matt (14) and Jessie (8). We fired up the grill the other night and had hamburgers and beer brats with the Murphys on the corner at Fern's house. Debbie had to leave for Arizona yesterday morning. That was a busy night for us (Wednesday) as I got the boys signed up at the last minute for T-ball/Little League through the Parks & Recreation Dept. at the Ralph Arena. They had "clinics" for baseball that night with Daniel's running from 4 to 5:10 and Aaron's from 6:40 to 8:00, so we had to eat between 5:10 and 6:40. That day sure filled up rather quickly. The baseball is being played out at the college fields. I think there were perhaps a half dozen less kids in Aaron's program than Daniel's, but both teems had close to 20 kids. They had five coaches, so plenty of individual attention. Both boys have made great strides in physical ability with thorwing and catching and it was obvious they both had the times of their lives out there on the field. Aaron had a huge grin on his face as he ran the bases in one of the drills. We'll be heading out to Wal-Mart tonight to pick up some baseball accessories, i.e. the special pants Aaron's been dying to get, cleat shoes, etc. and then to Universal Screen Print to order the custom shirts and hats before team pictures.
Come next week, Aaron will be attending Safety Camp sponsored by the Pennington County Sheriff's Department and Thief River Falls Police Department where he'll be learning all about safety in sports, around the house, and around town culminating in a ride on the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Plummer, Minnesota and back where he'll learn about railroad safety. The camp is open to 2nd and 3rd graders only, so this is the only chance Aaron has to go. Daniel will be able to go both years if he wants.
The Parks & Recreation Dept. has a number of other summer activties I hope to get the boys involved in which include a trip to Fargo-Moorhead to watch a semi-pro hockey game between Fargo-Moorhead and Winnipeg, Manitoba in mid-July plus trips to the Pioneer Village in town and some wildlife sightseeing trips. THere's also a trip where they bring a sack lunch and their fishing poles and head to the dock here in town for a day of learning how to fish. Somewhere in between,we hope to fit in some swimming lessons at the Franklin Pool.
Hopefully between all of the above I'll get a chance to keep this blog relatively updated. I apologize in advance if I don't... :o)
It's been an eventful few weeks since the last blog entry. Too many things to remember, so I'll touch on the highlights.
We made it through a rather hot spell last weekend with temperatures into the mid 90s. The central air conditioning wasn't working, so I had the ceiling fan plus a floor fan running downstairs and three fans running in my bedroom and just barely taking the edge off the heat. It was about 45 percent humidity, so that was better than Florida heat, I guess. We've had a straight week now of about 78-degree temps, so a lot more comfortable lately.
This past week we've had the opportunity to visit with Fern Williams' daughter, Debbie, and her children Matt (14) and Jessie (8). We fired up the grill the other night and had hamburgers and beer brats with the Murphys on the corner at Fern's house. Debbie had to leave for Arizona yesterday morning. That was a busy night for us (Wednesday) as I got the boys signed up at the last minute for T-ball/Little League through the Parks & Recreation Dept. at the Ralph Arena. They had "clinics" for baseball that night with Daniel's running from 4 to 5:10 and Aaron's from 6:40 to 8:00, so we had to eat between 5:10 and 6:40. That day sure filled up rather quickly. The baseball is being played out at the college fields. I think there were perhaps a half dozen less kids in Aaron's program than Daniel's, but both teems had close to 20 kids. They had five coaches, so plenty of individual attention. Both boys have made great strides in physical ability with thorwing and catching and it was obvious they both had the times of their lives out there on the field. Aaron had a huge grin on his face as he ran the bases in one of the drills. We'll be heading out to Wal-Mart tonight to pick up some baseball accessories, i.e. the special pants Aaron's been dying to get, cleat shoes, etc. and then to Universal Screen Print to order the custom shirts and hats before team pictures.
Come next week, Aaron will be attending Safety Camp sponsored by the Pennington County Sheriff's Department and Thief River Falls Police Department where he'll be learning all about safety in sports, around the house, and around town culminating in a ride on the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Plummer, Minnesota and back where he'll learn about railroad safety. The camp is open to 2nd and 3rd graders only, so this is the only chance Aaron has to go. Daniel will be able to go both years if he wants.
