Champions

On Friday night, my son's team won their game, so one step closer to being champions. I also had to work at the scorer's table keeping track of the official score in the books. It was a little nerve racking, but fun at the same time. We came back at noon on Saturday for the next game, which they won also. The highlight of this second game was with about 35 seconds left in the game, my son shot and scored a basket. Normally, this isn't a real big deal, but this particular basket was the first one he has scored all season. You should have seen his face... He pumped his arms in the air and told us later after the game that he almost started to cry. *I* almost started to cry too when he made it. His mom went crazy too! It was a wonderful game! :-) We came back at 4pm for the big championship game. Now, to back up a bit... My son's school has two fifth grade teams and both were in this tourney. It turned out that both teams made it to the championship game (they were each in a different bracket to start the tourney). The coaches agreed to just play a scrimmage-type game (they still used the referees), and didn't keep score. They even mixed some of the players around too. My son got to play quite a bit during that game and actually made another basket. At the end, both teams were dubbed "co-champions" and they all received medals and the trophy. We also had a big pizza party afterwards too.

During the school hour at church on Sunday, we had our church's 74th Annual Business Meeting. It's the time of year when we present to the church body the annual financial reports and bring up any new/old news to discuss. We also elected a new deacon to fill a parting deacon's spot. It went pretty smoothly which is always good...

I've been fighting a sinus / allergy problem for about a week now, but it seems to be getting a little worse. I almost called in sick today, but my co-worker beat me to it and he's out today while I'm stuck here... It's almost a "Monday" ritual with him it seems... Um...

At least the basketball season is over for my son... No more practices and games and so I can get on home tonight without having to wait on him to finish practice.

Blessings!

March Madness

Well, I guess it's a little early for the Big Dance, but tonight starts the "Little Dance" for my son's basketball team. His school is hosting a 5th grade boys basketball tourney to end the season on. My son's team plays tonight at 8pm. Since it's at "our" school, parents had to sign up and help with various things; clock, scoring table, concessions, clean up, etc. Me, I'm working at the scoring table tonight for the 7 and 8 o'clock games. I've never really done it before, but after my son's practice last night, the coaches had a little training session for us. It doesn't look too hard. If my son's team wins tonight, we'll play at noon on Saturday. If they lose tonight, we'll play at 10am. Full details of the games will posted here on Monday... :-)

As posted last time, my mom had to undergo a colonoscopy. She got the results back and she's clean... no pollops! Great news!

Hey! It's Friday and 62 degrees outside! What could be better? Me outside enjoying it... that's what!!

Blessings!

Secrets of the Pinewood Derby

Coming up on March 11th is the big Pinewood Derby at our church. It's a sectional event, so Royal Ranger groups from all over our section come to our church for the Derby. It's almost a whole day event as it seems like it takes FOREVER to get all the cars weighed and checked in. My son got second place (missed first by .01 of a second) in his division and to my suprise I got first place in the Leader's (adult) division!! Cool! We've got our cars cut out for this year, but I've still got a lot of work to do to finish them. Went out on the internet today and printed off some "tips and tricks" (the secrets!) to make a car go faster... We'll see if they work. :-)

Today is my parents' 47th wedding anniversary! Congrats go out to them! My mom wasn't too thrilled about today though as had to undergo a full colonoscopy exam today. Hopefully dad will treat her nice tonight! :-)

Blessings!

Presidents' Day Weekend Wrap Up

As stated in my last post, after work last Friday, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a week's worth of groceries. It actually only took me a little over an hour, which wasn't too bad since I really don't do it very often and not real sure where most things are. I happened to find everything on the list too (without calling my wife with a cell phone!!) . :-) After getting the groceries, there is a little pizza shop next door that sells hot and fresh large pepperoni (or cheese) pizzas for $5, so I stopped by and picked one up for dinner. Made some extra brownie points with my wife that evening. :-) We then made a fire in the fireplace and watched some of the Olympics.

Saturday, I had to go pick up my son at his friend's house where he spent the night, came home, ate lunch, and then headed out to my son's last regular season basketball game (they have a end-of-the-season tourney this weekend to finish everything up). It was so cold on Saturday, I just didn't really do a whole lot except keep the fire going. :-) I did get a call from work about a problem which took up about 2 hours of my time (right when my local college b-ball team was playing - but they got blown away so it didn't really matter...).

Sunday was the normal church day. One of my son's friends came home with us to spend the afternoon then we took him back to church that evening.

Monday was a holiday for me and my son (Presidents' Day), so we all went to the mall in the morning and I bought me some new work shoes. We came home, ate lunch and then my son and I went to see the tax guy as I had an appointment with him to get my taxes prepared. Afterwards, my son and I stopped by Wal-Mart to look at video games/movies/toys. :-) After we got back home, we started work on the next episode of our Lego Star Wars trilogy. We got the voice work recorded and some of the opening title stuff done. The real hard work will be in the set building and filming though...

