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...
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Thanksgiving...
Wherever has the month of November gone?? It was just yesterday we had the start of school, choir, youth group, etc. and now we're staring down Christmas in only a month. It's true what they say about time really flying when you're having fun... The boys' basketball season is well underway and they have their first games coming up pretty soon. Aaron's first game with his team, the Spurs (5th and 6th graders combined) is on December 1st at Franklin Middle School and Daniel will probably follow soon after.
Other extracurricular activities continue to go well with the boys progressing nicely in Wednesday night youth group (Daniel just got out of the "Start Zone" and qualified to wear the uniform T-shirt last week). I'm about to have the first dress rehearsal December 2 for the madrigal dinner group I'm singing with this Christmas season. I'm wearing period garb from the renaissance (I kind of look like a renaissance Hoss Cartwright...). I've been doing okay learning the bass, but find my time is short with all the running back and forth from one practice to another. Thankfully we still have a couple days a week where we don't really have any engagements, though that will change quickly with the start of hockey season at The Ralph. It's a young Prowler hockey team this year, so should be an interesting season of growth.
We've been enjoying our "new" vehicle lately since picking it up a couple weeks or so ago. It's really spacious with lots of room in the back for sports equipment and extra friends. The boys love the automatic sliding door on the passenger side and the automatic engine starter so it's toasty warm in winter. They've already helped personalize it with Prowler decals.
We'll be spending Turkey Day with friends of ours from church (a lot in one house, actually) and will hopefully find some time to play some flag football at Franklin after we eat (burn off a few calories, ya know). I really heard a nice thing after school today that set the tone for this Thanksgiving. I went to pick the boys up and as usual I went to Daniel's classroom first. Apparently one of the activities in class today was for students to say in class what things they are thankful for. Daniel's friend, Samuel, said he was thankful for his life. Other students said they were thankful for their pets, friends, etc. Daniel's teacher approached me on the way out of school today and informed me that Daniel's answer was, "I'm thankful for my Dad..." That response was a warm reminder of what Thanksgiving is all about, being thankful for the people around us rather than the "things" we have. May all who read this enjoy a safe, happy, and healthy Thanksgiving!
Other extracurricular activities continue to go well with the boys progressing nicely in Wednesday night youth group (Daniel just got out of the "Start Zone" and qualified to wear the uniform T-shirt last week). I'm about to have the first dress rehearsal December 2 for the madrigal dinner group I'm singing with this Christmas season. I'm wearing period garb from the renaissance (I kind of look like a renaissance Hoss Cartwright...). I've been doing okay learning the bass, but find my time is short with all the running back and forth from one practice to another. Thankfully we still have a couple days a week where we don't really have any engagements, though that will change quickly with the start of hockey season at The Ralph. It's a young Prowler hockey team this year, so should be an interesting season of growth.
We've been enjoying our "new" vehicle lately since picking it up a couple weeks or so ago. It's really spacious with lots of room in the back for sports equipment and extra friends. The boys love the automatic sliding door on the passenger side and the automatic engine starter so it's toasty warm in winter. They've already helped personalize it with Prowler decals.
We'll be spending Turkey Day with friends of ours from church (a lot in one house, actually) and will hopefully find some time to play some flag football at Franklin after we eat (burn off a few calories, ya know). I really heard a nice thing after school today that set the tone for this Thanksgiving. I went to pick the boys up and as usual I went to Daniel's classroom first. Apparently one of the activities in class today was for students to say in class what things they are thankful for. Daniel's friend, Samuel, said he was thankful for his life. Other students said they were thankful for their pets, friends, etc. Daniel's teacher approached me on the way out of school today and informed me that Daniel's answer was, "I'm thankful for my Dad..." That response was a warm reminder of what Thanksgiving is all about, being thankful for the people around us rather than the "things" we have. May all who read this enjoy a safe, happy, and healthy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, November 04, 2007
A Spontaneous Road Trip
You may want to find a favorite easy chair and kick back with your feet back, because I've really been catching up on my blog updates tonight... Scroll down all the way, as there's tons of pictures to see and other updates on our exploits at Halloween, football, etc. in addition to this post. You may need to click on a link at the bottom to see what might not be on this web page, as I'm not sure how many posts/pictures can fit on one page... I apologize for the screwy chronology of things on here, as I didn't post pictures at all in the order they were taken other than Halloween and of course this post will reference events that took place below this post, so it reads somewhat like a reverse chronology of sorts.
