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 :)