Had to come back to work today and tonight I have a church board meeting to attend. This coming Sunday is our annual church business meeting. Usually, they go pretty smooth and I pray this one does too. :-)

Blessings!

One Last Holiday

Coming up will be another three day weekend as Monday is Presidents' Day. It'll be the last holiday though for awhile with the next one not happening until May 29th (Memorial Day). I really hate those "drought" months. :-)

My son is spending the night tonight with a friend, but he does have a basketball game tomorrow at 1pm, so I guess I'll be going to that. Only one more weekend of b-ball (a tourney next weekend to finish it off) and I'll be glad it's over.

Since it's suppose to be real cold tonight/tomorrow morning, I'm going grocery shopping right after work for my wife. She called me with her shopping list. It should only take me 2 hours to get it all done. :-) Then, I'm picking up a nice hot pizza to take home and eat. Since my son won't be home tonight, I'll get more slices! :-) Will be starting a fire in the fireplace tonight too, so hopefully it'll get real cozy.

Blessings (and stay warm)!

Weekend Wrapup

This past weekend wasn't too crazy. I had to take my son to a 8:00am basketball game (of course, we had to be there at 7:30am to warm up). They won (Yeah!) so that made it a little better. It snowed (flurries only) about all day and it was really cold (windy). Saturday afternoon we went to Target and the mall and I picked up some accessories for my new PSP (car adapter, usb cable, etc).

Sunday was pretty much the regular routine except my wife didn't have to work in the nursery and I didn't have to work in the TV room. So, it was just kind of nice to get to sit with my beautiful wife for services. :-) The only bad thing on Sunday was that I had to get up at 4:50am to dial into work as we were making a change to one of our systems and I had to make sure it was going to work okay. That made me kind of tired for the rest of the day.

Monday, after taking my son to work, I picked up the wife and daughter and we headed out of town (only 30 miles to the next town) to go to their "big" mall. Did a little shopping and then I took my wonderful wife to Ruby Tuesday's for a Valentine's lunch (even though we had our daughter with us, it wasn't too bad). After lunch, we had a quick visit at my parents' house, but could only stay about an hour as we had to get back to our town to pick up our son at school. In case you didn't read the previous post, Monday was a holiday for me as I got off work for President Lincoln's Birthday.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day and last night my wife fixed spaghetti for the kids and feed them early so that we could both have a quiet candlelight dinner with salad, Kansas City strip steaks and the works (I actually helped make the salads). We had soft music playing and it was very nice - the kids left us alone (we put a movie on for our daughter and our son went to take a shower) so it was very romantic. :-) Later on that evening after putting the kids to bed, we exchanged Valentine cards and snuggled a little. :-)

My Dr's. appointment for next Monday for my "over 40" physical was postponed due to the Dr. not going to be in the office that day. So I had to rescheduled it for March 23rd... I don't know if I'm happy or sad about it as I was getting myself psyched up about it and now I'm going to have to wait even longer to get it over with... Oh well...

Blessings!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just want to wish my beautful wife a wonderful Valentine's Day!

I'll submit my weekend overview tomorrow. Since I had a three day weekend, it's always tough to catch up on everything when I get back.

Blessings!

Late Birthday Gift

I tried to order a PSP Giga Pack for my birthday, but they were sold out EVERYWHERE (online and in stores). I finally decided to just order the PSP Value Pack and a 1 Gig Memory Stick. It cost me an extra $30, but oh well. Anyway, it arrived today (my wife called to let me know). I'm excited to get to try it out this weekend. In case you don't know what a PSP is, it's a PlayStation Portable device. You can play music, photos, video, and games. It was a toss up between this and an iPod, but I think the PSP will be more versatile. I've seen where an email client and GPS are slated to come out for the PSP as well in the near future. Cool.

Also, yesterday I got an email from BrickFilms.com stating that my Lego movie submission was *finally* accepted into their film directory. Each film submitted as to pass the site's reviewer's specs before it can be put into their film directory. Admittedly, it's not the best film and it was my first try at it, but was excited to see it was accepted. Another Cool! :-)

And to top it off... Today is Friday and Monday is a holiday for me (Lincoln's birthday). Triple Crown Cool.

Blessings!

Late Christmas

Ho Ho Ho!! About an hour ago, a guy from PC support here at work just wheeled in a cart load of flat screen monitors to replace our CRTs. Not only flat screens, but these are 19 inch ones! Whoo Hoo! Real estate baby! :-) We were "promised" these things before Christmas, but he said the order forms sat on someone's desk for awhile. Figures.