On with the story... So we got home late Friday night/early Saturday morning, something like 1:30 or so from the football game. We stopped in every town on the way back from Grand Forks to take pictures in front of any "significant" landmark the boys could lay eyes on. We fell asleep pretty late that morning and woke up about 11:00 or so on Saturday morning. On our drive back to TRF, though, we were all talking about our old neighbors, Dave and Cheri Widerski, and their kids that used to play with the boys and their friend, Dorion. I halfheartedly suggested we could maybe visit them down where they now live in Alexandria, Minnesota, some 180 miles or so south of us. I didn't know exactly how far away it was, though, and Dorion seemed to think it was "right next to" the Twin Cities, which more or less ruled that out as an option in the near future for me.
After waking up as noted above, though, I pulled up the map program for Alexandria and determined it was indeed "only" the 180 miles or so and so not having anything else real productive to do, I asked all three boys if they felt like paying their old friends a visit in Alexandria, which of course they all unanimously approved rather excitedly and a phone call to the Widerskis and about an hour and a half later, we found ourselves making a quick lunch of it at McDonald's before we were on our way south on Highway 59 out of town towards Alexandria.
As we drove south, Dorion video taped a good part of the "Road Trip 2007" and of course we had to stop at just about every landmark in sight on the way down. The boys saw live buffalo alongside the highway, some alpacas, and we drove through the White Earth Indian Reservation at one point, I think. It was a great lesson in geography and the boys were bouncing off the walls the whole way down with their new spur of the moment "adventure" otherwise known as the traditional "road trip." The drive should have taken us only 3.5 hours or so, but we didn't pull into Alexandria until just shy of about 6:00 Saturday night, at least two hours later than it should have taken thanks to all the stops for photo opportunities.
Once we reached the Widerskis, it was as though time had stood still. Only the youngest Widerski, Johnny, really seemed to have changed physically with a growth spurt. All the other boys, Drew, Tyler, and Zach, appeared much the same as when they left well over a year ago. They ordered Godfather's pizza for us all and I visited with Pastor Dave and his wife for a good three hours while the boys headed off with their friends to catch up on lost time away from each other. Of course it would have been nice to "plan" the trip more in advance to spend more time down there, but given my schedule and their schedule down there and such, it was good we at least had that little time we did. Plus, the spontaneity of it all added a particularly exciting element to the adventure, especially surprising the Widerski boys with our visit.
The other "exciting" part of the trip was we happened to head out of town on the first day of the deer hunting season... So of course you have every deer hunter and their cousin in Minnesota loaded up on Budweiser with rifles they probably haven't shot more than once in the previous year heading out to their deer "stands" and "blinds" to take pot shots at the deer population. Add to that the interesting drive back in the dark and the knuckles can be a little white on the steering wheel if you get my drift. We didn't hear or otherwise witness any stray bullets, though, and didn't strike any deer ourselves, though just as I crossed the Pennington County line on the way back to Thief River last night, I quickly came upon a deer that a large truck had obviously encountered earlier (or what was left of the animal) in the middle of my lane. Thanks to the brights, I again had enough time to react, so I pulled around it and called the sheriff's office to suggest they remove it somehow from the road given the danger it would still pose in the dark to oncoming motorists, particularly those in smaller import cars, i.e. Hondas, etc. Another good use for a cell phone...
We got home last night about 2:30 a.m., but thanks to daylight saving time ending, we got an extra hour of sleep to recover before heading off to Sunday School at Trinity this morning where the boys earned their second consecutive "perfect attendance" award (helps when Dad teaches, huh?).
So now that our exciting Thursday through Sunday is over, we have the opening of basketball season to look forward to tomorrow after school lets out with a clinic for neophyte coaches like myself to figure out what we're doing before the season really gets underway. The varsity high school coach will be running the clinic to let us know the fundamental skills he'd like us to work with the younger kids on so they will hopefully have that foundation when they reach high school should they choose to continue playing. So we'll now have that on our plates for an activity a couple days a week with Aaron's games taking place at Franklin on Saturdays. I'm looking forward to getting some more exercise in these upcoming winter months. It just today started snowing in Thief River, so it won't be long before we go into hibernation around here...
So there you all have it.... Again, read on for the rest of our activities these past couple weeks and take a look at some of the pictures. Hopefully I haven't written too much at one time here...
