Family Man

We are big on signs...

On Tuesday, I was starting to pack up our Christmas decorations.  I asked Debra if we were going to get another exchange student in the fall, if not I was going to use the guest room's closet for Christmas decorations instead of the attic...   She was undecided.  About 40 minute later we got a call from AFS, asking us if we would be interested in hosting an exchange student for the spring, starting on January 16 (Mariana).     We took this as a sign, and had them send us the information..

We liked her from the beginning of reading her information.    She seemed sweet and able to blend in well with our family.    So we told them we were interested..

Kids.

Meagan and Gavin were excited about the prospect and definitely wanted us to go forward.

Grant was a bit more hesitant.  What about Jess..  He said if Jess said it was OK, he would be fine with it..

But..

There was another family. that had never hosted before, who were also interested.  Although we liked Mary, from what we read, we did not want to deprive someone else from the hosting experience.

As it turns out the other family was not sure they wanted a student and still needed time and with only a week left,  we were chosen as her host parents.  Yeah!

A little about her..

Mariana is from Antofagasta in Northern Chile.   Right next to the water, from pictures the water looks beautiful - not sure what she will think of the Galveston beach.  The other exchange we knew from South America (Guilia from Argentina) was so sweet we had long-ago agreed we would want an student from South America.   

Her long term goal is to be a chef.  And although we do not want to take advantage of her, we would be more than willing to let her practice on us :).

She is big into using MSN and Facebook, so we will be able to communicate with her before she gets her and keep up with her once she leaves.

She has close friends in Chile and we worried we would miss them and want to go back after a couple of weeks.  But she had a sister who also came to America for a semester so she knew what she was getting into.

What about Jess..

Since Jess was such a great experience and part of our family, having another exchange student is weird.  Like we are replacing her, there is a certain amount of guilt.  We have called it "Jess's room" for so long it will feel weird calling it "Mary's room",  we still have the New Zealand map in the corner.    Grant feels and expresses this guilt more than anyone...

I also feel there is no way I will love her like I loved Jess, like she was part of the family.  But I expect we felt the same way when we only had Meagan and brought Grant home, that we would not love the next kid as much.  But our hearts have so much room for love.

We had so few problems with Jess (after the first couple of weeks), that we may be holding Mariana to too high a standard.   But I expect each person is different and we will learn to appreciate Mariana for he strengths as well.

I expect Jess will be a great resource for Mary, telling her about our family, Texas, the high school, the joy/pain of  leaving a southern hemisphere summer for a Texas Winter, and what to expect from the whole experience.  Between Facebook, IM and email the world is a smaller place.

Frantic Prep

With Jess we had a couple of months to prepare and she was to be with us for a week before school starts.   With Mary, she is coming in a little over a week (Next Friday) and she starts school the following Tuesday.   So much to do.   

Jess's Mary's room has been turned into a little bit of a storage room.   The drawers and closets full of stuff that we could not find other places for.   We have to clean up the room a bit for the arrival.  

We have to get her pre-registered her next week, and then register her for classes on the day she arrives - so she knows where to go on Tuesday.

We are a bit more emotionally prepared this time.   We know what to expect a bit more.   Again we worry about what we are going to feed this girl, but since her goal is to be chef - maybe she can help us cook for her. 

We are excited.    I hope it will again be a good experience for us and our Mary..

Had interesting discussions with my Brother-in-Law, Robert Bruns, this weekend.    He has some pretty strong convictions on the direction he feels the market and country is going.   

Although I disagree, I do have a lot of respect for him, for two reasons. 

1. He has worked his way out of debt.  A difficult feet that my wife and I had to endure after college.
2. He is willing to put his money were his mouth is and invest in things that will profit from his predictions.   Too many people are saying, gas prices are just going to go up and up again, I know it...   Well, if you can predict the future so well - bet on it..  Robert feels we are in prolonged US recession/stagflation is coming/US dollars are coming back and flooding our market.  The difference in his opinion and others is, Robert is actually investing in that believe with hopes to profit..  Gotta respect that..

Robert feels that the best investments are those based in other currencies, pay dividends, and include some commodity (gold/silver) correlated stocks.  