The Parks & Recreation Dept. has a number of other summer activties I hope to get the boys involved in which include a trip to Fargo-Moorhead to watch a semi-pro hockey game between Fargo-Moorhead and Winnipeg, Manitoba in mid-July plus trips to the Pioneer Village in town and some wildlife sightseeing trips. THere's also a trip where they bring a sack lunch and their fishing poles and head to the dock here in town for a day of learning how to fish. Somewhere in between,we hope to fit in some swimming lessons at the Franklin Pool.
Hopefully between all of the above I'll get a chance to keep this blog relatively updated. I apologize in advance if I don't... :o)
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Challenger Carnival
We just got back from the annual Challenger Elementary Carnival. It was quite a bit bigger than the ones we had at St. Hilaire. Howard Thorson was there with his wife Julie and I bumped into Shirley and Kristi Grochow and the Jorgensons. They had a silent auction with over 100 items to bid on including an Arctic Cat four-wheeler ($1,500) and a hockey stick donated by Mary Fran Twistol that had been autographed by Team USA when they were in town last winter. I had the winning bid for the hockey stick, so Aaron has that along with a State Hockey Tournament T-shirt and official program from the tournament. I bid on an Arctic Cat T-shirt with Arctic Cat sunglasses for Daniel so they both came away with something. The boys enjoyed all the games there and Daniel really shocked me with his golf prowess... He did a mini-golf putt from at least 8 feet away from the cup and he got two out of three putts in the cup! One of them bounced off an obstacle and I just turned away thinking he didn't get it, but the crowd standing around made a lot of unexpected noise and I turned back to see he had actually made it. A little Tiger Woods he was... Mr. Thorson told me the old carnivals in St. Hilaire were quite the money maker for the school, allowing them to buy some nice playground equipment and he said they wished they had done them earlier as a fundraiser.
Last night the three of us went out and shot some baskets against the garage hoop and both boys were amazing in their ability to make baskets. Daniel must have made a good 4 shots in a row and Aaron did the same. Very impressive indeed. The boys have invented a number of games recently to play on the trampoline including "snake" and "popcorn." Now that the sun is back out, they're on the tramp daily with the neighbor kids. It's getting harder to get them off it these days, which isn't a bad thing.
The boys had their Spring music "informance" program this past Tuesday, Daniel in Mr. Wigg's class and Aaron in Ms. Knuttila's. They both obviously enjoy music and Daniel is learning keyboarding in Mr. Wigg's class. It's a pretty neat classroom with these electronic keyboards that are each split in half with half devoted to each student. They're designed for just the fundamentals of finger numbering and where the different notes are. In Ms. Knuttila's class, they learn such concepts as dominant 7th chords, minor and major chords, etc. I think they're both learning stuff I was never taught at such an early level. It was quite impressive to see how well all the kids do together as a group considering how little time the teachers get to spend with them. I managed to tape record it, so if anyone wants a DVD, let me know and I'll send you one.
This weekend is combined choir time for Zion, Redeemer, and Trinity. We start tonight at the 5:00 service of Redeemer and continue with tomorrow morning at Zion (8:00) and Trinity at (10:00). We'll be singing "Rain Down" again and two other pieces under the direction of Ruth Stenson and Diane Johnson. I've been suffering from a case of bronchitis and throat stuff this past week, but thankfully it's quieted down enough to sing tonight, I think. I think I picked up the bug from Daniel this week as he wasn't feeling well at all on Wednesday night and spent Thursday at home with me.
I managed to break in the lawnmower for the 2006 lawnmowing season yesterday. I now have a very good map of Duchess' favorite haunts in the back yard. I'll do the front probably next week as the grass doesn't grow as fast out front. I was thinking the trampoline would save me from mowing a 12-foot swath of lawn this summer, but grass appears to grow under it just fine... :o( I think next year I'll start a vegetable garden out back. I found you can rent a gas tiller for a couple hours for $20, so I'll probably do that earlier in the year next time around in time for planting. I could probably get a fair amount of veggies out of the available patch back there, at least a dozen head of lettuce or spinach and quite a few carrots or peas. I think that would make a nice learning project for the boys too. Speaking of growing stuff, only one week ago, there were itty bitty sprouts of rhubarb coming up and this week, they are at least 8 to 10 inches long with full green leaves, so I think the soil back there must be pretty good for growing.
