Good Buds

Jude & Kerrigan

Testing the New Camera

Ah, finally... we got a new camera.

Doesn't make me look any better but it takes good pictures :)
I put the timer on for this one, that's why it's off-center, but I like the way it turned out.

Christmas Card

Here is this year's Christmas card... if we have your address, you'll get one of these in the mail. If you don't get one, it's not that we don't like you, it's just that we don't have your address :) The fun part was that my neighbor (who sadly moved to Texas) took this picture for us beyond our backyard and I did the rest myself in Photoshop. The not-so-fun part is that it is the 2nd week of December and we're wearing t-shirts... Bring the SNOW and the 10 degree weather!!! These are the days I miss Wisconsin.

Eric with Aunt Amy

Eric Isaac Sorkin

Jude and Kerrigan with their new nephew, Eric.

Great job, Michael & Karen. You made a good lookin' kid!

The Burrito Ride

Jude loves it when I do this for him...

Accidental Flush...

I have a heart-breaking/funny story about Kerrigan.

Tonight when I was putting the kids to bed, I was in the kid's room tucking in Jude while Kerrigan was in the bathroom. I was walking toward the bathroom when I heard Kerrigan say, 'daddy', so I opened the door to see what she needed. As I opened the door she started to scream, and I'm not talking about a stubbed toe scream, this was a 'there's a big creepy bug, a bat, a lion and an alien in the bathroom with me' type of scream! I held on to her and tried to ask what happened, but she was incoherent and inconsolable and only screamed harder and louder. I was a little scared, I didn't know what was going on or what had happened. She had been fine a moment ago, but then went to pieces in the period of a few seconds. I thought maybe she slammed her finger in the toilet seat cover, but it didn't look like it.

So, all this happened within a few seconds... I tried asking her again what happened and by this time I hear Amy flying up the stairs. Kerrigan wailed something that sounded like, 'I lusssssssed I saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.'

Amy got it before I did. She said, 'Kerrigan, did you flush your sock in the toilet?"

She unburried her face from my chest and cried, "YEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!" and screamed even louder.

Amy and I, in spite of Kerrigan's trauma, started cracking up (are we bad parents?) and laughed. I held my poor little girl and tried to comfort her. Finally she settled down enough where we were able to get out of her exactly what happened: She had changed into her pj's in the bathroom before going potty. She picked up her clothes and tried to flush when one of her socks fell into the toilet and helplessly watched it swirl off into sewer oblivion. She was SOOO upset; it was a very special sock, you know?

It's not over yet... So we get Kerrigan settled down a bit and then we hear Jude crying in his room. We go in to see what's up and he's hiding under his covers, visibly shaken. Seeing that Jude was crying, Kerrigan started up again. He had never heard Kerrigan cry like that beofre (none of us had, even when she had 2nd degree burns on her leg when she was a baby, I don't remember her crying so loud).

It took about 10 minutes to restore order. I had to dramatically re-inact (which wasn't too far off from what happened) the whole event before they both started seeing the humor in the whole thing and began laughing as we re-told the story to each other several times before we said it was enough and it was time for bed.

It's still not over yet... a little while after all had settled down, Ames and I were downstairs watching Sunday Night Football, Kerrigan came down asking if she could use the downstairs bathroom because she didn't want to accidentally flush her sock again... Poor little sweetie.

Ames is going to get her some new socks tomorrow.

3 More Down & New Job

Well, today was my last day at Phillips Architecture. It was a great gig while it lasted, but hopefully the new job that I start on Monday will be another exciting and fruitful chapter in the Smith book of fun.

Speaking of fun, a handful of friends from Phillips met up at the Flying Saucer at quittin' time to knock a few back, and that we did. I marked three more notches on my 200 goal. Below are my latest additions:


Ska Buster Nut Brown Ale
Container: Bottled
Style: Brown Ale
City: unassigned
Country: United States
Description: This brown ale produces a nice head that lasts awhile. The flavor has a touch of nuttiness due to the use of Victory & Munich malts. Well rounded brown ale with a touch of hop character.