On with the story... So we got home late Friday night/early Saturday morning, something like 1:30 or so from the football game. We stopped in every town on the way back from Grand Forks to take pictures in front of any "significant" landmark the boys could lay eyes on. We fell asleep pretty late that morning and woke up about 11:00 or so on Saturday morning. On our drive back to TRF, though, we were all talking about our old neighbors, Dave and Cheri Widerski, and their kids that used to play with the boys and their friend, Dorion. I halfheartedly suggested we could maybe visit them down where they now live in Alexandria, Minnesota, some 180 miles or so south of us. I didn't know exactly how far away it was, though, and Dorion seemed to think it was "right next to" the Twin Cities, which more or less ruled that out as an option in the near future for me.
After waking up as noted above, though, I pulled up the map program for Alexandria and determined it was indeed "only" the 180 miles or so and so not having anything else real productive to do, I asked all three boys if they felt like paying their old friends a visit in Alexandria, which of course they all unanimously approved rather excitedly and a phone call to the Widerskis and about an hour and a half later, we found ourselves making a quick lunch of it at McDonald's before we were on our way south on Highway 59 out of town towards Alexandria.
As we drove south, Dorion video taped a good part of the "Road Trip 2007" and of course we had to stop at just about every landmark in sight on the way down. The boys saw live buffalo alongside the highway, some alpacas, and we drove through the White Earth Indian Reservation at one point, I think. It was a great lesson in geography and the boys were bouncing off the walls the whole way down with their new spur of the moment "adventure" otherwise known as the traditional "road trip." The drive should have taken us only 3.5 hours or so, but we didn't pull into Alexandria until just shy of about 6:00 Saturday night, at least two hours later than it should have taken thanks to all the stops for photo opportunities.
Once we reached the Widerskis, it was as though time had stood still. Only the youngest Widerski, Johnny, really seemed to have changed physically with a growth spurt. All the other boys, Drew, Tyler, and Zach, appeared much the same as when they left well over a year ago. They ordered Godfather's pizza for us all and I visited with Pastor Dave and his wife for a good three hours while the boys headed off with their friends to catch up on lost time away from each other. Of course it would have been nice to "plan" the trip more in advance to spend more time down there, but given my schedule and their schedule down there and such, it was good we at least had that little time we did. Plus, the spontaneity of it all added a particularly exciting element to the adventure, especially surprising the Widerski boys with our visit.
The other "exciting" part of the trip was we happened to head out of town on the first day of the deer hunting season... So of course you have every deer hunter and their cousin in Minnesota loaded up on Budweiser with rifles they probably haven't shot more than once in the previous year heading out to their deer "stands" and "blinds" to take pot shots at the deer population. Add to that the interesting drive back in the dark and the knuckles can be a little white on the steering wheel if you get my drift. We didn't hear or otherwise witness any stray bullets, though, and didn't strike any deer ourselves, though just as I crossed the Pennington County line on the way back to Thief River last night, I quickly came upon a deer that a large truck had obviously encountered earlier (or what was left of the animal) in the middle of my lane. Thanks to the brights, I again had enough time to react, so I pulled around it and called the sheriff's office to suggest they remove it somehow from the road given the danger it would still pose in the dark to oncoming motorists, particularly those in smaller import cars, i.e. Hondas, etc. Another good use for a cell phone...
We got home last night about 2:30 a.m., but thanks to daylight saving time ending, we got an extra hour of sleep to recover before heading off to Sunday School at Trinity this morning where the boys earned their second consecutive "perfect attendance" award (helps when Dad teaches, huh?).
So now that our exciting Thursday through Sunday is over, we have the opening of basketball season to look forward to tomorrow after school lets out with a clinic for neophyte coaches like myself to figure out what we're doing before the season really gets underway. The varsity high school coach will be running the clinic to let us know the fundamental skills he'd like us to work with the younger kids on so they will hopefully have that foundation when they reach high school should they choose to continue playing. So we'll now have that on our plates for an activity a couple days a week with Aaron's games taking place at Franklin on Saturdays. I'm looking forward to getting some more exercise in these upcoming winter months. It just today started snowing in Thief River, so it won't be long before we go into hibernation around here...
So there you all have it.... Again, read on for the rest of our activities these past couple weeks and take a look at some of the pictures. Hopefully I haven't written too much at one time here...
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