Category Archives: Family

Still here…and running!

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The end of the sports seasons are near for us…We’ve been full-on since school started.  I am the head coach for the boys soccer team at the local middle school.  Isaac is in the high school band which plays at festivals around the area and at every football game, home or away.  Abigail is running cross-country at the middle school.  Needless to say, we have been running (he he, get it?) and are sort of ready for  things to start to winding-up.

Cross-Country running

In fact, Abigail ran her final cross-country meet, the county championship race yesterday!  Both the boys and girls teams at her middle school won 1st place!  Abigail was not a medalist in the race, but completed a personal record on the course which was super exciting!  I am super proud of her because she has never especially been a runner.  It’s not that she wasn’t a runner…She has just not been a kid that needs to run.

Cross-Country running

In the weeks leading up to the season, she started to run a little according (sort of) to the schedule that her coach sent out to prepare the athletes.  Mostly that didn’t work at all.  She didn’t get that getting in shape was going to be hard and maybe even be a little uncomfortable.  I ran with her a few times and sort of showed her that it’s ok to push and sweat and even be a little sore.  I am no running coach but she sort of “clicked” once she got what it meant to really run and compete and be an athlete.

Cross-Country running
She raced this girls to the end and beat her…it was so exciting!

So, Abigail is a new runner and a lot less experienced than the older girls with whom she ran.  We have decided, though, that she is a runner and that she and I are going to run together through out the year so that when next year’s season comes around, she will already be in a good spot and will be ready to roll!

Cooling down

I am super proud of all of the kids on her team and she has great coaches that are encouraging and genuinely nice and excited for the kids.  So, while I am glad for the running season to be coming to an end, in a way I am sort of bummed too as it brings to an end the excitement of it all.  I suppose Abigail and her middle-aged Dad can always continue to compete…it’s been nice knowing you my friends!

Majorette and Band Festival – 2014

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Tuesday night was the Majorette and Band Festival where all of the high schools in Kanawha county come to show off their field shows.  We joined several hundred other folks in watching 8 great bands play their very best in the University of Charleston stadium.

Our band
Our band on the field

This is our first year to have a band member on the field and we were super excited for all of the build-up and preparation for this show.  The season started with band camp in August where the entire band went away to set up their marching field show and practice their music.  It’s amazing how fast (a week!), the band came together to produce a really nice show.  Since that time, they practice daily and have refined their show incredibly!

Us with the other bands
Us with the other bands
Video007
Click to play the small version

Here’s a better version if your machine will play it

We are very fortunate to have a really great band director who expects a lot from the kids, and leads them demand a lot from themselves.  Their pride and hard work that the director instilled in them really showed as they  took the field Tuesday.  The band exhibited fantastic precision in marching and delivered as crisp a performance as I’ve ever heard/seen.  They were in synch and smooth and just looked first-class.  I couldn’t be more proud of how these kids performed!

Youtube video with bits from all of the bands

As a special treat, Marshall University’s Marching Thunder performed the finale at the festival and showed the bands at the festival what the next level of play might be for them.  They were great and dynamic and made a lot of sound (in a great way) as you would expect from a good sized university band!

Marshall Marching Thunder
Marshall Marching Thunder – Click to play small version

Here’s a better version if your machine will play it

Among other songs, they played Big Noise from Winnetka, one of the songs that Isaac’s jazz band played last year…both were great renditions…it was a lot of fun to hear the different takes on the same song.  While we were disappointed that our band wasn’t awarded the grand champion trophy, I am so proud of Isaac and his friends and look forward to many more competitions!

Kids these days

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Kids these days…You know, kids these days are different than when I was a kid. I had good pals and best friends and we did a lot together and had a lot of fun and all that. Something about kids these days seems different though. I have noticed that these kids share more and better than I remember doing. Sure, we took turns drinking from the garden hose and maybe we traded cookies from our lunch boxes, but Isaac and many of his pals give things to each other freely…and not just little things. They share what’s important to them among each other. I have seen them share money and clothes and electronics and all sorts of things without hesitation. I don’t mean, “here, you can borrow my shirt” kind of stuff, but “here, you can have my shirt.”

I wonder if it comes down to economics of it or if it is a true change in how kids are these days. I grew up in an economically disadvantaged region of PA. Most people there worked very hard to get by and few had a life of plenty. Of course, I had plenty of love and support, but we didn’t have stuff in plenty. I am and was perfectly content with that life, but maybe my growing up was different because of that.  Maybe I didn’t share as freely because I didn’t have as much to share or what I did have was a little more precious to me.  Maybe it was the time and the world and all that.  I don’t have any idea.

