One That Didn't Get Away...

  

End of Baseball Party

We had the party tonight at Greenwood Park to mark the near end of the 2006 Parks & Rec Baseball season. It was combined with the tennis program and there was probably about 75 to 100 kids there with the coaches and parents and there were several games there like a carnival with a dunk tank (Aaron dunked his coaches three times, every time hitting the target on his third and final throw), a ring toss where Aaron won a two-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper, and a sack race. Aaron won a few prizes as did Daniel and they served hotdogs, chips, lemonade, and ice cream bars for the kids. It was pretty hot out even in the evening, so after the prizes were handed out, some of the kids and I gathered around the huge plastic tub they had used for a bobbing game and started splashing around with the water, eventually soaking Daniel in the process and what started with just water toys being thrown at each other along with an occasional water balloon turned into boys scooping out water in gallon ice cream buckets and drenching everyone around the tub. We finished off the day with a trip to the grocery store to pick up a couple copies of the local newspaper where Aaron's picture is in the county fair insert for his guinea pig win. Now I'm getting their uniforms washed before I hit the sack so they're ready for the last regular season games tomorrow.

Just When It Couldn't Get Any Worse...

Last Monday, the day after returning to find Funny Bunny had to be put to sleep, we were playing with the new guinea pig for Daniel and our recently crowned grand champion guinea, Snowball, and noticed Snowball seemed to be moving very little and was not as animated as she had been previously. She wasn't eating much either, which made me think to myself that we were in for another loss thanks to the heat at the fair. About noon on Monday, Daniel commented that Snowball's eyes were changing color and the boys asked if I was going to take it to the vet and when I looked down on the living room floor, she was gasping for air and moments from death, so I explained to the boys she wasn't going to make it and a few minutes after noon, she was gone. I called Dawn at the Humane Society and brought her out there to be cremated and Dawn assured the boys her ashes would be spread on the garden out there at the Humane Society and that was all she wrote. It was thankfully not as tragic for the boys as Funny Bunny's loss and that evening, we stopped at Ben Franklin after Aaron's baseball game and picked up a new guinea pig that Aaron named "Spike" with mostly brown and black coloring. So having gone to the fair with two pets, we essentially came home with four pets. The bright side of all the recent loss is the boys have taken a much greater interest in the pets and have assumed much of the responsibility for caring for the new pets. Aaron takes the guineas out just about daily to play with together and ensures they are fed and watered.

This past week has been a busier week than most with bsaeball. On Thursday, Daniel had his T-ball game and in the afternoon when I arrived for Aaron's game, I found out it was a doubleheader with the first game against the Reds and the second against the Brewers. Aaron's team made great improvements over the prior game and came close, but unfortunately it wasn't enough, dropping both games by only one point. I believe he has two more games before the end of the season and tournament week. Next Wednesday is an end of season party the Parks & Rec Department is throwing for the baseball and soccer kids at Oakland Park so we'll probably go to that to celebrate the end of a lot of practices and games this summer and start looking forward to returning to school.

On Friday, I ended up volunteering again to drive the church bus back up to Baudette to pick up the kids from Lake of the Woods Bible Camp and the boys and I enjoyed a nice sunny drive. I taught them the phenomena of getting a train to blow its horn by honking the bus horn. Daniel was tickled pink at the result. We got two trains to do it on the way up to Baudette.

As for other TRF news, Pamida is to close its doors this week and I'm wondering how long it will be for K-Mart. We went to K-Mart and I picked up a "Zip-N-Hit," a rather simple contraption that helps kids learn how to swing a bat faster and with more accuracy. It "pitches" a baseball down a straight line of rope at up to 65 mph and the line acts as a guide for the bat in swinging. Aaron loved it today and was contantly asking me to come out and "pitch" to him, though he gets as much enjoyment out of pitching than he does hitting. Speaking of pitching, he's actually very accurate at pitching the old-fashioned way (without the Zip-N-Hit). I'm already thinking ahead to the winter and realizing this new contraption will make a good winter recreational tool as well, as it doesn't matter if there's snow on the ground when you use it and it can keep Aaron and Daniel warmed up for next year's baseball season. Aaron just asked tonight, "Can I be in baseball EVERY year??" Crazy Days has become Crazy DAY this year with only one day of activity. I may bring the boys out to get facepainted and/or check out the prices.

