Christmas Blessing

A quick update on our friend Brad. He has had some great improvements over the last few weeks. He is awake and able to walk with assistance. He is also responding to simple instructions and seems to be recognizing people around him. He is not talking yet, but hopefully the improvements will continue over the weeks to come. Brad and the Amos family remain in our thoughts and prayers.

Thanksgiving

As Althea was nice enough to point out, it has been way longer than one weekend since I promised to write more about our trip to Disneyworld. I decided I better get busy and write something about that before Christmas was here!

We left for Disneyworld on Wednesday. Since we were staying on Disney property there was a bus waiting for us at the airport. We didn't even have to wait for our luggage. They sent special tags prior to our trip and the luggage was delivered to our room. As soon as we got checked in to the hotel - The All Star Sports Resort - we were off to the parks! We decided to start our trip at the Animal Kingdom since there were late hours at that part that night. We took in several rides as well as a safari tour, which provided fantastic views of a variety of animals, including a lion which was extremely exciting for Wendy!

Thursday we were off to the Magic Kingdom. This day included several rides on Space Mountain, one of our favorite, Thanksgiving dinner at Cinderella's castle, and too much other fun to remember. We did stop mid-day for a quick nap back at the hotel so we could take advantage of the late hours at the park that night. Dinner was a traditional Thanksgiving meal and very well done atmosphere / show. After dinner we watched the fireworks show and then headed off to take advantage of short lines and Pirates of the Carribean and several other rides.

Friday was spent at Hollywood Studios. The park was painfully crowded, but thanks to the fast pass option we were able to do everything we wanted but the Toy Story 4D show. The hit of the day for Wendy and I was the Rock and Roll roller coaster. It goes 0-60 in 4 seconds or something ridiculous like that. They play Aerosmith music at a deafening volume while you fly down the track doing loops and lord only knows what else. Zach thought this ride wasn't as fun, and if I had time to think about it I might have agreed with him, but I tried not to think about it!

After a short nap we spent Friday evening at Epcot. We wanted to see the fireworks and take in a few of the attractions that night since the park had late hours. The fireworks show was very cool and we were able to do a bunch of the rides with minimal wait because of the late hours... oh, for those of you that don't know, during the late hours only people staying at Disney property can ride the rides. You have to show your room key before you get in line. Zachary loved the Crush show (Crush from Nemo) as well as the Test Track ride. This is a car demo ride that takes you outside and up to speeds of 65 miles per hour.

Saturday we went back to Epcot to visit all the different worlds. Surprisingly, Zachary loved looking at all the shops. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant and dinner at a Japanese restaurant. After dinner we went to the Candlelight Service held at the stage by the water. This is a Christmas presentation that starts with a Choir processional with candles. The music was beautiful and definitely put you in the Christmas spirit. After the show we headed back to take in a few more rides while everyone else was watching the fireworks.

Sunday we went to Downtown Disney to do some shopping and then to Disney Quest, which is an indoor amusement park. This turned out to be a perfect plan because it was raining that day. Several of the day's highlights included free classic arcade games, such as Qbert, Joust, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, etc. I'm not sure who enjoyed this more, me or Zach! The other big attraction was the roller coaster simulation. You got to use a computer to create your own roller coaster, then went into a simulator to ride it. It was a very cool experience.

Monday we headed back to Oklahoma City. Our arrival home was delayed slightly by problems at the lovely Chicago airport, but we arrived home safely and with all our luggage, so I won't complain too much. I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Walt Disneyworld

We had a blast over Thanksgiving. I promise I'll write more over the weekend, but for now here are the pictures.

Lights, Lights and more Lights

Another busy weekend has come and gone. Friday night I took Zach and a friend to see the OKC Thunder basketball game. It was fun but the Thunder did not fair very well. I heard on Saturday the coach got fired after that game. I can't really say I'm surprised, the team had a lot of fundamental errors like turnovers and missed lay ups. I guess only time will tell if the coaching change will help them.

Saturday we slept in some. I am so glad Zach will finally sleep in occasionally! He slept until 11am on Saturday! After lunch I went over to Orin's to help him hang Christmas lights. Can I just say, he has a LOT of peaks on his roof. Here I am hanging lights on one of them!

Between Orin, Noel and I we got lights hung and it looked pretty good if I say so myself. After we finished we watched the OU/Texas Tech game, which turned out to not be much of a game, but it was nice to hang out with everyone.

Zach wound up spending the night with Seth, so Wendy and I spent Sunday watching some TV and doing laundry to get ready for our trip on Wednesday. When Orin brought Zach home he helped me hang a fan in the office and pull down all our decorations for Christmas from the attic. I'm not sure when we are going to decorate, but at least they are down and ready to go.

Only one more working day till vacation!

Random Thoughts

Only seven days until we leave for Disneyworld! We decided to do something different for Thanksgiving this year, so we are going to about five days in Florida. We are having Thanksgiving dinner in Cinderella's castle, which should be exciting. We were assured that it wouldn't be too girly for Zach!

Sunday went by very quickly. Wendy fly out to DC on an early flight. She has to be there for client meetings this week. After that, Zach and I went to the gym. He ran 2 miles and was super proud of himself. I'm hoping to take him 2-3 times a week. He has been asking to go with me for a few weeks and I decide it would be fun for both of us and a good habit for him to start. Plus it will prepare him for basketball season when it starts the first week of December.

Sunday evening Orin invited us over for dinner and to watch the Redskins game. Unfortunately the game didn't turn out the way I wanted, but it was nice to spend time with him. No major changes with Brad. He is out of ICU and opening his eyes, but not responding to any commands or following anythings with his eyes. Our prayers still go out to all of them.

Monday night was puppy school week 6. Man, I have to tell you, I love Emma, but I had forgotten how much work a puppy was. She gets so excited when we go to school. I know she is learning and getting better but is it hard to see on a week where she A) chewed up the power cord for our personal laptop and B) destroyed my slippers. Two more weeks left. We are working on sit, down, stay and come. They have a graduation test and my biggest fear is she will flunk out! LOL The instructor tells me she is a really smart dog and just needs to get past the puppy stage some to be calmer. So I keep telling myself that over and over and over!

I will close with this item for you to contemplate. Why can't the manufacturers of shower curtains and shower rings get together with the hot dog and bun manufacturers? When you buy a shower curtain, liner or rings, there are always the same number. You are have too many rings or not enough holes in the curtain. So why is it there are never the same number of hot dogs and buns in each package?? Something to think about. Hope everyone is doing good.

Saturday

I think we packed just about everything we could into our day Saturday. We started the day by finishing up the last load of laundry. After that, we were off to the races. Our day started at Build a Bear. Here is what I want to know, why couldn't I have come up with the idea of having people pay to stuff and dress a stuffed animal?? We had a good time, Zach got a husky puppy, Wendy got a Christmas moose and I got a floppy puppy. As we checked out I remembered why we seldom go to that store!

After that we picked up Zach's best friend Nathan and headed to the movies. Wendy had gotten a bonus at work a couple months ago and used some of it to buy an AMC gift card, so the movie and snacks only cost us $10! I guess that partially makes up for the trip to Build a Bear! We saw Madagascar 2 and it was pretty cute.