But I have my own experiences and have read different books.  My best investment I ever made was in Energy Mutual funds about 3 months after the Enron mess, when no-one wanted to buy energy stocks.   I feel we are in the same situation with financial stocks right now.  No-one is buying them, even with the huge influx of government cash the stocks remain low.  So I am buying financial sector mutual funds.   It is an opinion, but like Robert I am willing to invest my money in it..

So for fun, I am going to compare the performance of my choices ($2000) in one of my kids college funds, that I actually invested,  to what I would have made had I followed Robert Brun's suggested stocks.  So here are the portfolios.

End-Of-Us-Dominance Portfolio

Contrarian US will Recover Portfolio

I do not have a strong record picking stocks, so I very well may lose.    But we will see it should be interesting..

We wanted to teach our kids a little a bit about saving money with a monthly allowance.   I wanted to teach them about compound interest, but at today's interest rate it would take years for them to earn a dollar.   Since Meagan has more responsiblities, we wanted her to get more of an allowance.

So to satisfy our requirements, here is the plan we have come up with.

• We started each with $100
• They can deposit any gifts (from grandpa etc) to the account.
• Meagan get $15 a month allowance,  Grant gets $10 a month allowance
• Each kid gets 10% interest each month.

It is the 10% interest that I use to try to teach them about compounding interest.    When they want to spend $20,  I tell them in 7 months that would  be worth $40.       They are a little bit confused by it, but I think they are getting it...

The kids also like to compete.     When someone want cash instead of the money deposited into their account, their sibling will taunt them that they are going to have more money..

We will see how long this all goes, at 10% interest a month, they could break me in a couple of years..

Well another baseball season for Grant, the hitter is over. 

Each season brings new experiences with new coaches and new team-mates. 

This year Grant was on the Lookouts with Rory S.   Rory was a good coach who let the kids play lots of positions during the season and tightened up the lineup (having the better kids infield) during the end of the season and playoffs.   He was also a coach that believed in swinging the bat.  Grant has been on teams with coaches that preached - "Stand up there and wait for the walk"  and coaches that say "Swing away",   we prefer coaches that let you swing away.

When you swing away, you usually start off the season slow, because the kids do not hit at the beginning of the season.  The slow bats in conjunction with letting everyone get equal playing time had us off to a slow start (1-6 through the first 7).   But as the season progressed we got better at hitting, our pitchers became more accurate and we started to get a better infield and ended the season very strong (6-7 overall).

We won the first playoff game against a team that only hit 2 times, but stood up there for a lot of walks.   We came back from a 9-1 2nd inning deficit to pull it out on the back of strong hitting..

The second playoff game, we lost in a heart-breaker by one point in the last inning.   Grant felt bad because he was the catcher when the winning run stole home.   But he was the only player to hit 3-for-3 in the game and had throw someone out stealing 2nd,  so I felt he had done more than his share to get the victory..   I had been practicing hitting with Grant every night for the past 3 weeks and have told him and Debra if it was two outs, one point down and I could put anyone up - I would want Grant to be batting.... I stand by that.  But if we are up by one, I do not want Grant catching, his catching is just not up to the pressure.   I think he was the best catcher available and he did alright, and I do not blame him for the loss.  It was team loss, we just did not have the pitching or fielding to hold them..

This was the first year Debra was team-mom.  She hesitated, now knowing if she would have to be team mom for my T-Ball team. But once I had a team-mom she tookover as the Look-out team mom..   She did good, keeping everyone in line and informed...

As far as Grant's play this season, it was pretty good.   On offense he became quite a hitter and on defense he took on a new position of catcher.

Since machine pitch, Grant has been Mr. Consistency.  He had a machine-pitch season were he was the only one to not get a strike out the entire season. This year he had the most hits of anyone on the team.   In the last five games, he got on base every bat, but once, through walks or hits.  Again, he was reliable..

But we also added a little power to his swing.  In the spring last year and the beginning of this year, all his hits would end up in the short stop or second baseman's glove as a grounder.    Through lots of balls at the back of Oyster Creek and wiffle balls at night, he developed a bit more power.   As the season progressed more and more of his balls landed in the outfield.  More and more he ended up with stand up singles and doubles   instead of getting out or on-by-error.   Until the last 3 games when he stepped up to the plate after his first bat and you heard music to a father's ears as the other coaches say "back up outfield, look alive".  When I was in little league all I heard when I got up was "come on in outfield".