Pauwel Kwak
Container: Bottled
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Brewer: Brouwerij Bosteels
City: Buggenhout
Country: Belgium
Description: Full-bodied Belgian Specialty Ale. Amber in color with beautiful foam and slightly sweet, seductive malt character. Rich, satisfying Belgian experience. 8% abv




Flying Dog Tire Bite
Container: Draught
Style: Kolsch
Brewer: Flying Dog Brewery
City: Denver,CO
Country: United States
Description: Light lager, Kolsch style beer, with a well balanced taste and a hint of hops. Finishes very smooth and is refreshing for hot days. 5.1% abv




They were all very good. The Ska ale was excellent, a micro-brew. The Belgian ale was interesting, kinda wish they had served it in it's intended kwak glass though, that would have been cool. The Tire Bite kolsch tasted a lot like a Miller Lite. Sorry I'm not a better beer reviewer guy... Maybe by the time I reach 50, I'll do better :)

Anyway, on Monday I start at MI Homes. Really looking forward to making new friends, learning new stuff and having lots of fun.

Wish me luck.

Bitter-Sweet

After exactly two years of working for Phillips Architecture here in Raleigh, I'm moving on. I have made so many great friends there and loved my work very much, but an opportunity came up at MI Homes that I could not pass up. So now, instead of Commercial buildings, I'll be working on residential homes.

Here's to good friends and a smooth transition.

Cheers. [clink]

The Flying Saucer

Today, I became a member of the Flying Saucer's UFO Club.

My first beer was a Breckenridge Vanilla Porter on tap. It's listed as "an ale that has all the chocolate and roasted flavor of a classic Porter with an enigmatic surprise thrown in for good measure, real vanilla bean. Smooth, roasted and chocolate with a creamy vanilla finish."

Very interesting. I'm not a Porter-guy, but it wasn't bad.

One down, one hundred ninety-nine to go. Ah, an explaination is in order...

The Flying Saucer is a bar in downtown Raleigh. There are ten other Flying Saucer locations scattered throughout the U.S. as well. They have over 200 beers in house from all over the world. Some friends and I went there a month or so ago and sampled about 20 beers alone. We ordered a Ireland sampler, a UK sampler and a North Carolina sampler. Each sampler plate had 8 large shot glasses of different beers from that area. Needless to say, that was a very good night.

One of the cool things about the place is that the walls are absolutely plastered with gold plates (they look like drum cymbals). If members of the UFO Club drink 200 different beers, you get your name on a plate which is mounted on the wall and they give you a free $100 bar tab for the night to celebrate.

So, as I said earlier... one down, one hundred ninety-nine to go.

Action Shot

I just got this photo in the mail from my rafting trip.

I LOVE IT!

I'm sitting right in the middle and hamming it up to the camera right in the middle of a Class V.

Right before this picture was taken, we went over a five-foot drop.

Awesome!

Kid's School Pictures

Family Star Wars Trivia

Jude & Kerrigan are in full-blown Star Wars interest right now. Jude is reading excellently, so he reads all the trivia questions. I can't tell you how happy I am that they are finally getting into it. Jude loves Jawas, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Luke, Han and the Ewoks. Kerrigan likes R2-D2, Princess Leia and Ewoks. I can't tell you how hard it is to find Star Wars action figures for them to play with. The new ones in stores now are expensive... I have some of my old ones that I gave to them, but if anybody sees any at garage sales or anything, let me know...

No more training wheels

We took the training wheels off Jude's bike this week... He was off on his own on the first try.

Whitewater Rafting on the Gauley River

This weekend, I went Whitewater Rafting in West Virginia with some of the guys in our church. What a blast! (The guys above from left to right are: me, Shaun, Bob, Blair, Brett, Jennings & Taylor.) We rafted the Lower Middle Gauley River which had several class III rapids and also several class IV & class V's. I did Jump Rock, about a 20-ft cliff, into the Gauley which was excellent. I was able to sit in the front seat for half the trip. All eight of us on the raft were able to jump out on the swimming rapids and float down for about 1/2 mile.



I took some beautiful pictures while out there... however, digital cameras and white water rapids are a combination doomed for failure. I thought I was prepared; I had the camera in a zip-loc baggie, but the water seeped through half-way through the rapids and the camera was dripping. I was able to salvage the memory card from it, so all the shots I took to that point were saved. So, could we have a moment of silence for my Sony digital camera that has brought memories to my family for the last five years?

-sigh-


That's me & Jennings above, and below is the last picture I took with my ill-fated camera. It may not look like much, but the rapids past the big rock in the center of the picture was the point where the water got into it. If you think, 'What rapids? Water looks a little calm to me!' you are correct. The only time I had to take pictures was when we were in between rapids. If I had shot any pictures of when we were in the middle of the Class III's, IV's, or V's my camera would have been tanked from the beginning. :) If you want to see some rapids footage, check out this website, its a few action shots of our group on the Gauley. I don't know how long these pictures will be up on that website, so I won't be surprised if the link is broken after a week or so.