Next stop was the house for linner (lunch and dinner). We tried out some new fajita pans we had gotten for our birthdays. They worked great and the fajitas were yummy. We tried some whole wheat tortillas this time and they were pretty good too. As soon as the dishes were in the dishwasher we headed out to the church we have been going to for a fundraiser auction. I had donated a picture and was curious to see how much it raised, plus we just wanted to see if we could find some bargains. I think my picture went for about $20, which isn't too bad I guess. Wendy won a $25 Olive Garden gift card in the raffle and she won a game that she bid on for $25. So all in all, we were only spent $5 for the game if you count the gift card she won. The auction was fun and it looked like the church raised a lot of money for some renovations they want to do. Here is the picture I donated. I had it framed in a dark wood from with a white mat.

After the auction we wrapped up our evening with a trip to the roller skating rink. I'm not quite as nimble on my feet as I used to be, but we still had a good time. Plus, it wore Nathan and Zach out some, so that is always a bonus! Whew, I'm tired just writing about all that again.... I think I'll go take a nap before the Redskins game tonight!

Weekend!

Man, I am glad its the weekend. For some reason this week seemed to drag on and on at work. I did get some exciting news this week... I'm going to be a great aunt again! Aaron and Amanda are going to have a baby. I'm so excited for them, they will be great parents.

Last night was fun, we went over to Noel and Dollie's house to see India. She is very tiny. She weighs almost the same as Zach did when we brought him home from the hospital, but its hard to remember him being that small. I told him he used to be that little but I don't think he believed me.

Zach's school had pajama day today. I think he looked very cute!

Today I did a little more Christmas shopping. I think we only lack one or two more things for Zach and we will be done. Almost everything is sitting wrapped in the garage. WOOHOO! After fighting the mall crowds last year I promised myself I wasn't going to wait to the last minute this year. Having Friday's off has helped alot. I think I will have everyone finished by the first week of December. Yes!

No other big plans for the weekend. Wendy has to fly out to DC on the noon flight Sunday. The Redskins play the Cowboys Sunday night, so I will definately be watching that one! Go Skins!

Here is the latest picture of Emma. She is getting so big! And on that note, I'm off to finish some stuff up around the house before Wendy gets home. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Tired

I'm not sure exactly why I feel so tired this evening. I mean, after all I was off today. I did hit the gym early this morning because I knew I had alot I wanted to accomplish today. After the gym, Zach and I went to Daylight for breakfast (This is the exact reason why I go to the gym!). After he headed out for school I watched an episode of Dexter on DVD. I'm still on season one and trying to decide if I like it or not. It is definitely interesting.

I did some Christmas shopping today and found some really good deals on some clothes for me at Eddie Bauer. My goal is to be finished Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving... We will see how that goes. Unfortunately past experience has demonstrated that when I start Christmas shopping this early I just wind up buying more presents!

After Zach got out of school I took him and a friend over to play some basketball. Zach decided he wanted to try playing basketball at the Y this year, so I signed him up today. Practice starts the first week of December. After basketball and trying to clean up my office a little. I'm pretty sure a small tornado ran through there this week. I went the easy route for dinner and picked up a Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner. If you have one in your area I highly recommend it!

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Election Day

Well, I got out today and voiced my opinion by voting. Wendy had to vote on Saturday because of a work trip and she waited in line for almost three hours. I voted around 9am today and there was no line at all. I was glad but very surprised.

This evening Zach had his fall orchestra concert. I'm not sure who planned to have this on election night but what are you gonna do. Here is a picture of him in his fancy duds.

It was fun. The 5th and 6th graders played together, then 7th and 8th, then the high school. At the end the entire group played together. I am very impressed with the program they have. Hopefully Zach will stay in orchestra until he gets to high school. I think it would be really cool for him. I took some video at the concert, but feeling too tired to deal with it tonight. I'll try to post it in the next day or two. Now I'm trying to pick up the house some and watching the election results. It will be an interesting few days no matter what the results.

Busy weekend,busy night

I swear, the weekends go by faster and faster. Halloween was spent trick or treating for a bit with Zach. He then went on with some friends and I went back to the house to help Wendy hand out candy. All in all it was a successful night, here is a picture of the kids in their costumes.

Saturday was spent mainly running errand. Wendy is out of town this week, so she had to vote on Saturday. She spent about 3 hours standing in line, but she finally got to vote. Sunday we went to church, then out to lunch at Spaghetti Warehouse. After that we went to the Kids Philharmonic concert downtown at the Civic Center. It was one of the kids concert series and the theme was At the Circus. I love how they do these concerts, it is a great chance for kids to learn about different instruments and music. After that we came home, I played some Gameboy with Zach then we watched some football. Zach was too cool to take a picture with the penguin at the show, so Wendy and I decided to.

Tonight Zach had rehearsal for his first orchestra concert tomorrow. Seriously, who schedules an orchestra concert on election day?? Immediately after the rehearsal I had to take Emma to puppy school at Petsmart. Then, of course back home to watch the Redskins play. Even though it didn't turn out like I wanted, we are still having a good season.

Now it is about time to put the puppy in bed and prepare for tomorrow. Don't forget to get out and vote.

Colors of Fall

Since I was off today I decided to get out and enjoy some of the fantasitc fall weather as I was running errands. I grabbed my camera and drove through some of the neighborhoods around town to take some pictures. Nothing like a great day, the windows down and the radio on some classic rock. Fall has to be one of the most beautiful times of the year when the trees start changing colors. Hope you enjoy the pictures! Oh, and Happy Halloween!

A Heavy Heart

I write this post with an extremely heavy heart. Brad, the brother of our close friend Orin was in a serious car accident on Sunday. He hasn't regained conciousness yet, so the entire Amos family could use everyone's thoughts and prayers. Brad, Orin, Jeni... we are all thinking about you and love you.

Man, I'm a Slacker!

That was my first thought when I signed in to blog tonight. I can't believe it has been almost three weeks since I have written. I guess life got away from me. I know I told myself a bunch of times that I should sign in and write, but obviously I never did. I guess I'll spend some time getting everyone caught up on the last few weeks.

Wendy had surgery to remove her gall bladder October 16th. After a series of tests they determined this was what was causing her stomach pains because it was not functioning properly. Surgery went well and she spent a week at home recuperating. She went back to work last Wednesday and is feeling almost a 100% now.

Zachary got his cast off October 22nd. I have to tell you, I underestimated just exactly how badly his arm was going to stink once he got it off. It was RANK!! They took one last x-ray and said it had healed fine, so he is back to normal. Looks like the next adventure for him will be basketball. He wants to try playing at the Y this year, so that will start around the first week of December.

Zach survived his first nine weeks of middle school. His new elective this nine weeks is LEAP, which is his gifted class. He really enjoyed it in 4th and 5th grade, so I'm hoping this class will be just as fun for him. His first orchestra concert is Election Day, so that should be fun. They have to wear white shirts, black slacks and a black bow tie, so he should look very handsome. I'll be sure to take a picture for all of you to see.

Things for me have been going pretty good. I love working the four tens. Having Fridays to run errands, sleep in a little or just be lazy have been really nice. Work is pretty busy. All the Project Managers are trying to finish their initiatives so they can include them as accomplishments for 2008, so lots of training initiatives are scheduled to be finished before the end of the year. That's fine by me, time goes by faster when I am busy and I just look at it as job security.