I saw my old friend from elementary school, Leland Mott, and his mom, Carol, at Wal-Mart last night. They were getting ready for a pretty sizable feast with a beef brisket about two feet long. The only thing I thought was missing was flowers for Carol's table, which they laughed about, but when they went off to the register, I enlisted the boy's help. We grabbed two bouquets of carnations and ran over to a checkstand a couple down from theirs and raced to get through it before they could so they'd get the flowers before leaving. They ended up finishing first, though, so we had to race out of the store and managed to catch them in the parking lot. The impromptu contribution to their feast was well received and the boys had some fun in the process (running in the store authorized by dad).

It's now 3 a.m. and I think about time to hit the sack. The thunderstorm that was to be this evening/tonight failed to materialize, so I guess we'll have to go a few more days wtihout rainfall. I've only mowed my front lawn twice the entire summer, so I guess it's not a bad thing, though the farmers probably disagree. For their sake, I hope the remainder of the summer is a little more wet.

Talk About Horrible Irony... :o(

We got back a little bit ago from our day-long venture driving the Trinity bus to Lake of the Woods to drop off four girls at bible camp. We were supposed to pick up Funny Bunny, Snowball, and Daniel's new guinea pig, Rodney (named after the character in Dr. Dolittle). When we arrived at the bunny barn (cavy), however, Sandy Drevlow pulled me aside and informed me that likely due to the heat these past few days, Funny Bunny scratched herself low on her tummy and it was a matter of hours before the wound became infested and despite attempts to flush it out, she felt it best to have her put to sleep. It all happened in less than 24 hours, so it was quite a blow to Aaron. I mentioned "irony" above, as my last blog headline was "Hurray for Funny Bunny." Sandy, though, managed to set aside a couple of other bunnies and we ended up getting both of them, one for Aaron and one for Daniel. I believe Aaron's is a two-toned brown and white Dutch breed, which he named Sidney, and the other is a grey lop (mini?) named by Daniel "Funny Bunny, Jr." Both bunnies are around 8 weeks old, so still very young and should bond well to the boys.

We did have a good ride up to Lake of the Woods, our first trip that close to the Minnesota/Canadian border, and I volunteered to do the pickup trip this coming Friday. It's nice to get out on the open road for a few hours and see the sites. I FINALLY know more Minnesota geography!! For the longest time I've wanted to know exactly where the tiny outlying towns were around here and we drove through Greenbush, Middle River, Strathcona, Badger, Roseau, and Warroad. I had no idea they were all on one straight shot north of here. We never turned until the last road to get to the camp, so it was pretty easy figuring out where we were going. The church bus was pretty nice to drive too, as it's a newer model E-350 Super Duty van with seats for 14 people and a luggage area in the back. Very comfy ride.

Now that we have our new bunnies home and in their new quarters with the guineas underneath, we can all it a day and get ready for another busy week of baseball in the hot summer sun.

Hurray for Funny Bunny!!!

We headed back to the bunny barn in the afternoon and received a pleasant surprise. Funny Bunny was awarded First Place in her open class! Aaron will be receiving another ribbon on Sunday to go with his Grand Champion ribbon for Snowball. Sandy Drevlow suggested she might be able to find a trophy for Aaron... With his successes at the fair this year, he seems enthusiastic about possibly joining 4-H this next year. Only problme is there's no 4-H club right here in town anymore, so we will either need to create one from scratch with Sandy and whoever else we can dig up or he'll have to join a surrounding rural club, i.e. Smiley, etc. We'll have to check it out again when they have the 4-H carnival this fall. It was a long day again today complete with a trip to see Pirates of the Caribbean II at the Galaxy Twin. The boys are sleeping rather sound at this moment. I think I'll take the opportunity now to clean out the bunny/guinea pig cage so they have fresh digs to come home to on Sunday.

Grand Champion!!