Image seven-thousand five-hundred... I guess I won't be posting any 'new' photos until we buy a new one. Until then, I have plenty that I can post.

2007 Fantasy Football Draft Complete

I just got done with a 4-hour draft for the fantasy football league I am in. I made this logo for my team about 10 years ago and still use it.

For those of you interested in these sorts of things, here are the players I drafted by position:

QB: Donovan McNabb (PHI), Brett Favre (GB), & Tarvaris Jackson (MIN)
RB: Brian Westbrook (PHI), Edgerin James (ARI), Vernand Morecy (GB), Chris Brown (TEN), & Chris Henry (TEN)
WR: Anquan Bolden (ARI), Plaxico Burress (NYG), Joey Galloway (TB), & Greg Jennings (GB)
TE: Ben Walston (NE)
K: Jeff Wilkins (STL)
DEF: San Diego Chargers

Not a bad draft considering it was a keeper league.

I'm sure this season will be full of frustration and bad moves like they always are. I always seem to bench the guys who go off and play the guys who lay an egg...

Kerrigan's First Day of Kindergarten

Doesn't it just seem a few months ago when I posted a picture Jude's first day of Kindergarten????

Me and Jones

Just me and my little man.

Practice Making (Almost) Perfect

Jude and I have been practicing off a tee in the backyard.

This is Jude's first year playing on a city league. There are a lot of more-talented kids on the team, but he sure does have the best attitude! In this picture I'm having him practice off a tee, but the league is coach-pitch. Last practice, he was batting and took a good fifteen cuts without hitting a fair ball, but when he grabbed his glove and ran out to me by the shortstop (I'm Coach Doug) he yelled, "Isn't baseball awesome?!"

"Yeah, it is!", I called back to him. I'm so proud of him.

Special Day

Last Friday night, Amy took Kerrigan to see 'My Little Pony' live at the RBC Center. They had a great time together and Kerrigan was beside herself when she saw the ponies onstage...

Kerrigan's Birthday

Happy Birthday Kerrigan!
I can't believe you're five.

Kerrigan's Birthday Cake

Amy's amazing creation for Kerrigan's birthday was this 'Day at the Beach' cake. It was a standard yellow cake, but all the decorations were to make it look like a beach. The water is blue jello, the inner-tubes are candy, the palm trees are pretzel rods with green frosting for the leaves, the sand is crushed vanilla wafers, the bears are teddy-grahams, there are also goldfish decorations on the side.

Hat's off to you, babe. This one was awesome.

NC Museum of Art visit

Today, we took the kids to the North Carolina Museum of Art for the first time. It was also the first time that Amy and I went as well. It is actually a very good museum. In fact, they are currently undergoing a renovation/new addition that will make it one of the biggest art museums in the South. That's what they boast anyway... Now, I'm not a particularly wise connoisseur of art museums, but Raleigh's was okay. Not brilliant, but it did have some impressive items. There were three Monet's and an excellent Ancient Greek exhibit with a marble bust of Marcus Aurelius and several other excellent marble sculptures. Not entirely kid-friendly, but the kids did have fun, albeit they did want to move along quicker than I would have liked, but what could have I expected??? They both wanted to come back again and that is something.

First day of baseball practice

Last Monday was Jude's first day of baseball practice. After all the kids were dismissed we let them run the bases for a bit. Jude did great!

Carolina Beach II

At Carolina Beach

We went to the beach on Sunday and had a blast.

My Girl

More Mom in NC

Mom in NC

Mom has been in town for about a week now and we have had such a great time!!!

This kids are so excited and are soaking up every minute with her.

This picture was taken on a nice walk through the trails behind our house.

Vacation?

What a vacation this has been so far. This picture was taken when Jude, Kerrigan & I were all still healthy... not two days after this was taken, Kerrigan was dehydrated and throwing up, Jude had pneumonia and I had... well, I'll tell you in a minute. See if you can figure it out. Amy was the only healthy one before Kerrigan and Jude started feeling better, although Jude is still on medication.