Man, I feel like a just got a new big screen TV! :-)

Also, a few days ago, I ordered a PSP (PlayStation Portable) along with a 1 Gig memory stick. It should be here tomorrow (hopefully!)! Can't wait to play!

I have to go to a TV ministry meeting at the church tonight. We're going to try to get everyone on the same page and do some training on the cameras for the new people. Hopefully it will be a productive time.

Blessings!

Roller Dude

Last night we had another All Church Skate Night at the local roller rink. It's a lot of fun and a little exercise to boot! :-) The first pair of skates I tried on, the right foot wheels were out of alignment and kept wanting to turn to the left. It was confusing for me and I couldn't skate very well due to fighting the "turn." So, I took them back and got a second pair which worked a lot better.

I tried the Limbo again and hit the bar with my head again (almost made it) in the second to last round. I was one of the last "big" people left (most were all the little kids). I can at least be proud of that! :-)

A lot of the adults won't skate for one reason or another. Some don't want to fall and break a leg (or arm, or whatever), some just can't skate I guess. I used to have a real problem getting the hang of skating when I was growing up, but it's not too bad now. I can't do anything fancy, but I don't do too bad (I almost wiped out a little kid last night though... My head was turned back as I was talking to my son. I turned back around just in time to see this little kid who was just standing there in the middle of the flow of traffic and I swerved just in time to miss him! Whew!!)

Blessings!

Superbowl Weekend

Friday night the family and I went to the mall after dinner (well, specifically to Penney's). I was looking mainly for a sportscoat as I really don't have one (and I only have one actual suit too.... for funerals and weddings). We found a really nice one that was 60% off which made it a good deal. I also got some dress pants for work/church too. My son got some shirts for school. We made it home before the credit card got too hot. :-)

Saturday was a long day. My son and I went to a near by town where they were having the second part of a school basketball tourney. The first game was at 11am (had to be there at 10:30a which meant we had to leave home at 10a). They lost by two points and it was a hard fought game. The lost meant they headed to the loser's bracket and the next game was at 4pm (better than playing in the championship game at 6pm!) The only downer to the first game was that my son didn't get to play very much at all. The regular coach wasn't there and the sub coach won't hardly put in the "not very good" players. My son was very upset and was somewhat in tears after the game. We went out for lunch and I tried to explain life, basketball and benchwarming as best I could. In the second game, some of the players couldn't stay, so they only had five players which meant my son had to play the whole game. That made up for the first game, but it still frustrated him. They lost pretty bad in the second game, so they ended up with fourth place for the tourney. We got home about 6pm wiped out and hungry.

Sunday morning was the normal church routine except that my wife had to work in the nursery and I had to work in the media room. Next week we'll both get to just sit in the sanctuary together. :-) Sunday evening, our church provided a Superbowl party as well as a church service, so those that wanted to go to church could and those that wanted to watch the game could. There was a pretty good crowd at both events. :-) Our music pastor is a HUGE Steelers fan, so I'll let you figure out where he was. :-) Just for the record, the Steelers beat the Seahawks, 21-10 in Detroit, MI. The Rolling Stones was the halftime "entertainment" and only a few of the TV ads were very good. :-)

Blessings!

The Glove

When I got to work this morning, there was a blue "surgical" glove in my chair with some writing on it. I have to preface this by saying that I had mentioned to one of my co-workers that later this month I have to go to a physical my wife set up for me at the doctor's office. Now that I'm getting "older" I figured I'd better go get checked out.

Anyway, the writing on the glove said, "A 'Keepsake' from my 1st 'Over the Hill' physical ... and I said, 'Hey Doc, watch it man, you're feeling my brain!!"

Okay... we'll leave it at that... :-)

It's finally Friday! But the day has sure gone slow... I want to get out of here so bad....

Tomorrow is part two of a basketball tourney my son is playing in. It's being held in a town about 25 miles away and he'll be playing in two games. The bad thing is, is that the games are about 3-4 hours apart. It's a very small town... Whatcha gonna do to pass the time? Ugh. What a waste of a Saturday...

Blessings!

UTI

Well, my wife took our daughter to the Dr's yesterday to find out why she was having a low fever that would kick in every afternoon. Turns out she has a urinary tract infection (UTI). Got her on some meds and we're trying to pump her full of water too and it seems to be helping. Glad we caught it before it turned serious as it could have eventually infected her kidneys.

Tonight at church, in my son's Royal Ranger class, they are going to do a Pinewood Derby Car Show. You bring in cars you've built in the past to show off and to inspire this year's car builders. That should be fun for the boys to do. This year's derby is in March, so we have all of Feb. to get that next first place finisher... finished. My car one first place in the adult division last year (Woo Hoo! My first trophy!)! Guess now I'll have to see if I can defend my championship position! :-)

Blessings!