Grants favorite time this year was base running.  He had a habit of going to second almost every time he hit, and about half the time that he walked.   You can safely make it to second most of the time in this league.  His favorite memory of the year was his second time batting in the last game.   A friend of his from school said - he is going to go to second, he always goes to second...and sure enough he hit to the shallow infield which most people would have gotten a single on and ended up and second - his friend was "I told ya'll so".     Rory had him leading off most the last half the season because of his bat and his baserunning..

Several of the leagues better pitchers, did not play in fall-ball.  Between football and select baseball they chose not play little league in the fall.   We wonder how well Grant will do in the spring as the faster more accurate pitchers come back from their little league sabbatical..

In the field, Grant tried catching with mixed success.  He was a good machine-pitch catcher, but then all you had to do was stop the ball and they were always strikes. He had not caught in kid pitch, and it is a whole new game.   With wild pitches, kids stealing even if you caught the ball, and kids stealing home.    Grant did pretty good, he was excellent at hustling.  Could throw the ball pretty good the bases.  But he did not always stop the ball as well as other kids <- which is kinda the catchers job.   Several of our pitchers were less than accurate, which made his job a bit harder.   

There is a new little league rule that after you pitch, you can not catch for that game - it is in place to save the kids arm.  But that limited your catchers.  Our best catchers were also our best pitchers, and once they pitched you had to put in you less-experience catcher which included Grant.  So he was in quite a bit more than his skill-set would have warranted.

His best and worse experience came in the final inning on the playoffs.  He threw a player out trying to steal second, this did not happen very often at this age (when it happened it was the most excited I had ever seen Rory).    He got close within inches of throwing out two other people.  He was doing great.  But at the end of the inning, he missed a key ball and let the winning run score.  It was such a let-down.  I am not sure he ever want to catch again, he just left his left-handed catcher glove sitting there like he did not want it anymore and refused to put it in his bat bag..

We really enjoyed this season more than any other.  Even those which we won the championship.   We liked our coach, we liked the team-mates, I liked the other dads,  and Debra liked the other moms.    The team got better as we went on and we were hitters and it kept the game exciting.  Grant had a great season, and we felt like he played a huge role in the victories...

Yesterday was good day for Grant...   He came home with straight A's on his report card and had an awesome baseball game..

He went 3-for3 hitting, the first person on his team to do that all year long.  He hit his first ball well into outfield, he had hit a lot, but this was his first really good shot..

When he was catcher, he did not let anyone steal home - harder than it sounds at this age with this pitching.    There was a player we did not particularly like that was on 3rd most of game-- and he wanted to steal you could tell..   Grant kept him on third through several wild pitches through hustle.

He caught popup and bad throws.   All-in-all a great game that we enjoyed watching.  It did not hurt that this was only the second game his team won all season..

Striking another one off of my 100 things to do before I die list, I have finished up the season coaching Gavin's T-Ball baseball team.  I loved coaching, but not sure Gavin was ready for baseball yet.

Coaching a Team

I was more of a manager than a coach.  I had an assistance coach, Michael Dupree, who had coached before and was excellent  at getting the kids to hit.  I had two high school coaches, who were great help.  And a grandfather who had coached several seasons of little league baseball.     But being a manager took quite a bit of organization and time.

I loved the kids I had.  And I think our team was a little about average.   There was one team that I thought was great, one team that was bad and three of us in the middle.  It is hard to say since we did not keep score and on some games did not even make the players go to the dugout when they got out.

I had one superstar, Ryan, that I think was the best kid in the league.   He would average getting about 3 people out an inning just by himself.    I know he will be an all-star and I wonder if he will be college player as well.  He had some natural talent and enthusiasm..

I think I did pretty good.  I was enthusiastic, if nothing else.  The team mom said that in the three season her son has played, I was the most organized and best coach, so that made me feel great...