I had been having an increasingly severe migrane headache and a bad earache since Saturday morning but thought they'd go away with some tylonol/advil. When I woke up Tuesday morning, I had a huge rash on my forehead and near my eye. We all thought I had touched some poison ivy and then rubbed my head where my migrane was. The headaches increased and I couldn't sleep that night. Finally, by Wednesday mid-day, Amy and I drove to the urgent care to see what was going on and they said I had Shingles. The rash wasn't from poison ivy, but rather the blisters formed by the shingles. The fun part is that the shingles I have are not on my side but on my face. Because it's near my eye, I have to be careful or else I could lose my sight in my left eye which is annoyingly swelled up right now.

I'm glad the kids have their chicken pox vaccinations... Anyway, even though all this crazy stuff is going on, we're having a good time. We are, however changing our vacation plans and will not be going to Florida. When we told the kids that we weren't going to Disney, they were incredibly understanding and didn't whine or fuss at all. I am so proud of them.

I think we'll need a vacation from our vacation when we get home.

sigh

Vacation

Ah, it's completely dark, calm & quiet out here on the back deck of the beach house we're staying at in Corolla, NC. We'll be here nearly a week then we're driving straight down to Florida to take the kids to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World... Can't wait.

I'm going to get off this computer and enjoy the evening.

Midnight Outdoor Guitar Hero

Dave took this picture of Taylor and I when we were at their place a few weeks back.

Dave, Taylor, Jude and I camped out in the back yard and played Guitar Hero for hours under the full moon. We toasted marshmallows, ate s'mores & listened to great music.

One of the cool things about camping out was that Dave's tent had a mesh top so while we were laying down we could look up and see the stars. It was Jude's first time camping out and we all had such a blast. Needless to say, the girls stayed inside :)

Parenting Magazine

The next time any of you are in the check-out isle at the grocery store, pick up a copy of June 2007 Parenting Magazine and flip over to page 15. Jude is in the advert for SwimWays!

Amy saw it today as she was flipping through. Jude was fired up to see himself in a magazine :)

How cool is that?

Graduation for Kerrigan

Kerrigan's pre-school graduation photo.

Man, it won't be long before we're looking at her high school graduation pictures... -sigh-

May 4, 1970

37 years ago today in Kent, Ohio was the Kent State shootings where four Kent State students were shot by Ohio National Guardsmen while over two thousand students were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War at the campus commons.

This picture was taken by John Filo a short time before the shootings took place.

I lived in Kent for a short time, and was there the year that Crosby, Still & Nash came to the campus to play at a May 4 memorial in 1997. There are still bullet holes that have been preserved at the scene. I saw one on the brick of Taylor Hall and then another on a metal sculpture.

As awful a tragedy as it was, how could the students be suprised? They had been rioting for three days, looting and destroying main street stores and shops. They set the ROTC building on fire and stopped local fire responders from putting it out. When the National Guard finally showed up, the kids pelted them with rocks. I don't want to say the kids had it coming, two of the four kids killed weren't even part of the demonstration, but what do you think was going to happen? Maybe if the punk bikers who started the riots the first day were the ones shot it may have ended differently...

Anyway, it was a tragedy plain and simple. Blame it on Nixon, I guess.

Scott and Amber

Our friends Scott and Amber pulling their son, Riley, and Kerrigan on our way back to the waterfall.

Justin and his son, Brock

Great day for a walk

Scott, Kerrigan, Amber, Riley, Sunny, Tiffany & Amy on our walk in the back...

On a walk

Me and Ames on the trails past our backyard with Rob & Tiffany, Justin & Sunny, and Scott & Amber... on the way to the waterfall.

Visit from the Jeffers

This weekend, Rob, Tiifany & Kathy came down for a visit from Virginia Beach. What an amazing time. We're so grateful to have friends like them.

Me and Moo Moo at the park

Guitar Hero

Guitar Hero is amazing. Today, I picked up a second guitar so Amy and I could throw up the horns together in guitar-shredding unity. I predict that Jude is going to be the next Yngwie Malmsteen.

Hokie Hope

BT in the house

We had not-so-near, but very dear friends from Elyria, Ohio visit this weekend. Even though Samantha and Abbey couldn't make it down, Brian and Jessica came and we had a blast!!

God gave us an extra day because it was supposed to thunder storm Thursday, all day Saturday and then a dreary/rainy Sunday. Thursday was nice; Friday was brisk in the AM, but awesome the rest of the day; Saturday, which was supposed to be wet and nasty ended up being the day we spent almost entirely outside playing with the kids; then Sunday ended up being a decent day for a drive home for those guys.

What a refreshing and fun time! We played golf, shredded on Guitar Hero, had a nice cookout, played baseball, kickball, football, dodgeball and took the kids to the park... we all had a blast.