Emma is getting bigger by the day. We have our third class of beginner dog training tomorrow night. So far we have learned sit, lay down and leave it. Much like a regular kid, some days she does really good with these and other days not so much.

Saturday was pretty much a lazy day. We slept in, had a big breakfast, and then I had baseball practice from 12-2. Zach had some issues doing his chores, so he spent the rest of the day in his room and Wendy and I watched a couple movies. First one was 27 Dresses. Funniest line in the movie? "Love is patient, love is kind, love slowly makes you lose your mind." LOL Oh man, I laughed so hard. Wendy didn't think it was quite as funny as me. Second movie, Feast of Love. Interesting movie with another really funny line. "The Greek gods created love. Then they created laughter so they could stand it." HEHE Again, I thought it was funnier than Wendy did.

Today we went to church then to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Redskins game since it wasn't on cable here. You know your a true fan when you switch into your football gear in the car after church! It was fun to watch the game and a bonus that we won.

The plan was to carve pumpkins tonight, but Zach wasn't feeling well, so he went to bed early and we finished up the weekend with one more movie, Stop Lose. A very thought provoking movie, but definitely not too many funny lines. I would recommend it though.

Now I am getting ready to call it a day. I hurt my calf last week, so Friday was my first day back to the gym in a week. I'm going to get back into the regular routine tomorrow, so the alarm will be going off at 445am. I hope everyone is doing good. Have a great week and I'll do my best not to go another three weeks before I post again.

Last, but certainly not least, congratulations to Danny and Althea on the birth of their daughter Sierra. I can't wait to see you guys in December. Give Jaysen and Sierra a hug for me. Good night everyone, hope you like the new pics.

Lordy!

Last weekend was the Spirit of Survival race in Lawton, Oklahoma. We decided to make a weekend out of it, so we drove down Saturday morning, had lunch at Meers Restaurant, and then drove to the Wildlife Refuge to do some hiking. You would think in a wildlife refuge hiking trails would be clearly marked and animals would be all over the place. Unfortunately neither of these were true! We finally stopped at the Visitor's Center and got directions to a trail. It was a nice hike, but there weren't any animals wilder than a duck. On the way out we did see some Texas Longhorns, so we took some pictures of those to help satisfy the need to see animals. Oh and Wendy bought a stuffed buffalo since she didn't see a real one.

After our fun in the "wild" we checked into our hotel and meet my brother by another mother Noel, his wife Dollie, Dan and his family for dinner. Noel and Dan were doing the run with me Sunday morning. After dinner we headed back to the hotel. Wendy and I decided to watch a movie. It was Mama Mia. And since I have nothing nice to say about it I'm not going to say anything at all.

Sunday morning can way too early. I met the guys downstairs at 530am so we could catch the 6am bus over to the race starting point. Our race started at 810am, but we weren't sure how long it would take us to get our registration packets so we figured better early than late. As it turns out, we could have taken the 7am bus and still had plenty of time, but we just hung out in the bleachers and chatted until it was time for our 10K.

On the website, they say that this is the hardest 10K in the world or something close to that. I didn't give it much thought, but now I completely agree! There was a lot of elevation changes (ie running uphill!) and at one point about 4 miles into the run it climbs 400 feet in 1/2 a mile. LORDY! It kept winding around corners and you would think it was about over, just to round another curve and see it still kept going up. Despite this, I finished in 65 minutes, about 5 minutes faster than the 10K I ran in April. I'm pretty happy with that considering that this course was much harder.

After the race we headed out of Lawton for a stop in Chickasha to go to a corn field maze. It was fun. One of the mazes was really hard and we had to call for a clue to get out, but we made it. After the mazes Zach got to shoot some pumpkins and corn cobs out of a huge air gun. Needless to say, that was a big hit!

Frustrations

Wow, I'm getting to be almost as big of a slacker as Patrick when it comes to posting. I'll see if I can get everyone caught up to where our lives are now.

When I posted last Zach had fallen out of a tree and had a small fracture on his right arm... according to the Urgent Care doctor. He told me to put the splint on it for 2-3 days and then have him start squeezing a tennis ball to strengthen his arm back up. I just wasn't comfortable with this response, so I took Zach to the base doctor on Friday for a second opinion.

Turns out I was right. Zach has a broken wrist. They couldn't put him in a cast that day because his arm was still too swollen, so they put him in a plaster splint and told us to come back in a week. So he now has a red short arm cast and we go back on October 22nd for more x-rays and to hopefully get the cast off. It stinks that he wasn't able to finish up the baseball season, but he has been working as bat boy at the games.

Work had some changes as well. They rolled out flexible work schedule options about two week ago that included several options. First, you could work from home two days a week. This obviously wasn't an option for me since I work from home all the time. Second, you could work 9 hour days and have every other Friday off. The last option was working four 10 hour days and taking every Monday or Friday off. I decided to try the four tens schedule, and this was my first week with this schedule. It was nice having today off to run some errands and relax a little. I guess time will tell if the 10 hour days get to be old.

On to my frustrating news. Thursday morning when I got up to go to the gym I discovered that my car had been broken into. They busted my dash and took the radio.

So I called the cops, filed a police report, went to the gym, came home and called the insurance company. The damage is covered, after my $500 deductible. I got an estimate to fix the dash today, it will cost $250. They said they will replace the radio with an equivalent model. Another company does this but I have to wait until the dash is replaced before I can do that. I take the truck in on Tuesday to fix the dash, so hopefully the radio will be taken care of soon after that. I talked to some neighbors and our house wasn't the only one that got hit. The neighbor at the end of the block lost a radio and had some other vandalism.

This had to be one of the most frustrating things I have experienced in a long time. The fact that someone would go house to house looking to steal things is unimaginable to me. I guess I will try to count my blessings that they didn't try to come into the house and that no one was hurt.

On a much more pleasant note, we are heading for a weekend trip tomorrow. We are driving down to Lawton, Oklahoma to spend the day seeing some sites. Then on Sunday I am running in the Spirit of Survival 10K with Noel. It should be a good time. The muscles in my right leg have been a little sore this week, so I hope I don't have any problems. I would love to finish in 60 minutes or under, but who knows. Sounds like there are a lot of elevation changes so that might be tough.

Ok, you are all caught up! Hope everyone has a great weekend. Go Redskins!

Humpty Dumpty

I decided that Zach and I needed to get out and enjoy the weather today. It has been beautiful this week. So after work we packed up our kites, some bread for the ducks and geese and headed out to the park. It turns out that it wasn't windy enough for the kites, so we feed the animals and then played on the playground a little. After that I decided to try the kites one more time and Zach was playing on the playground some more. As I walked back over Zach had decided to climb one of the trees in the park.

About three hours later.....

The official diagnosis is a fractured wrist. A week or so in the splint and follow up with the doctor on Monday. He also has some road rash on his leg, a jammed big toe and a scratch right above one of his eyes. So much for enjoying the nice weather! :-)

Hope everyone is doing great. I'll write more another night.