Daniel made another funny remark this week. I had given the boys "lunchbox" notes in their backpacks to read once they got to school. They're whimsical note papers you write on to let kids know how special they are and to encourage them to do their best in school. When I told Daniel, "Don't read it until you get to school," he says, "But I can't read!" As I know he hasn't reached the level of a fluent reader yet, but still holds his own rather well, I just told him, "Do the best you can," and his response was, "Is it in cursive???" It just sounded so grown up when he used the word "cursive."
It's about time to start getting ready for choir, so I better sign off for now. Hopefully all of you are having a fun time this weekend and the weather is as nice for you as it is here right now.
Last night the three of us went out and shot some baskets against the garage hoop and both boys were amazing in their ability to make baskets. Daniel must have made a good 4 shots in a row and Aaron did the same. Very impressive indeed. The boys have invented a number of games recently to play on the trampoline including "snake" and "popcorn." Now that the sun is back out, they're on the tramp daily with the neighbor kids. It's getting harder to get them off it these days, which isn't a bad thing.
The boys had their Spring music "informance" program this past Tuesday, Daniel in Mr. Wigg's class and Aaron in Ms. Knuttila's. They both obviously enjoy music and Daniel is learning keyboarding in Mr. Wigg's class. It's a pretty neat classroom with these electronic keyboards that are each split in half with half devoted to each student. They're designed for just the fundamentals of finger numbering and where the different notes are. In Ms. Knuttila's class, they learn such concepts as dominant 7th chords, minor and major chords, etc. I think they're both learning stuff I was never taught at such an early level. It was quite impressive to see how well all the kids do together as a group considering how little time the teachers get to spend with them. I managed to tape record it, so if anyone wants a DVD, let me know and I'll send you one.
This weekend is combined choir time for Zion, Redeemer, and Trinity. We start tonight at the 5:00 service of Redeemer and continue with tomorrow morning at Zion (8:00) and Trinity at (10:00). We'll be singing "Rain Down" again and two other pieces under the direction of Ruth Stenson and Diane Johnson. I've been suffering from a case of bronchitis and throat stuff this past week, but thankfully it's quieted down enough to sing tonight, I think. I think I picked up the bug from Daniel this week as he wasn't feeling well at all on Wednesday night and spent Thursday at home with me.
I managed to break in the lawnmower for the 2006 lawnmowing season yesterday. I now have a very good map of Duchess' favorite haunts in the back yard. I'll do the front probably next week as the grass doesn't grow as fast out front. I was thinking the trampoline would save me from mowing a 12-foot swath of lawn this summer, but grass appears to grow under it just fine... :o( I think next year I'll start a vegetable garden out back. I found you can rent a gas tiller for a couple hours for $20, so I'll probably do that earlier in the year next time around in time for planting. I could probably get a fair amount of veggies out of the available patch back there, at least a dozen head of lettuce or spinach and quite a few carrots or peas. I think that would make a nice learning project for the boys too. Speaking of growing stuff, only one week ago, there were itty bitty sprouts of rhubarb coming up and this week, they are at least 8 to 10 inches long with full green leaves, so I think the soil back there must be pretty good for growing.
Daniel made another funny remark this week. I had given the boys "lunchbox" notes in their backpacks to read once they got to school. They're whimsical note papers you write on to let kids know how special they are and to encourage them to do their best in school. When I told Daniel, "Don't read it until you get to school," he says, "But I can't read!" As I know he hasn't reached the level of a fluent reader yet, but still holds his own rather well, I just told him, "Do the best you can," and his response was, "Is it in cursive???" It just sounded so grown up when he used the word "cursive."
It's about time to start getting ready for choir, so I better sign off for now. Hopefully all of you are having a fun time this weekend and the weather is as nice for you as it is here right now.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Funny Quips From Daniel...