Last weekend, Abigail ran in a cross-country meet.  She ran well and came in among the middle of the pack.  I was very happy for her, especially considering she is a new runner and a 6th grader competing among 8th graders.  As the last of the pack was coming in for one of the other races, one boy was obviously struggling to complete the race.  I was so proud to see a number of other runners who had finished their race return back to the lone runner and encourage and support him.  They ran beside him, encouraging him to keep going, that they were there to keep cheering him and that they were proud to run with him.  I don’t know that everyone got a ribbon, but in my eyes, I saw a team of kids that, rather than teasing or bullying, or even just being indifferent, proved that they were champions and that they shared the joy together.

Still running
Still running

I hear people complain about how kids these days feel entitled because everyone gets a ribbon and everyone gets constant praise.  Maybe that can be taken too far and maybe it is taken too far, too often, but honestly, I do not know that I have seen that problem.  If that sort of thing breeds the kind of sharing and concern that I have seen among my kids’ friends, I am all for giving every kid I see a ribbon.

Maybe it’s a different time or maybe I was just a bad friend, but many kids these days simply make me proud and give me hope that it’s all going to be ok…

Math facts

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Abigail is in middle school this year.  Kids seem to get interesting starting in middle school.  They think differently.  Well, I guess most folks wonder if middle school kids think at all, but I like the way they think (mostly).  It’s fun to watch as things dawn on the kids as they age…I guess I can almost see the world open up for them to all of the neat things that maybe I take for granted.  But beyond that, they still have that spark where just enough is different and new for them.  They aren’t yet jaded…naivete remains, at least a little.

Abigail Math

So Abigail had a task to use mathy stuff to describe a few things about herself in her math class.  I think this project was sort of fun for her, but she didn’t mention a thing about it until Emily discovered it during open house (yes, we are already in school and have already done open house). I love how she loves PI stuff.  I love how she drew her brother as tall as taller than me and bald.  I love how she drew our 3 cats and 5 chickens as our pets.  This is no artistic masterpiece, but, like most parents, I couldn’t be happier with the result of what comes from my own kids!

First day of school – 2014

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I can’t believe Summer is over!  Well, school has started anyhow…so Summer might as well be over.  Since almost everything is about me, I have to lament that now, with the start of school, I have to start getting up earlier and fight traffic around the schools that I must pass to get to work in the morning.

First day of school 2014
First day of school 2014

Well, I guess it isn’t really all about me.  The early-morning-rise is more drastic for the kids who have been sleeping in until 10 am.  They have to do homework each night and dress in…well…clothes each day as opposed to sleep-wear.  I think both kids were excited mostly and were ready to go back to school though going back this early does feel a little like we truncated our Summer.  Mostly, though, I was more wound up than either of them.  I had butterflies last night and this morning as we waited for the bus.  I ran through my checklist of stuff…pencils and paper, lunch, coonskin hat, binders, agenda, phone…it takes a lot to be a kid in school these days.

First day of school 2014

This is Isaac’s first year in high school and Abigail’s first year in middle school.  Both are significant changes which scares the daylights out of me.  How can it be that my sweet little children are becoming people…er…I mean how can it be that they are growing up?!  Isaac is taller than me and Abigail is nearly as tall as Emily.  They have grown-up voices and wear grown-up sized clothes.  They watch The Daily Show and understand it.  They are starting to think about what they want to do for a living and where they might go to college.  It’s scary!  I think that means I must be a grown-up too!  Terrifying!

It’s true you know…one day you are holding your newborn baby, the next day they are shaving eating two full helpings and casting a shadow bigger than mine…don’t blink!

2008   2009   2010   2011   2012   2013

20 Years Strong!

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Today Emily and I celebrate our 20 year wedding anniversary!  It’s cliche I suppose, but time has flown and I cannot be any happier to have spent this time with Emily.  She is the best of everything I am and I couldn’t be happier (although I wouldn’t be opposed to hitting the Powerball to verify whether that might make me just a little happier).

20 years together!
20 years together!

We are going to go out somewhere nice to eat tonight and spend a nice relaxing evening enjoying our happy life together!

The surfer look?

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We’ve been back from the beach for a few days, but my head is sort of still halfway between home and the ocean.  I was looking back over the pics I took and there are far too many of the pier.  The other trend I think I found were of the four of us looking like wannabe surfers.

On the beach

On the beach

Really, it is more of a matter of wearing rashguard shirts so we don’t get sunburned, but that’s not too sexy so we will go with the surfer look.