New Mexico Tradition and Other Ramblings

Holy cow, has it really been like 2 weeks since I posted?! Man, I guess time flys. Things have been busy since we got back from China. Zach started middle school, Wendy and I had to go back to the real world of work and fall baseball started. Tired yet? Yeah, me too which is probably a lame excuse for not posted, but that's all I got.

Labor Day weekend we made our yearly trip to Albuquerque. You see, the Bernalillo Wine Festival is always over Labor Day weekend. Wendy has gone every year for like the last 11 years or something ridiculous like that. So we loaded up the car and headed out after Zach got out of school on Friday. We stayed with her best friend Kim and had a really good weekend. We spent some time hanging out with old friends and some time doing things together. Patrick and I played 9 holes of golf Sunday morning before we headed to the wine festival. We forgot to pick up a score card, but I'm pretty sure we both played par golf, right Patrick? :-) Here is a picture of Zach playing in Kim's tree.

Wendy was very nervous because Sunday was pretty cloudy and she didn't want the day at the fest to get rained out. It rained pretty hard once for about five minutes while we were there, but the rest of the day was great. Not too hot and a nice day to spend outside. I also ran into a friend I used to work with at AOL in Albuquerque. It was nice to visit with Chris for a few minutes and catch up.

After we went to Sadie's to have some good Mexican food for dinner. The Labor Day weekend also included trips to Dion's for pizza and salad and Ragin' Shrimp for ..... Ragin' Shrimp type dishes! Monday morning we headed back home to prepare for the week. Before we left we stopped at Smith's and bought some fresh green chile to roast when we got home. I have mastered the art of roasting green chile on the grill.

We had our first baseball game on Tuesday 9/2 and let's just say it wasn't the best night and leave it at that. We have had two games since then and the Bad Boyz are 1-2 but the other two games were much better than the first.

Wendy left Sunday to go to San Antonio for two weeks. She was going to try to see Leslie over the weekend, but the latest hurricane is supposed to hit that area over the weekend, so I'm not sure that is going to work out. She told me today that she was going to hide out in the hotel room all weekend, sleeping and catching up on some work. Zach wants to have a sleepover Saturday night, so I'm pretty sure I'm getting the worse end of that deal! lol Actually I might take the boys to a Redhawks baseball game on Saturday. That would be fun for all of us.

Here are a couple new picture of Emma. I'll try not to go so long between posts next time!

Thursday - Beach Volleyball and Bye Bye Beijing

Thursday morning started with women's beach volleyball. Larry picked us these tickets for us and it was a great way to finish out our trip. We were very lucky and one of the USA teams just happened to be playing in the first match. It turned out to be the gold medal winning team of Walsh and May. It goes without saying that they won their match since they have now won something like 120 matches in a row or something ridiculous like that. The weather was gorgeous and it was very relaxing watching volleyball that morning. We also saw one of the Chinese teams play South Africa. No, it wasn't the same Chinese team that the USA played in the gold medal round. After watching two matches it was time to head back to the apartment for some lunch and to get ready to head to the airport.

When we planned our trip, I thought 8 days would be plenty of time to do the things we wanted to do. It wasn't even close. The Olympic events were great and we stayed busy the entire time we were there, but as we were packing I kept finding myself wishing for more time. Hopefully we will be able to make one more trip to China before Larry leaves. We want to go back and see all the non Olympic things Beijing has to offer.

Lauren, another couple freaky pictures for you. The first one shows what Larry affectionately called this the "Beijing Roll". Apparently anytime a man gets hot he just rolls up his shirt to cool off. If he gets really hot he will start rolling up the legs of his pants too.

Second freaky picture doesn't really need any explanation.

Wednesday - Baseball and BONUS!

Baseball was probably our least eventful event. The game was at the "B" stadium, which was not as nice of a venue and the game was a "B" game. It was Chinese Taipei vs Netherlands, so the teams were not necessarily anyone we cared about. And the game was a blow out with Chinese Taipei rolling over the Netherlands. On top of that it was hot out. Like... oven hot plus 90% humidity. And no, I'm not exaggerating. But we stayed and cheered with some Netherlands fans and enjoyed the atmosphere. The most exciting / nerve racking event of the morning was when Larry lost his work cell phone. Fortunately he found it at the security check point on the way out.

The second half of the day was much more exciting. Larry's boss had two tickets to the Women's basketball game that he wasn't going to use, so Wendy and I got to go see basketball while Larry and Zach had a boys night out. This was made even cooler by the fact that one of the basketball games was a USA game!

The first game was Australia vs. South Korea. Australia won and then Wendy got an autograph from Erin Phillips when the players came into the stands to watch the USA game. The USA played Mali. It started out pretty close but then turned into a blow out. Wendy had the entire section looking at her with her loud yelling and falling down the stairs (Don't worry, she was ok and some nice Chinese man helped her up).

The saddest thing of the night was when three basketball players from the USA men's team got louder cheers than the USA women who were playing. Pretty ridiculous considering the women were playing a fantastic game. The games ended about 1am and then we took the subway back to the apartment to start getting ready for our trip home.

Tuesday - Go USA or Kung Fu Fighting!

Ok, I'm still suffering from some jet lag and I have been up since 430am. I have been to Wal-Mart to do the weekly grocery shopping, fed and walked the puppy, and now I am sitting on the couch watching some Olympics, so I decided to catch up on some of my posts while I wait for everyone else in the house to wake up.
Tuesday August 12th started out with softball. One great thing about the Olympic tickets is that most of the tickets include more than one game. With the softball tickets we got two games. The first game was Canada vs. Chinese Taipei. Canada won this match 6-1. The second game was the one we were really excited for, USA vs. Venezuala. Considering when you buy the tickets you are just buying for a time slot and you don't know the teams you will get, we felt very fortunate to get to watch a USA game.
Jenny Finch was pitching and the USA team won by run rule at the end of the 5th, 11-0.. Larry bought us flags and scarfs at the embassy, so we were all decked out to support our women!

Lauren, here is one of the freaks that I was able to capture for you while I was gone. Who knew we would travel all the way to China to see the token Redneck.

It was exciting watching the game. These women are truly in a league of their own and will hopefully continue down the road to gold. As of this morning, they are still undefeated in preliminary games. Pretty amazing considering the round robin tournament requires them to play 7 games in 7 days. Go USA!

After an exciting day of softball we were off to an evening Kung Fu show that Larry booked for us. It was cool to watch, although it wasn't necessarily what we were expecting. It was less Kung Fu fighting and more artistic dancing / story telling. It was still pretty amazing to watch some of the fighting and dance moves the performers were able to do.

We finished the evening with a stop at Tian'amen Square to look at the lights. I still can't get over how amazing this area is considering not very long ago it was nothing more than a slab of concrete.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention that became even more obviously while we were looking at the lights. We are all celebrities in China! Apparently people who looked like Wendy, Zach and I are fairly uncommon in China (who knew!) and we got asked to take pictures with perfect strangers all the time. Zach thought this was very weird but started to get used to it by the end of the trip. Here are some examples of this phenomenon.

I'll try to catch up with a post each day until I have summarized the entire trip. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Pictures

Ok, here are all the pictures. You can view here by looking at the slideshows, click on an individual slide show to control the speed, or click on this link to view at your leisure.