It's another hot one today... We spent about four hours at the Pennington County Fair this morning/afternoon. Aaron was awarded Grand Champion in the open class guinnea pig division for "Snowball" and got his picture taken for the newspaper. Funny Bunny still has to be judged for the open class rabbit division, so we'll see what happens in a few hours there. We just came home for a break from the heat before heading back for the results of the rabbit judging. We took a few rides together on the Tilt-a-Whirl, which really got going pretty fast. That's my favorite ride (because it was free!). I think the boys are having a good time this week. We have to pick up the bunny and guinea pig on Sunday night, but they're getting round-the-clock feeding and watering in the meantime from Sandy Drevlow and the others at the bunny barn.

Hunter and Daniel in the Rain....

  

Do We Have To Go Home Yet?

  

A Perfect Place on a Hot Day...

  

He Likes His Picture Taken...

  

Wade in the Water....

  

River Football Anyone??

  

A Day at the TRF Beach

  

July Fourth at the WIderskis

  

A Scorcher of a Summer...

Wow... It's been a hot and dry summer so far. It was in the low 90s today and it's only rained good about once in the last month. We're expecting severe storms tomorrow night, but I'm not all that optimistic given our track record this month. The bright side of the heat wave is I don't have to mow the lawn hardly at all. I only mowed the back once in the last three weeks and it's been upwards of a month now since I mowed the front yard. Of course the grass is not the beautiful green it was this spring. I still enjoy it, though, as it doesn't feel all that muggy outside and the dryness with the short grass has combined for a relatively "mosquito-free" neighborhood. As for recreation in this sunny weather, we took the opportunity on the invitation of one of Aaron's buddy's from his church youth group to head down to the beach near the confluence of the Thief and Red Rivers. It's the exact same beach I remembered playing on and in the water as a kid a quarter century ago and I swear the buoys that outline the swimming area in the river are the exact same ones from the 1970s. I waded in the water while the boys went all the way in. The river was about the temperature of a bathtub last Friday and we probably spent an hour in there throwing a Nerf football around and stuff. They both enjoyed the novelty of swimming in a river for the first time and it was a much needed break from the status quo.

The boys' baseball season continues and Aaron's team has struggled a bit as they have faced a few teams that are developing at a faster pace than his team has. Couple that with 10 days off and they were a little rusty in Monday's game. Aaron managed to score a homerun, though, after a teammate brought him home with a base hit. He was grinning from ear to ear. He did get nailed in the hand from one of the coaches pitches, hitting his thumb, I think. Unfortunately they don't get to take a base when hit, so he took a break to shake off the sting in the dugout, then returned minutes later to get a base hit. I think he's learning to push through adversity and pain thanks to America's favorite pastime, which should serve him well in the future. Daniel is also doing well with his T-ball and had another game on Tuesday. Tomorrow they're both going on a bus from the Ralph Engelstad Arena to Fargo to watch the Fargo Red Hawks take on the Calgary Vipers in a semi-pro baseball game. They'll be gone until around 5:30, so Dad gets to sit in the dentist chair for a few hours while they're gone. They've been looking forward to the trip for some time.

We rode bike around town tonight and decided to take a detour over to the fairgrounds and see what's up at the Pennington County Fair. I bumped into the Drevlows including Sandy and it looks like tomorrow we'll be entering our bunny and guinea pig into the animal displays. Just gotta trim Funny Bunny's nails first... I also bumped into one of my former teachers from Franklin Middle School, Walter Redinger, whom i haven't seen in a quarter century or more. He looked just the way I remembered him and is every bit as nice as I recalled. He has four grandchildren now, one of which is Daniel's age. It was nice seeing him again. We ended up riding back at 10:00 tonight and we'll be heading back tomorrow night for the bunny thing and some more rides. They both really got a kick out of the rides they went on tonight, even more than last year.

When it was time to head to bed, Daniel asked me (as usual) to try to catch him as he ran up the stairs to bed and I caught him just before he reached the first stair landing and as he goes down for the tickle, he looks up at Aaron just ahead of him on the landing and screams up to him, "Save yourself!!!" What a zag nut...

Well, time to get some shuteye over here. Hope those reading this are having a little cooler week than we are this week. :o)

What a Fantastic Fourth!!!!

This has to be one of the best Fourth of July holidays I've had in quite a long time. We started the festivities off by watching the space shuttle launch and it was kind of a funny coincidence that I witnessed the first ever launch of a space shuttle (Challenger) in 8th grade from of all places, Thief River Falls and here I was again witnessing the first ever "Fourth of July launch" right here in TRF again. Come to think of it, the boys also watched their first ever live shuttle launch also in TRF.