On the beach

Abigail in particular, is the water-dog when it comes to body-surfing.  We had several days of pretty rough waves and she didn’t seem to even notice.  I was getting beat to death, but she kept going out into the surf.  Of course, she, too, was getting beat up, but it just didn’t seem to bother her.  And heck, scars and scabs on my little girl’s knees and feet are kind of cool.

On the beach

On the beach

Well, beach time is over I guess so I will have to get back into real life mode I suppose.  Really though, I suppose I will have enough sand it my delicate parts to be reminded of the beach for some time to come!

Beach 2014

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We go to the beach every other year or so and this is our year.  This is weird I know, especially since I never went to the beach as a kid, but it truly doesn’t feel like Summer to me on beach years, until we actually go to the beach.  Of course, this year we have had screwed up weather so it really hasn’t felt like Summer until now anyhow.

Topsail Island 2014
Topsail Island 2014

I am not sure why I need to go to the beach to feel Summery but I am definitely on holiday and enjoying my most favoritest season – Summer!  We have been to Topsail Island, NC the last few beach trips and I think it has become our new favorite place.  When we do the beach, we do the beach and nothing else.  Topsail is mostly houses on the beach and not much touristy stuff to do.  It’s mostly not crowded and suits perfectly my need to lay on the sand in earshot of waves crashing so I can sleep properly.  It’s perfect!

Topsail Island 2014
They were so happy to get here that they actually posed!
Topsail Island 2014
Isaac is always hungry!

As the kids get older, I think that we have found that it is as much fun to watch them at the beach as any other thing.  They like to people watch and body surf and read and all the stuff we do.  It’s just total fun!  It is contagious and we all just relax and kick back.  We are here this year with Emily’s family and it’s a great opportunity to spend time with cousins and stay up late and eat too much rich food.  I used to be able to add “get sunburned” to that list but we have taken that out of the mix…we are very diligent about keeping everyone slathered in sunblock…funny how times change and we get smarter.

Topsail Island 2014
The freckles have appeared!
Topsail Island 2014
Feed us!!!

Anyhow, I love the beach and need to re-charge every couple of years.  And like they say, even a bad day at the beach beats a great day at work!

MANKs

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This week, Emily and I are MANKs….Married Adults, No Kids!  The kids went home with my parents last weekend after a visit here in WV.  We have done that several summers but this year is a good bit longer…all told, they will be in PA for 12 days!  Emily and I do not know what to do with ourselves!

My lovely kids!
My lovely kids!

Of course, we love the kids and love being with them, but we have had very little time for just the two of us.  It seems like there were just two of us when we got married, but that was a long time ago so it is hard to remember!  It’s a little weird, but it sort of feels like when we were first married!  We went out to eat a time or two, saw a late movie, stayed up too late, went grocery shopping in peace, ate without breaking up a fight, took walks, and talked about whatever we wanted to, whenever we wanted to.

While it is fantastic having kids and being with the kids, I gotta say, being a MANK again is a nice change…but just for a little while…

Old school popcorn

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I wandered the grocery store awhile back, probably hunting for something important.  That’s why I found myself in the snack food aisle.  I hadn’t noticed it in a long time, but before my eyes, hidden on a low shelf, was a Jiffy-Pop popcorn pan!  I didn’t know they still made Jiffy-Pop!  I really thought pretty much all popcorn had gone the microwave-bag route…an American tragedy I say.

Jiffy Pop!

Jiffy Pop! It’s still a thing!

Well, I was so excited that I just had to buy the formerly-metal-now-space-age-fireproof-cardboard  pan of popcorn.  Of course, with this magical new pan, it recommends not cooking over a grill or a glass-top range…but that’s all I have so I dared the popcorn fates and fired up the glass range (which we hate).  Heck, we use a huge canner on it breaking that rule too!  I ain’t skeered….and darned if it didn’t pop just fine!

It's alive!
It’s alive!

I was so excited to hear the sizzle of the faux-butter and the first pops.  I dragged the kids in to hear, fully expecting they would be as delighted as I was when we made Jiffy-Pop at home when I was a kid…it was a magical time, the 1970s.  My kids were less inspired by the magic.  It’s a shame I guess…they know Led Zepplin, Rush and Jim Croce.  They know how to dial a rotary phone and have seen all episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard!  They now know Jiffy-Pop but are not as enamored with it as they should be…or as they are with the Duke boys.  I don’t understand kids these days I guess…Oh wait…did I just say that?!