Had to get this down before I forget. We went to Danny's Pizza this afternoon for lunch and while there, sat in the back partitioned area where they have pinball and video games. There were three young girls sitting back there about 6, 4, and 2 respectively. They were all chatterboxes, but I have to admit I didn't understand much of anything they were saying. They looked like most other children, but something was different I couldn't quite figure out, living in this Minnesota equivalent of Siberia. In the midst of one of the eldest girl's sentences, though, I picked out the words, "Ich bin," which finally clued me in to the fact they were German. A guy about Dad's age came back to check on them and mentioned to me they were staying in TRF with his family and he "can't understand a word they're saying" because they speak nothing but German. A few minutes later, their German father returns and summons them with a whole string of German language followed by "bitte" and the middle girl told the others, "SCHNELL!" I thought for a moment of Hogan's Heroes and just after their father was out of earshot, Daniel looks at Aaron and me and exclaims, "What the heck was THAT?!!" I'm guessing that was the first time he was exposed to a foreign language. Living in this remote area, it's kind of refreshing to see different ethnicities and hear different languages from time to time. I think we or at least I had become so accustomed to the melting pot they call Seattle that I had come to take diversity for granted. Now I'm learning all over again.
The other funny remark out of Daniel happened this past week when Daniel was playing in the neighbor boys' fort on the corner. He comes running home for a roll of my clear duct tape to "fix" the fort, calling it an "emergency." Once back at the fort, he tells the other boys, "We need a BIG dog now to kill people if they attack our fort." One of the boys responds, "But dogs are expensive. They're like $100!" Daniel then says, "Will they take a check??"
In other events to round out this weekend, it's been a long day of rain thus far and Daniel has successfully muddied up both his new jeans and his khakhi cargo pants I bought Friday night, so this guy's going to be busy doing laundry tonight, it appears. We also picked up a ball return thing that hangs on the rim of the basketball hoop so we can practice shooting this week. K-Mart finally stocked their basketball hoops today so we were able to get one of those to replace the worn one out there now. We also got a glow-in-the-dark basketball so we can shoot hoops at night. Now if this darn rain would stop... :o(
The other funny remark out of Daniel happened this past week when Daniel was playing in the neighbor boys' fort on the corner. He comes running home for a roll of my clear duct tape to "fix" the fort, calling it an "emergency." Once back at the fort, he tells the other boys, "We need a BIG dog now to kill people if they attack our fort." One of the boys responds, "But dogs are expensive. They're like $100!" Daniel then says, "Will they take a check??"
In other events to round out this weekend, it's been a long day of rain thus far and Daniel has successfully muddied up both his new jeans and his khakhi cargo pants I bought Friday night, so this guy's going to be busy doing laundry tonight, it appears. We also picked up a ball return thing that hangs on the rim of the basketball hoop so we can practice shooting this week. K-Mart finally stocked their basketball hoops today so we were able to get one of those to replace the worn one out there now. We also got a glow-in-the-dark basketball so we can shoot hoops at night. Now if this darn rain would stop... :o(
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Greater Than The Greatest Show On Earth?
We just got back from a long day in Grand Forks today. Joe mentioned going to the 7 p.m. showing of the KEM Shrine Circus at the Ralph Englestad Arena in Grand Forks and so I figured it would be a nice morning to sleep in today, but the phone rang at 8:45 a.m. and Joe was on the line to tell me he had good news and bad news. The good news was he had a free ticket for me to the circus from his father-in-law, Jim Goldsberry, as he is a Shriner, and the bad news was I had about 2 minutes to get dressed and out the door to drive to Grand Forks. We managed to get there about 5 minutes before the show started.
It was a three-ring circus complete with high-wire acts, tigers, elephants, ponies, and trained dogs. I was just as entertained by this circus as the old Barnum & Bailey Circus back at Key Arena. The main difference between circuses, though, was during the admission they gave the kids rides on the elephants, though we didn't do it this time. The arena was huge compared to the Ralph here in TRF. I was awestruck by the leaps in technology UND has made since I grew up around here. They have Subway, Dominoe's Pizza, and a huge gift shop where all three of us got Fighting Sioux hockey jerseys, matching green for the boys with white and black accents and white for me with green and back accents and an embroidered head of a Sioux warrior on the front.