We got together with the Widerskis bringing out all the fixins for a nice cookout including hamburgers and pork loins with hickory chips and finished it off with fresh watermelon (from Texas), chocolate chip bars and fruit Jello. Before the cookout, I stopped by the Murphy's gazebo and Fern Williams was out there with Wanda Murphy, Mrs. Folger, and one other lady I didn't recognize and I said, "So here's where the lady's auxiliary is meeting..." :o) I wanted to check on Ken as he had his knee replacement done on the left side last week and has been out of the hospital just recently and apparently has already been walking the sidewalk on the new knee. I guess last night was pretty tough with the pain and all, but he's managing pretty well.

We set off a slew of fireworks out front of the Widerski house and in the middle of the show, Wanda Murphy walked over and presented half of a birthday cake to share with the kids. Speaking of kids, there were quite a few taking in the fireworks. There was Daniel and Aaron, Drew, Tyler, Johnnie, Austin, Kaylynn, and Kaylynn/Austin's sister, and two other neighbor kids I didn't get the names of. There were at least two elderly couples that rode by on old-fashioned one-speed bikes with those big whitewall tires and waved as they went by watching the display. It was small town Americana at its finest. And not a single siren could be heard all evening. Of course they don't have any bottle rockets, so probably no house fires.

It's now 10:30 and I just returned home, so we were gone a good four hours with all the festivities and I'm truly beat. What a day... Thank goodness we don't have baseball at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Then again, I do have to get up and go to the arena to sign the boys up for their semi-pro baseball field trip in Fargo or they'll miss out on that. Sounds like we weren't the only ones who had a nice holiday today given the e-mails I've gotten today. I'm glad everyone else had a great time too. Now back to the daily grind until Labor Day... :o)

Floyd the Barber?

Well, I finally tracked down a "traditional" barber in town here to get a nice "once over" as it were and return to my favorite stubble style. I had to renew the tabs on The Weasel at the courthouse (only two days before the deadline) and decided to stop at the barber just across the street from the Ben Franklin store. It's a hole in the wall, basically, with just two barber chairs and no wait. The barber was a friendly older gent, perhaps in his late 70s to mid 80s. I recognized him fron an old newspaper article in the Grand Forks Herald I read last spring that mentioned he had been in business for some 41 or so years at the same location and is one of a dying breed (traditional barber) who refuses to retire as long as he enjoys what he's doing. Anywho, as I sit down, he asks me where I'm from. I give him the lowdown of growing up here, then living out in Seattle and moving back to TRF. I mentioned, "My dad used to teach in town here" and after he asked who that was and telling him, he revealed that he used to sing in the choir under dad's direction back in the late 70s/early 80s and indeed knew exactly who dad was if not me specifically. Turns out we were on the same album cover when Trinity recorded way back in the day. He was a tenor at the time and reminisced how most of those fun guys back then had passed away, i.e. Walt Forney, Dennis Wegge, etc. The barber's name was Dean Hamms. He apparently still attends Trinity, though until now I never noticed.

After the haircut, we headed off to the grocery store to pick up some snacks and managed to bump into Cathy Hagen again in the produce department (bumped into her last time in the Wal-Mart produce department about a couple weeks ago) and I talked to her about Mr. Hamms. She mentioned he could be a feisty character. We both agreed we need to work on getting him back into choir. If Opal can still sing, there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to... :) It was a bit of an adventure shopping today as Daniel decided to help out in the produce selection (unbeknownst to me) by bagging about six different varieties of Washington State apples for me and putting them in the cart. When all was said and done, my initial plan of "just" a bag of Red Delicious apples had turned into a dozen different species from Braeburns to Galas to Pink Ladies to Fujis. Gotta love him... Aaron made his rounds of the free sample stands with cantaloupe, watermelon, and pineapple chunks. I think about 60 percent of the fridge is now loaded with apples, lettuce, baby spinach, shredded cheese, and other salad fixings, so we're eating like rabbits this week. Daniel was actually fighting over who got the first salad to eat the other night, so he doesn't mind the extra veggies much at all, though I'm afraid if I feed him too many veggies and not enough meat and potatoes he's going to float away with our next strong wind.