Picasa Albums

Yes, there are a ton of pictures. What can I say, I'm trigger happy! :-)

Sightseeing



Olympic Boxing



Olympic Soccer



Olympic Softball - Canada



Olympic Softball - USA



Baseball



Basketball



Volleyball



Temple of Heaven



Forbidden City



Tian'amen Square



Great Wall



Misc.

Just one more day....

We are getting ready to have lunch and head to the airport,and all I can think is I wish we had just one more day here. Of course, if we had one more day I'd probably want another! We have had a fabulous time. I know I haven't posted many pictures, but I promise to get them up this weekend after we get home.

Larry, I can't thank you enough for everything you did to help make this a wonderful trip. Your planning and itenarary for us was wonderful. Hopefully we will be able to come again so we can see the non Olympic sites that we missed this time.

Overwhelmed

I think that best describes how all of us felt by the time we returned to Beijing this afternoon. It was quite the experience going to another city without Larry. He did a fabulous job arranging things for us. He hired a tour guide who was to meet us at the train station, take us to see the local sites, take us to the hotel, and then to the soccer match. Unfortunately when we got off the train the tour guide wasn't there. A few minutes of panic and a phone call to Larry later she found us and we were off on our adventure.

Lunch was.... an experience! The name of the restaurant was Golden Hans. Imagine Chinese people dressed up in German attire serving Chinese food from a buffet and roasted meat on a stick. Funny huh? Then apparently a beer comes with your meal, no matter how old you are because they brought three to our table. In case you are worried we didn't let Zach drink his.

Next we were off to the Great Wall. We got to see two different locations of the wall, one of which goes right to the water. It was amazing to see something that you have always heard about and has such a historical significance.



After going to the hotel long enough to freshen up a bit we were off to the soccer stadium! Our tickets turned out to be good for two games! The first was Camaroon vs. Honduras and the second was Italy vs. South Korea. Both games were really good, but the second one was more exciting because many South Koreans had traveled to watch their team play, so the atmosphere in the stadium was very exciting. Unfortunately for all of them, Italy won the match.

Our day today started with a traditional Chinese breakfast. I have to say, I am so proud of Zach and his willingness to try things since we have been here. Unfortunately most of the choices were more exotic that we were up for this morning, so we bought potato chips and soda at the train station. After the train ride home we went back to Tian'amen Square to take pictures of all the fantastic things they put in for the Olympics.



These creations are even more amazing when you consider this area was nothing but a slab of concert only three weeks ago.

Dinner tonight was the Chinese version of the Melting Pot. Althea, unfortunately they didn't have the chocolate dessert, but it was still pretty good. Now I am getting ready to head off to bed because we have softball tomorrow and if we are reading the schedule right, we get to see the USA team play! Larry bought us all flags and scarfs to show our support! Keep your fingers crossed for the USA softball team! I'll try to post more tomorrow.

Boxing!

So today was our first Olympic event. We went to the preliminary rounds of middle weight (six bouts) and light heavy weight class (seven bouts). It was so cool going into the Workers Indoor Stadium, the venue where the event wss held. They have hundreds of local citizens that have volunteered to work at the events and they are very well organized. This stadium is not new, but they did renovations on it to prepare for the games. It was exciting to see all the people and experience the atmosphere.

We got to see one USA boxer in the middle weight so that was awesome. He won his fight, so that was even better. We also got to see a Chinese fighter in the light heavy weight and it was very cool seeing the locals cheer for one of their athletes.

On the way to the games we stopped at a bank and Zach exchanged some money because he wanted to see what that was like. It was very cute watching him and it was nice to have Larry there to help us. All the locals are very intrigued that Larry speaks Chinese so well.

Souveniers at the events are very resonabily priced. I got a visor today for about eight dollars. Tomorrow we are heading to our soccer match, so I won't be able to post again until we return to Beijing on Monday. Hope all of you have a great weekend!

What day is it?

We have arrived safely in Beijing! Our trip went as smoothly as it could have possibly gone with all our flights on time and Larry waiting for us at the airport. We spent our first evening walking around some of the city close to where Larry lives. It was very interesting to see some of the more diverse areas. Katherine, I found a 7-11, but they don't sell slurpees. We had dinner at a local restaurant, dining on Beijing Duck and Spicy chicken. It was very good. Dinner for all four of us, plus beers for Wendy and Larry ran about $30, which Larry said was expensive because of the duck.

Friday morning we woke up early and went to Tian'anmen Square to watch them raise the flag, but we missed it by about 5 minutes. I think that I might try to get up early again tomorrow to watch. After that we took the subway to the Temple of Heaven. This is a beautiful park in the city that many local people go to exercise and basically just hang out. We got to play a game with some of the locals which was fun. Larry headed off to work and we finished wandering the park on our own.

After the Temple of Heaven we took the subway back to the Forbidden City. I had no idea how hung of an area this was. There are bunches and bunches of beautiful buildings to tour through. Towards the end there was a garden that you could relax in. While inside this area it was hard to believe that you are in the middle of a city with 14 million people. Actually, probably many more than that right now with the Olympics going on!

Leaving this area turned out to be a challenge because the police had several areas of the street blocked off, so we couldn't just walk back to our subway. We took a city bus past one blocked area, but then ran into another one. At that point we decided to take a cab back to the apartment. Thankfully Larry had given us instructions to tell the cab driver how to get us home!

Now we are back at the apartment, getting ready to have a snack, take a swim in the pool and prepare for an evening of opening ceremony events! Tomorrow is our first Olympic event! We are going to the boxing match at 1300.

Leave me a comment if you have any questions you want answered from here in the wonderful city of Beijing.

Hectic

That pretty much sums up the last two weeks. I know it has been forever since I posted. Between work, home and a quick trip to Kansas time has flown by. I'll try to catch you up with the Cliff Notes version.

Two weekends ago (July 16th) we had our last baseball game. Coaching was a blast, but I'm really glad its over for a few weeks. The tournament didn't go very well, which is to say we lost all four games, but hopefully the fall season will go better. Zach's Grandma and Grandpa came to watch his game, then he went home with them after the game. This was a nice break for us and we took advantage of it by going to see Wanted and then had a date night. It turned out to be a really nice night out. We went dancing at a local club and a bunch of our friends wound up coming too, which was a nice suprise.

Last weekend Zach and I drove to Kansas for my high school reunion and to see my Mom. The reunion was.... I don't know really how to explain it. There were a few people there that I enjoyed catching up with, but I kinda of felt like a third wheel. I'm not the best person as far as initiating conversation and going up to people, so I felt a little uncomfortable and out of place. I realize that I spent a lot of time hiding behind a camera in high school and while it got me through that time, it didn't help me talk to anyone over the weekend.

Crap... I have to run to the end of season baseball pool party. I'll finish this thought later.

Golf!

Yes I actually went out and played this weekend! Despite a misty morning Orin and I decided to brave the course in El Reno. As it turned out it was a fabulous decision. It didn't actually rain but stayed cloudy so it was nice and cool for the entire 18 holes. On top of fabulous weather, I played my best game ever! I had five pars and scored a 99, which is the first time I broke 100. Orin didn't have his best game ever, but he played really well too. I won't post his score cause it would just embarass me since he is so much better! :-)

Our second fund raiser at Sonic netted about $600 again. I think we should have enough money for new uniforms in the spring now. We play in the post season tournament this week so that should be fun. After that baseball is over until September when the fall season starts. As much as I have enjoyed helping coach, I am ready for it to be over and I'm pretty sure Zach feels the same.