We hit the road back to TRF about 1:00 this afternoon and on the way back just before the old farm, I drove by a nice brick sign with the name "Black River Lutheran" on it, so I pulled a U-turn and drove down the gravel road to the little church I haven't seen in some 22 years and visited Ray Mosbeck, my Godfather. For those of you "non-Hustad family" readers, Black River is a tiny rural church, one of those white steeple churches you see in the countryside when you take a roadtrip. It has a small cemetery next to it where the pioneering farmers of the area and their families are buried, including my Godfather. It dates back to the last decade or so of the 1800's and the building remains much the same as it did when I left in the early 80s. Aaron wanted to see the inside of the church and surprisingly the doors were unlocked, though nobody was there. We strolled through the church and I pointed out some things to the boys I remembered when growing up, including the sanctuary we had a Christmas program in for Sunday School. I signed the guestbook there and talk about a small world... About three or four lines above my entry was the entry of a couple that had visited last fall from Auburn, Washington of all places. There was another couple from as far away as Oregon and a lady from Galveston, Texas. It's just amazing how far flung the church's ties are given it's size and very remote location.
We just now got back at 3:00 after I took the long way home and showed the boys where I used to ride horse as a boy down the gravel roads around the old farm. They're getting pretty muddy out there and it was a bit treacherous with the Weasel, but we made it through okay. Now we can think of something else to do to keep the TV off for another day, which is challenging, as it has been raining all day for two days now. I didn't know how tough it could be without any TV until we ended up with back to back rainy days. Brings to mind Dr. Seuss. I think I'll read them the Cat in the Hat, as I think that was about two bored kids stuck inside on a rainy day. I hope this weekend dries up by tomorrow, though, so we have a dry football game on Monday. I heard it was going to be cloudy with a chance of meatballs... :o)
It was a three-ring circus complete with high-wire acts, tigers, elephants, ponies, and trained dogs. I was just as entertained by this circus as the old Barnum & Bailey Circus back at Key Arena. The main difference between circuses, though, was during the admission they gave the kids rides on the elephants, though we didn't do it this time. The arena was huge compared to the Ralph here in TRF. I was awestruck by the leaps in technology UND has made since I grew up around here. They have Subway, Dominoe's Pizza, and a huge gift shop where all three of us got Fighting Sioux hockey jerseys, matching green for the boys with white and black accents and white for me with green and back accents and an embroidered head of a Sioux warrior on the front.
We hit the road back to TRF about 1:00 this afternoon and on the way back just before the old farm, I drove by a nice brick sign with the name "Black River Lutheran" on it, so I pulled a U-turn and drove down the gravel road to the little church I haven't seen in some 22 years and visited Ray Mosbeck, my Godfather. For those of you "non-Hustad family" readers, Black River is a tiny rural church, one of those white steeple churches you see in the countryside when you take a roadtrip. It has a small cemetery next to it where the pioneering farmers of the area and their families are buried, including my Godfather. It dates back to the last decade or so of the 1800's and the building remains much the same as it did when I left in the early 80s. Aaron wanted to see the inside of the church and surprisingly the doors were unlocked, though nobody was there. We strolled through the church and I pointed out some things to the boys I remembered when growing up, including the sanctuary we had a Christmas program in for Sunday School. I signed the guestbook there and talk about a small world... About three or four lines above my entry was the entry of a couple that had visited last fall from Auburn, Washington of all places. There was another couple from as far away as Oregon and a lady from Galveston, Texas. It's just amazing how far flung the church's ties are given it's size and very remote location.
We just now got back at 3:00 after I took the long way home and showed the boys where I used to ride horse as a boy down the gravel roads around the old farm. They're getting pretty muddy out there and it was a bit treacherous with the Weasel, but we made it through okay. Now we can think of something else to do to keep the TV off for another day, which is challenging, as it has been raining all day for two days now. I didn't know how tough it could be without any TV until we ended up with back to back rainy days. Brings to mind Dr. Seuss. I think I'll read them the Cat in the Hat, as I think that was about two bored kids stuck inside on a rainy day. I hope this weekend dries up by tomorrow, though, so we have a dry football game on Monday. I heard it was going to be cloudy with a chance of meatballs... :o)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
A Whole Week Without TV??