As for baseball, Aaron had another blowout loss on Monday against the Royals with a score of 10-2, but managed to hit a couple. I've tried to explain that he doesn't need to swing at every pitch (about 1 of 4 pitches were actually strikes). We'll see how he does tomorrow night in his next game against the Reds at 3:30. Daniel has another T-ball game at 9 a.m. tomorrow too. Aaron spent a half hour tonight practicing pitching with his buddy, Drew, so hopefully his fielding/throwing are progressing well. I didn't watch him, as I didn't want him getting nervous that "Dad's watching." I'm hoping we'll have time this weekend to head to the park and get some real batting practice in for a while.

Well, it's time to wash some dust-covered baseball pants, socks, and shirts now before tucking the boys in for the night, so I think I'll sign off for now...

A Sad Day Today....

Tyler, one of the pastor's kids from the corner house just came over after his family had been gone this weekend and said before now they weren't allowed to say anything, but now it's official. He and his family will be moving in August back to Alexandria where his dad has been voted by the church they originally came from to return as pastor. They've been in Thief River about 5 years now and unfortunately his dad wasn't able to make ends meet with the congregation here in TRF, so they have to move. It's a sad day, as they were Aaron and Daniel's first friends they made upon arriving in TRF last year and hundreds of hours have been spent playing with them since. They have represented about 95 percent of the boys' playmates, so it will be a tremendous void to fill once they've gone. Thankfully we still have another couple of months of baseball before they leave so it will give the boys time to assimilate the change more gradually and school will start up again soon after that, so they will hopefully make new friends quickly. With any luck, another family will move in quickly. One thing is for sure, this house and yard will be pretty quiet for at least a while without the daily comings and goings of their buddies. I'm thankful for the time we have had them here, however brief it's turned out to be.

In other news, Daniel tied his T-ball game last week 14-14 and Aaron's Orioles lost to the Brewers 16-8. Aaron was 3 for 4, but they managed to throw him out at first on each hit. The Brewers were a pretty good fielding team and they apparently had one fifth grader on their team. Aaron returns to action tonight against the Royals in a rematch with his buddy, Tyler. He has another game on Thursday against the Reds and Daniel has another T-ball game on that day as well.

I think it's about time to go get some errands done now, so I'll sign off for now. Looks like it may be a day of rain today (finally).

A Busy Week...

The boys got their pictures taken yesterday at the Huck for baseball. They now have their official uniforms, Aaron in orange T-shirt with "TRF Orioles" on the front and the number 7 on the back in black lettering with a major league baseball cap with the Orioles mascot on it and Daniel in royal blue with yellow "TRF" across the front with a matching blue hat with embroidered "T" on the front. Of course all 30 some T-ball kids showed up for pictures, so Daniel was the very last boy of the whole bunch to get his individual picture taken yesterday after a long hour of standing around. He took the wait in stride, though, and even managed a couple good smiles. Aaron's pictures went much faster as there were a lot fewer players. The only two girls on the team, though, came wearing light blue t-shirts and different colored street pants/jeans, so when they saw the rest of the Orioles dapperly dressed in their matching orange T-shirts and caps, their dad got an earful. I felt kind of sorry for him as he wasn't aware he was supposed to order them up front from the screen printing place. The girls didn't seem to mind after a while, though.

Tomorrow is game three for Aaron, this time against the "Brewers" and Danny has his second T-ball game bright and early at 9 a.m. We'll see if the Orioles remain unbeaten and move to 3-0. Perhaps the Twins winning the past eight games in a row is a good omen?

The Start of a Winning Streak?

Just thought I'd do a quick update here before I forget and all these games blend into one blur. Aaron played the Cubs today in his second game and his Orioles won their second game, this time a little closer at 9-8. He was two for three with two singles. We went back to the field at 6:30 to 8 p.m. tonight to watch his buddy Drew play his game as well, so it's been a long day. Daniel has T-ball at 9 a.m. tomorrow and Aaron will be back at practice at 10:30. Sometime after that we'll be running back and forth to the Ralph Arena to get their team pictures done. I just hope it's a little cooler outside tomorrow.