As promised before, here is the link for Larry's blog. He has some pictures and an interesting story on a military guy who suffered a broken back when he feel from the Great Wall, so go check it out.

Weekend Summary

Ok, so back to the rest of the weekend. After blowing stuff up Friday night we had to head out to Sonic early Saturday morning for a baseball fund raiser. Apparently this Sonic allows youth organizations to car hop on Saturdays for tips. So they get free labor and we get money for uniforms. We worked a two hour shift and all in all it wasn't too painful. We raised $600 and apparently the rest of the team thought it was much better than car washes because we are doing it again this Saturday. Zach thought that it was good training for him because then when he was old enough to work at Sonic they wouldn't have to teach him how to do it, he would already know.

After a quick afternoon nap we headed out for a night on the town. We picked up Zach's friend Seth and headed downtown for dinner and a show. We ate at Spaghetti Warehouse and then walked to the Myriad Gardens for Shakespeare in the Park. The show was The Three Musketeers and I have to say, for a community theater it was really good. Zach thought the part where two girls were fighting was really funny ("Now thats a girl fight!) and he said the rest was pretty good except for all the kissing.

Seth spent the night with us and we wrapped up the weekend on Sunday with a trip to the water park. All in all, a great weekend, it just went too fast. Hopefully all of you had a safe holiday weekend.

Cherish

Today has been an extremely rough day for Wendy. One of her friends that she grew up with passed away this morning. She had been suffering seizures for several years due to a brain injury and had a seizure last night that she never recovered from. This is one of those moments that you reflect on everything you have in your life and the things that are truly important. All of the sudden those dirty dishes in the sink don't seem so important when Zach wants to play pokemon or if it is family game night. I hope everyone who reads this takes a moment to contact an old friend or family member that you haven't spoken to in awhile just to let them know you are thinking about them. I know I'm not the best at calling but to all my family and friends, please know that you are in my thoughts each and every day and I love all of you. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Angela's family on this extremely difficult day.

Holiday Weekend

I have to say, whoever came up with the idea of blowing stuff up in order to celebrate our Independence Day was a genius! I love shooting off fireworks. When I was growing up we lived outside the city limits, so we got to do it right at our house every year. Since I moved away from home I haven't really had that chance until last year. Orin lives in Mustang, the only place in the metro area that allows you to shoot off fireworks. Orin moved, but still lives almost in Mustang, so he decided we could shoot them off at his house again this year. It was so much fun. We blasted firecrackers, tanks, chickens that poop colored sparks, roman candles, Excalibur (a series of big time fireworks) and a ton of other stuff. All I have to say is I can't wait to do it again next year!

I'll have to write about the rest of the weekend later. Its been kinda of a rough evening and I'm afraid I would just start complaining. Besides, Wendy leaves for two weeks tomorrow morning, so I want to go hang with her. Enjoy the new pics. See ya.

New Addition

Ok, so for those of you that don't already know, as of today we have a new four legged creature at our house. Her name is Emma Kate and she is pretty darn cute! She is a golden retriever from my niece's female. So far things are going good, but I will keep you posted on potty training and the likes.

We had our last regular season baseball game on Saturday. We played the Heat, the first place team in our division and we won. It was nice to finish the regular season with a win. We finished second place in our division, which is pretty good considering last year I think we finished in last place.

Sunday we went bowling. I think I was finally able to convince Zach he doesn't need the bumpers since he beat Wendy two of the three games we bowled.

If you like to read then I highly suggest all of Jon Krakauer's books (Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, Under the Banner of Heaven and Eiger Dreams). Under the Banner of heaven is a historical look at the history of Mormonism and was extremely interesting to me. Into the Wild was also turned into a movie, but I recommend you read the book first.

I am looking forward to the 4th. We are going to Orin's for a BBQ and to shoot fireworks. We went over there last year and had a great time. I think our display was the best in the neighborhood and we didn't even have to take anyone to the ER! Other weekend plans include a trip to the movie theater to see Wall E, car hopping at Sonic for two hours on Saturday to raise money for baseball uniforms, and potentially some rock climbing. I let you know how all that works out. :-)

Ok, I think that is all I have for now. Larry has started a blog which includes pictures from China, so if he doesn't mind I'll post his link up next time and you can check it out. See ya!

Busy Weekend

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the weekend. Friday night we met some friends out for a bit. Saturday we had a car wash for the Bad Boyz. It went from 8am-3pm and we raised almost 600, so that was pretty good. Talk about worn out by the time we finished. The three of us came home and took a nap to recover. Upon arriving at our house we discovered that our air conditioner stopped working. It was about 85 in the house with no relief in site. The soonest we could get someone out to look at it was today, so we took cold showers and pulled out every fan we owned to try to endure it as best possible. Almost 400 dollars later we got it fixed today so at least the house is starting to cool off. Saturday evening it was time for Feather's birthday celebration. Feather, its been too damn long my friend. We need to get together again soon. I hope your 30th birthday today was fabulous. Sunday we had baseball practice from 1-330 and it was frickin hot. Luckily we had a swim party after practice so it was nice to jump in the water.

We went and saw Mo, John and Joseph this week. Mo, sorry it took us so long to come see you. I'm glad that you are all doing so great and Joseph is just as cute as can be.

Started a new book this week. I am reading Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. It is very different than the other two books of his that I have read but still interesting. Trying to read for at least 30 minutes a day so I don't just get sucked into the boob tube after work.

Wednesday night's baseball game was...... not good. They sort of looked like the Bad News Bears.... Couldn't field the ball, couldn't make good throws, couldn't get a hit. I guess we all have bad days and hopefully this will be the last one for the team this season. They looked much better at practice on Sunday, so I'm hoping that translates into a better game Tuesday night.

Oh! I finally opened the GPS this week. I have to say it is pretty cool. We couldn't decide where to go to dinner Saturday night, so we just pulled up the GPS and started looking at the restaurants. I'm a little bummed that I spent money for it and now the new iPhone has a GPS built in, but oh well. I would like to get the iPhone when it comes out July 11 though! (Not that I'm sitting around counting the days until it comes out or anything.) Sure would be nice to have a fancy new phone to play with on the way to China. :-)

Ok, since we didn't have air conditioning the last two nights I slept like crap, so I am off to bed soon to enjoy the cool air. Oh, and leave more comments! Hope you are all doing great.

One down, three to go

Yep, only three games left in the baseball season. We played last night and it was one of those games that is just hard on your heart. We played ok in the first and second, not good at all in the third, but then we came back and scored seven runs in the fourth to win the game. If we are able to win the last three games I think we will take first in our division. We play again on Wednesday night and need to play better than we did last night to win. Think happy baseball thoughts for us!

Once again our weekend was fabulous. My great nephew Ryan (I think that is technically what he is... my niece's son... this is the kind of confusion you have when you come from a big family) came to spend the weekend with us. Zach and Ryan had a great time hanging out and playing. Friday night we went to watch the Redhawks play, Saturday we went to White Water Bay and then after a nap we went to see The Incredible Hulk. Sunday Wendy had to work, so I did laundry and read while the boys played. Really, couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

Ok, so if you like to read I highly recommend Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. He also wrote Into Thin Air about an actual Mt. Everest summit attempt. I would recommend this one too. Both books are non-fiction and kept me completely engaged the entire time I was reading. He has written two other books that I haven't had a chance to read, but I will keep you posted once I have.