Coaching Gavin

As for coaching Gavin, I did not enjoy that as much.    Gavin said he wanted to play, so we did not force him to sign up like we forced Grant some time.   But one of the moms asked Debra "Did Gavin want to play or did his dad make him", after seeing him being silly on the field..

Silly is I guess the best to describe Gavin's play.. At home and before the game, he would hit almost ever ball..when he got up to bat he would look around, act goofy and take 4 swings to hit the ball..  In the field he would lay in the dirt, play around.  I know that is how kids are supposed to behave the first season, but he was by far the worst one at paying attention on our team..

But on the other hand, I loved the bonding that Gavin and I got out of going to team sports together.  The rituals we built up.   Getting the G2 and candy on the way.  Him sitting in the front seat, playing with the radio.   Reading signs.   Packing things in and out and setting up the dugout.  Jumping in the pool after the games.    All the rituals and bonding with my son, that is what I will miss the most..

Things I learned..

I learned a lot of things about coaching and player motivation etc.. Here are a couple...

   1. Cubbies - 4 years ago, when I was an assistant coach, players were always looking for their glove/hat.    They took them off and threw them on the ground.  I bought small plastic boxes from Walmart, put each kids name in the box and put them on the bench, the kids shoved their hat/glove in there when they came in and we never searched for one.    In addition, I lined them up in their batting order and so they could track the order they would bat..

   2.  Ready positions - The kids tend to drift off at this age and look/spin around.    Sometimes I would call out individual players and ask them to get ready.  But the most effective method I found was to point out someone who was ready, and all the players immediately got into ready position, it was the most effective way to get them ready..

   3.  Team Lineup -  I printed out at least 10 copies of the lineups (with position per inning).   I gave them to all the coaches/dugout dads so they could help me get the kids in position.   I also gave copies to the parents.  It puts off all arguments about kids being in outfield too many times a games when they see the lineup.  Plus it helps them spot their own kid,  a feat which is harder than you would think as they all look pretty similar in hats and uniforms..

   3a.  Lineup Philosophy - On the first day, on the back of the lineup I described my lineup philosophy.  Generally kids are going to play all positions.  If they play outfield, the next inning they get a good infield position.   etc..  So the parents would know why I did what I did.

    4. Keep the bats outside the dugout - If the bats are in the dugout, someone will get hurt.  Keep them outside.

    5.  Let your coaches, dugout dads help on the field - You can have two coaches helping the kids in when you are on the field, I let other dads do that.   They helped the kids get in position and coach them.  I stayed by the dugout and watched the whole field.  When a player did good, I would march across the field, get down at their level and tell them what they did good.   I never criticized without first giving them a compliment "way to stop the ball, but next time tag the runner as he runs by".

Things I wished I had done.

   1. Told everyone to show up 30 minutes early for warmups - We had some kids show up right on time (or 5 minutes late) and it caused havoc..

    2.  Lineout team-mom responsibilities.   I should have built a list with everything that needed to be done and whether I would do it or whether the team mom would do it (get trophies, plan end of year party).   It was not an issue this season because I had an experienced team-mom, but if I did not, it could have gotten hairy..

    3. Scheduled practices - I should have probably scheduled practices throughout the season.   It was hard because I also had Grant's games but it would have made us better.   The team that was the best in the league was the only one I know who did this, and it showed.

At Gavin'sparent-teacher conference we were a bit shocked at what the kids were expected to read before they finished Kindergarten.   It was much harder than Meagan/Grant and Gavin, well - he is a bit behind his siblings at this age.   So we have be joining the struggle to get him reading.   I have started him on simple sentences, sounding out the words that I have written.   We are starting with the AT words - it took him a while the first time to understand the concept but he gets better each time.  Here we took a picture of our fat cat sitting on a hat..

On Saturday we had a JYM sleepover at our house.  OK, we had only one person, Delaney D spending the night.  The girls got some purple hairspray and decorated the boys (and my hair),  me with Mohawk and Grant with a G..   They enjoyed the hot-tub and hanging out watching the movie.

The rest of the weekend was taken up with baseball, granny visiting and general kid play.  Here Gavin and Kennedy found the baseball hats.