Well, it's Thursday and we've successfully made it through four complete days of absolutely no television programs. The boys' elementary school is sponsoring a "No TV Week" for the students and the boys are, believe it or not, willingly participating in it with very little complaint. As the week progresses, it's actually getting easier and easier to do without the "idiot box." I made an exception for PS2 games, but they can only play ACTIVE games, i.e. EyeToy "Play" and Dance Dance Revolution. As they haven't figured out how to do the latter, they're limited to the EyeToy with Kung Fu. If the boys make it through the whole week (ending this Sunday), they will be entered in a drawing for prizes and have their picture taken for the TRF Times.
As for what we've been doing with our time without TV, the boys have been outside virtually the entire week bouncing on the trampoline and working on batting, fielding, and football throwing and catching skills with me. Last night, the boys had AWANA Club at the Free Church and it was "Father-Son" night with a Nintendo GameCube "Super-Mario" challenge. Each of us teamed up with our sons (Aaron) and played on one controller. No father won, unfortunately. A pleasant surprise was when the Drevlow boys showed up with Joe. He used to take them to AWANA, but hasn't for a while due to family scheduling conflicts, so it was nice to see him there again. He mentioned they're about to have Brett's birthday party, which will actually consist of "football." They are going to take the kids out to Franklin's practice field next Monday night and play flag football. He says more often than not that's what his oldest boys ask for in terms of a birthday "party." Joe said the only problem is every boy wants to be the quarterback, but given Joe's size (about my size, or the size of a Mack truck), he's afraid the smaller kids will stop right in front of him suddenly and he'll end up mowing them down. He says he can still run faster than half of them, hence the problem (He used to play guard for the Brown University football team). Joe therefore plays quarterback. He said I can then play quarterback for the other team, so this sounds like it's going to be a pretty good night of play next week.
Carol Delap stopped by after I put the boys to bed last night and dropped off leftover sloppy joe fixings from the activity they had at Trinity last night. They were putting together some kind of care packages for Hurricane Katrina victims and she had invited Aaron to bring Daniel and I, but we had the AWANA group. It was rather nice of her to drive over and drop off the food, though.
Daniel has been quite the character this week with a few funny remarks. I'll just record a couple that I can remember here. The other night when I went to bed, I roused Daniel a little bit and he looks up at me with sleepy eyes and asks me, "How's your burger?" The other chuckle came yesterday morning when I got him up for school. He had overslept and I was helping him get ready, putting a pair of shorts on him as it's been rather nice weather here lately. After I got them on he says, "NO! I don't want to wear shorts...I want LONG-SLEEVED pants. I'll freeze!"
Aaron has his field trip tomorrow to Bemidji State University with his gym class so he'll get to learn how to climb a rock wall down there and interact with college physical education majors. I have to drive him to Challenger first thing in the morning so they can head out right away for Bemidji. Should be fun for him.
This weekend is the Shriner's Circus and we're still deciding whether we'll go or not. Joe's family is going, so we may do it, but depends on scheduling, etc.
That's about all that's happening or has happened this week. It's supposed to be 67 degrees for a high today and sunny skies, perfect for after school sports... :o)
As for what we've been doing with our time without TV, the boys have been outside virtually the entire week bouncing on the trampoline and working on batting, fielding, and football throwing and catching skills with me. Last night, the boys had AWANA Club at the Free Church and it was "Father-Son" night with a Nintendo GameCube "Super-Mario" challenge. Each of us teamed up with our sons (Aaron) and played on one controller. No father won, unfortunately. A pleasant surprise was when the Drevlow boys showed up with Joe. He used to take them to AWANA, but hasn't for a while due to family scheduling conflicts, so it was nice to see him there again. He mentioned they're about to have Brett's birthday party, which will actually consist of "football." They are going to take the kids out to Franklin's practice field next Monday night and play flag football. He says more often than not that's what his oldest boys ask for in terms of a birthday "party." Joe said the only problem is every boy wants to be the quarterback, but given Joe's size (about my size, or the size of a Mack truck), he's afraid the smaller kids will stop right in front of him suddenly and he'll end up mowing them down. He says he can still run faster than half of them, hence the problem (He used to play guard for the Brown University football team). Joe therefore plays quarterback. He said I can then play quarterback for the other team, so this sounds like it's going to be a pretty good night of play next week.