For anyone that lives close, we are having a Bad Boyz car wash on Saturday at the corner of MacArthur and 39th, so come on by!

I guess I better get to work. Hope everyone has a great day.

What a weekend!

What a great weekend we had. It started off with breakfast at a new place Wendy wanted to try. I forget what the things were called, but it was basically a homemade pastry with your choice of fillings, either fruit or eggs, cheese and meat. It was yummy. After that Zach had a baseball game which they won 14-1. Almost all the boys had great hits and they looked really good on defense. Zach played second base one inning and threw a runner out at first. He also went 3-3 batting and had two RBIs. All in all a pretty great game. To make it even better Zach's Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Ronnie were able to come to the game from Wichita, so they got to see the fun too.

After the game we went to Irma's for lunch. They had possibly the best hamburgers ever. If you come to OKC to visit, we will take you there. The restaurant owns their own ranch and the cattle, branded No Name Beef are raised naturally. Yummy! Sharon and Ronnie had to take off after the game, so Wendy, Zach and I decided to take in a movie. We went and saw Kung Fu Panda. It was pretty funny and I would recommend going to see it. We finished up the day Saturday with a great game of Risk. For the record, I conquered the world!

Sunday Wendy had to fly to Orlando for work, so Zach and I were lazy for a bit in the morning. We had a short baseball practice in the afternoon and then we went to the water park to play. The weather was just right, not miserable hot but warm enough to not be cold in the water. Sunday evening we watched The Bee movie. It was cute, but I'm kinda glad we didn't spend the money to see it at the theater.

We contiued our run of fun tonight by attending a Redhawks (Triple A) baseball game. They won and even better than that Zach caught a foul ball. Man.. I'm tired just thinking about all that. Gonna hit the sack, hope all of you have a fantastic weekend too.

Free with no Restrictions

My gripe of the day... Airlines.

This is the famous line the lady at the ticket counter gave me when I said I was interested in volunteering to give my seat up on an overbooked flight. The airline would compensate me with free ticket to anywhere within the United States except Alaska and Hawaii. I asked if there were any black out date and she quickly replied no. Perfect I thought! We had been contemplating a trip to Florida during Thanksgiving break and this free ticket would allow us to go ahead and book the trip since we had enough frequent flier miles for two tickets.

Tuesday afternoon I booked the frequent flier miles online and then called United to use the voucher. Only then did the restrictions become apparent. You see the ticket is only good for certain classes of tickets so what this means is if those classes of seats are sold you can't use the ticket. As luck would have it, there were no seats available in the needed class for the voucher. Frustrating would be an understatement. Luckily by making some small changes to our plans and staying an extra day we were able to use the voucher and book our trip. The only compromise was Wendy has to fly through Denver on the way to Florida while Zach and I fly through Chicago. We do land within 20 minutes of each other so I guess that's pretty minor for free tickets.

I know it has been forever since I posted. The last week seems like a complete blur. Zachary went with his dad for a week of vacation, so we took advantage of some adult time to go to the movies (Forgetting Sarah Marshall SUPER funny but pretty graphic!) and to go to the horse races at Remington Park. No, we didn't win big money but we had a good time. We also used the time to rearrange Zachary's room. We moved his old bed out and got him a cool new loft bed with a desk underneath it. This helps us maximize his space and gives him a full size bed instead of a twin. I included a picture for everyone to check out.

On a related note, Leslie, it was so nice to see you last weekend. I wish that we would have had more time to spend together. We really do want to come down and see you soon. We need to look at travel schedules and find a time to do that.

Ok, I'm outta here for now. Take care everyone.

Gadgets!

Ok, for those of you that don't know.... I'm a closet gadget freak. Ok, maybe not so much a closet gadget freak as an out and out gadget freak, but who is keeping track. Given that, it has been a very exciting day for me! I got two new gadgets. Ok, so one of them really wouldn't technically be defined as a gadget I guess but it is still very exciting.

The first purchase was a new lenses for my digital camera. I have a Nikon D-80 camera which is a digital camera that you can switch lenses on and I bought a new zoom lens for it. The lens is a 70-300 zoom, which basically means I can make things really far away seem a lot closer. I am very excited about it because the main reason I bought it was for our trip to China. Less than three months before we go!

The second purchase is a true gadget. I bought a portable GPS. Specifically I bought a Garmin Nuvi 200. Now to be perfectly honest with you, I have yet to actually open this device because I'm trying to decide if I am going to have buyer's remorse and take it back! So I'm giving myself 24 hours and if I haven't caved by tomorrow evening then I am opening it up to play with it. I'm trying to justify to myself that I am just using my tax rebate (which I haven't actually received yet) to help stimualate the economy. Thats what we are supposed to do with them, right? :-)

Anyhow, I am off to bed because I need to go to the gym in the morning. I'll keep you posted on the buyers remorse!

Happy Mother's Day

Yeah, I know this post is late but better late than never. I hope all the mothers out there had a fantastic Mother's Day. Zach and I went to Kansas for the weekend to attend one of my niece's graduation and to see my Mom. It was kind of a bitter sweet weekend. Its always nice to see my family but it was kind of hard to see my mom. Her health is pretty good, but her memory is starting to get bad. Several times over the weekend she would ask me something and then come back and ask me again five minutes later. I'm sure it is hard for everyone to have to deal with the fact that your parents are getting older and those types of things are going to become reality. I'm thankful that her health is good, we almost lost her several years ago to a heart attack. Times like these remind me that we should not take the loved ones in our life for granted because unfortunately some day they may not be there.

Take time this week to reach out to your Mom or some other special person in your life to tell them how much they mean to you. To my friends and family out there, even though I may not talk to you everyday, you are always in my heart. You are what has made me the person I am today. I love you all.

Talent Show

So today was the yearly talent show at Zach's school. A few weeks ago he decided he was going to try out and much to my surprise he decided to sing a song. (Last year trying out meant standing on the stage and telling jokes with his friend.) He bought the song Bad Day on iTunes and set out to learn it. He asked me to print out the lyrics for him and he started memorizing the words. He made it through the auditions and then had to find a copy of the song without the words for the actual show.

Here is the link to view his video. Hope you enjoy the show.

We are extremely proud of him for practicing hard and getting up on stage even when he was nervous. The funny quote of the day happened when he got home and said "You probably wouldn't have liked it as much if you were Simon." I was cracking up! For those of you who don't get that.... Where have you been?!?! He was referring to Simon on American Idol.

Ok, now I have to go pack, Zach and I are headed to see my Mom for Mother's Day this weekend and to one of my niece's graduation. Happy Mothers Day to all the moms. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Weekend? What weekend?

That pretty much sums up how I felt when the alarm clock went off on Monday morning. The weekend went by with a blur. Here are are the highlights.