Carol Delap stopped by after I put the boys to bed last night and dropped off leftover sloppy joe fixings from the activity they had at Trinity last night. They were putting together some kind of care packages for Hurricane Katrina victims and she had invited Aaron to bring Daniel and I, but we had the AWANA group. It was rather nice of her to drive over and drop off the food, though.
Daniel has been quite the character this week with a few funny remarks. I'll just record a couple that I can remember here. The other night when I went to bed, I roused Daniel a little bit and he looks up at me with sleepy eyes and asks me, "How's your burger?" The other chuckle came yesterday morning when I got him up for school. He had overslept and I was helping him get ready, putting a pair of shorts on him as it's been rather nice weather here lately. After I got them on he says, "NO! I don't want to wear shorts...I want LONG-SLEEVED pants. I'll freeze!"
Aaron has his field trip tomorrow to Bemidji State University with his gym class so he'll get to learn how to climb a rock wall down there and interact with college physical education majors. I have to drive him to Challenger first thing in the morning so they can head out right away for Bemidji. Should be fun for him.
This weekend is the Shriner's Circus and we're still deciding whether we'll go or not. Joe's family is going, so we may do it, but depends on scheduling, etc.
That's about all that's happening or has happened this week. It's supposed to be 67 degrees for a high today and sunny skies, perfect for after school sports... :o)
Monday, April 24, 2006
The Green Green Grass of Home...
Everything looks so beautiful this spring with the grass all around returning to a lush green and the birds chirping again in the mornings. We had a quite active weekend around here with Dusty Grochow spending the night on Saturday after a day spent out at the park next to the old Washington Elementary then playing down at the Armory Hill park by the river. We played some baseball for the most part and shot a few hoops. Aaron hit quite a few line drives as I worked on my scalp sunburn (no hat). It's amazing how quickly Aaron has picked up the concept of "eye on the ball" and power hitting. We went out in the back yard yesterday while the other neighbor boys played on the trampoline and I threw a few pitches to Aaron with a SOFT ball and he at one point hit the ball all the way up to the top of our house's roof and also hit the neighbor's wall about 25 yards away near the eave of the roof, way above the 6 foot fence around the back yard. I think the boys were on and off the trampoline about 90 percent of the weekend when we weren't out playing ball, so it was a good prelude to this coming week's activities.
Yes, it's "turn off the tube" week here in TRF where all students are asked to "turn off the television" for an entire week, ending next Sunday. We talked a bit about it last night, things we can do other than turn on the TV and I think we'll be doing a fair amount of batting practice and throwing the football around along with the trampoline activity. I'm thinking we'll put some puzzles together and get some overdue reading done. They were reluctant at first about the concept, but realize there are other things they can do besides watching the box. I'm sure there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth from time to time as we venture through a week without TV, but we'll all be better for it, I'm sure. If they make it through the whole week, they get rewards such as certificates for pizza, picture in the paper, etc.
I'll attach a few more pictures here of last weekend's activities and call it a day (in terms of blogging).
Yes, it's "turn off the tube" week here in TRF where all students are asked to "turn off the television" for an entire week, ending next Sunday. We talked a bit about it last night, things we can do other than turn on the TV and I think we'll be doing a fair amount of batting practice and throwing the football around along with the trampoline activity. I'm thinking we'll put some puzzles together and get some overdue reading done. They were reluctant at first about the concept, but realize there are other things they can do besides watching the box. I'm sure there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth from time to time as we venture through a week without TV, but we'll all be better for it, I'm sure. If they make it through the whole week, they get rewards such as certificates for pizza, picture in the paper, etc.
I'll attach a few more pictures here of last weekend's activities and call it a day (in terms of blogging).
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
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