Friday was Zachary's birthday so he had a friend spend the night. Before that they had practice for their orchestra concert. We told Zach we would take him anywhere he wanted for dinner for his birthday. Anyone care to guess what he picked? Yep, you got it McDonalds! So we got Zach and TJ McDonalds, I ordered pizza and Wendy got Taco Cabana. Everyone was happy!

Saturday morning we had the SOKS orchestra concert... I really don't know what that stands for but it was for all 5th grade orchestras. Putnam City School District had an Arts Festival for all the Arts classes and the orchestra kids were the first ones to perform. It was fun to see all the kids play together.

Saturday afternoon we had Zach's birthday at http://www.laserexpedition.com/. I have to say I was very impressed. The price was pretty reasonable for everything we got and they did a good job having a schedule with the activities. Everyone had a really good time playing the indoor laser tag, including Wendy and I! After the party we took all the kids home and had a much needed quiet evening at home watching the last Pirates of the Carribean movie.

Sunday we did some chores in the morning and then we had baseball practice in the afternoon. Zach went to Wal-Mart with us that morning to spend some of his birthday morning that was burning a hole in his pocket.

All in all a great weekend, I just felt like I needed one more day to recover from all the excitement. Hope everyone out there had a great weekend too.

What was I thinking?

Yeah, that was my first thought when I opened the door at 520am Sunday morning to head down to the race. I opened the door to discover that it was pouring rain, cold and windy. Not exactly my idea of the ideal running conditions. So I went back inside, put another layer of clothes on, summoned all my energy and headed out.

Now my leg was the last one which meant that I had to wait about 4 hours from the actual start of the race at 630 until I would start running. This turned out to be a good thing because by the time I was ready to start it had stopped raining and the sun was out. It was still pretty chilly with the wind, but it definitely could have been worse!

I managed to finish my 6.2 miles in about 69 minutes. This is a little slower than my goal time of 62 minutes, but considering my leg had the most elevation changes (ie the most uphill portions!) I felt pretty good about that. My main goal was to finish without having to walk and I did that so I felt pretty good. Zach and Wendy came out on the course to cheer me on so that was really nice. Then when I got to the finish line the rest of my team was waiting there for me so that was cool too.

This week has just flown by. Zach's birthday is tomorrow... I can't believe he is already 11!! Damn I feel old some days! He has an orchestra concert on Saturday morning, then we are doing a Laser Tag party in the afternoon. Should be a fun weekend! I'll try to get some pictures posted on Sunday.

The Bad Boyz suffered their first loss last week. The team that we played was good, but if we had just been able to hit the ball we could have beat them. Its weird, at practice the boys hit the ball without any problems but during the game they don't swing the bat as well. We play again tonight, so hopefully we will get back on the winning track.

Gotta get going, hope everyone has a great day!

Three days and counting

Until I go torture myself for fun. The OKC Memorial Marathon is Sunday and our team is all set. I have been running about every morning this week trying to make sure I don't pass out on the course during my 6.2 miles. I have a damn blister on my foot from today, so hopefully that won't be an issue. Think happy thoughts for me. Oh and Patrick will be walking in the Komen Memorial Walk in Albuquerque so think happy thoughts for him. Its a good cause and something that has touched almost everyone.

The weekend was good. Saturday we went out to celebrate our 5 year anniversary with dinner at The Melting Pot. If you talk to Wendy ask her about the "pretty" purse she got. :-) After that it was out with friends to celebrate Kellie's birthday. We stayed downtown so we didn't have to worry about driving, so it was a great weekend away. Too bad we had to return to the real world on Sunday.

The Bad Boyz are 3-0, woohoo! The season is going pretty good. The boys are having some challenges hitting the ball, but hopefully some more practice will help. Luckily our pitching has been great and our defense pretty good too. I am having a lot of fun working with the boys and getting to share this week Zach.

Our Chinese Visas are finished, so we are all set for our trip to the Olympics. I'm really excited about going. I want to buy a new lens for my camera before we go so I can hopefully get some great pictures. We fly August 6th!

Lastly, there is supposed to be a big announcement at my work tomorrow. Not sure if this will be good news or bad news. Those of you that know who I work for know it can be a little unstable, so it is always a little scary when something like this comes up. I'll try to let everyone know tomorrow what happened.

Anyhow, since the alarm goes off at 5am so I can run by miles before work, I guess I better get ready to hit the sack. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Random

You know its weird when you go to a concert and see teachers from your kid's school at the same concert.. Yep, that happened to us last night. We went to the Bon Jovi concert and saw two teachers from Zach's school as we were walking in. Weird.

The concert was really good. Daughtry opened for Bon Jovi and he was pretty good. Bon Jovi did a good mix of new and old stuff which was cool. Probably one of the best songs of the night was when Chris Daughtry came out and sang Blaze of Glory with Bon Jovi. They did a fantastic job. The set was pretty cool too. They had one big screen that was stationary and then four small screens that moved to different positions during the night. The result was even though we had nose bleed seats we could still see things pretty good on the screens.

By the way, I know this is a little late, but what the heck is up with Michael Johns going home on Idol last week?!? There are at least 2-3 people that should have gone home before he did. And speaking of going home, it is about time that Kristy Lee Cook went home! I mean, she is ok and everything, but again.. she stays and Michael Johns goes?!? Well, enough on that topic.

My last comment for the night is a vent session, so bear with me for a few minutes.

Standardized testing.. I realize that schools need some way to determine what level students are at compared to other students and other schools, however, is this really the best way? And how reliable are the results when teachers teach to the test? Don't get me wrong, I love Zach's school and the administration there. I know they are doing what they have to do to meet the no child left behind standards but Zach's classroom has pretty much done nothing but prepare and review for this test for the last 10 days. Does this really present an accurate view of what the students know?

I guess I shouldn't complain because I don't know what the solution is.. I just believe that it is time to take a serious look at this situation to see if we can do better.

I warned you guys that I had to vent for a few! Hope the week is treating everyone well. Talk to ya soon.

Domesticated and Other Stuff

As if the remodeling wasn't proof enough, it is official that we have been domesticated. As you can see by the new picture, we are making our first attempt at a garden. We have planted tomatoes, green peppers, strawberries, watermelons and cucumbers. This should be interesting because typically I have not had the best luck with growing things. So when you have a spare moment, think happy green thumb thoughts about our garden. Zach is so excited about it and I would really like to at least have a few things grow!

The Bad Boyz had their first regular season game Friday night and we won 6-3. Zach had a really good hit but was thrown out at 1st. Even more exciting he got to play 2nd base one inning so that was really exciting for him. We had practice on Sunday and it was a pretty nice afternoon to spend outside. Our next game is scheduled for Saturday and it would be so nice for the team to start out 2-0. The boys have been working really hard. It is so much fun to watch them improve each and every practice.

Saturday was a nice lazy day. I think it was the first day we have just been flat out lazy since we started the remodeling on the house. We watched some stuff on DVR, took a nap, Zach's friend came over to spend the night, so they watched Alvin and the Chipmonks while we watched Home of the Brave. The only not fun event was a trip to Urgent Care. Zachary has been having some problems with allergies and wound up with a sinus infection. But we have meds now and he is feeling better. Overall, we couldn't have asked for a nicer day.

Work is going pretty good. It is going to be a hectic week, but sometimes that helps the day go by faster. Lots of work should hopefully equal job security.... well in most cases anyway!