This week will be baseball-centric with games on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurday, Friday and Saturday...

This past weekend we had three baseball games in a row so it seems our life is being spent more and more around baseball.  But the season is halfway over so life may get less hectic soon.

Thursday and Friday we had Grant's baseball games.  On Friday, it was Friday Under The Lights where they played a night game with free burgers and refreshments provided.   They even had announcers (I was the announcer) that told fun facts about the players as they batted - Grant goes to Oyster Creek and his favorite food is Hamburgers  - stuff like that.

Grant's team is not doing too well.  They have only won 1 game.  But it is a good group of kids (mostly) and we really like his coach's personality.

On Saturday we another Gavin game.   We did really well.  We don't keep score, everybody hits regardless of outs.  But we got many more outs than our opponent for the first time this season.  Mostly due to a stacked lineup that had some of our 6 year olds at key positions.

Gavin still pays attention less than any other kid and still does not know where to go when I tell him to go to centerfield etc.  But I enjoy the heck out of managing the team.  I enjoy the logistics of making out  the schedule, organizing the dug-out, team pep-talks,  giving away the game-ball (and Raptor-for-the-week).    I have so much fun.  I am not sure I am the best person for coaching the kids on particular techniques, but I think I do pretty good at the managing portion of it..  But maybe it is like singing, dancing, or playing tennis - things I really enjoy doing, but am not very good at..

We have three more weeks. Then playoffs start for Grant, but with his team, I expect we may not make it far into the playoffs, but I could be surprised.

As Fall is upon us the tempratures drop, but we still find uses for our pool.

As I got home from the Gavin's baseball game, I was hot and sweaty.   The way I coach I am running around a lot, giving high five's to kids, going up to them telling them what they did right or wrong.  I am very active.   In addition, the adreline kicks in to overdrive as I try to organize the line-up, deal with kid and parent problems.  It is exciting time, but it also very stressful and I get hyped up and sweaty.    So I jumped in the pool.  It was cold, for those of you who swam in Sulphur park before it closed - it was like that.  The coldness washes over you whole body there is even a smell of coldness mixed with chlorine fills your nostrils, it is exhilirating and calming at the same time.   I felt relaxed and renewed after a couple of laps.   

A little while later Debra came home with Gavin.   He was in a bad mood so to cheer him up, Debra and Meagan threw him in the pool.

He got out dripping wet, but smiling.

We were all laughing at Gavin, especially Meagan - so she was next.     As I laughed, I felt a push on my back and was falling it - I had to throw my camera into grass as I headed in to avoid loosing another camera.     Debra knew here time was coming, so she jumped in her full clothes to enjoy the fun.

Later in the day Grant got his turn.  Coming back from his baseball game, there was a lot of Meagan's friends there.  So he got thrown into the cold as well.

We are still getting a couple of hours every weekend use out of our pool as October rolls around.    The kids will turn on the hot-tub for a while and jump between the cool of the pool and heat of the hot-tub.  I am not sure when we will have our last swim of the year but we are still enjoying it..

We had stayed in place for the last hurricane scare, Rita. Rita missed us and we felt the next hurricane we would do the same thing.   There was another storm, Ike, brewing in the gulf and a the forecast had it heading for us and we decided we would hunker down.    I have to admit I was looking forward to riding our a hurricane.   It turns out riding a hurricane out was the easy part, but the aftermath is a bit harder on you..

Thursday's forecast had  the storm was heading straight for Sugar Land.   We were still confident in our plan to hang out in Sugar Land.  But I was worried enough to spend Thursday morning boarding up our bedroom windows, getting the mattresses down, and setting up the closet.

On Friday, the kids had off from school.   Like lots of time when the kids are off from school they hung out at our house...

We were glued to the news.  The most disturbing interview was with a woman in the mandatory evacuation area,  with two cute little children.  The interviewer asked why she stayed "I couldn't leave", we thought she had no transportation to get out - but when pressed she said "I have my house, and my animals and my kids I could not leave them here".   Those children deserve better, someone that would at least get their kids out of harms way, if they want be idiots they could stay - but save your children.

Unlike Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, there was not reason for people to stay in Galveston unless they absolutely wanted to.   The authorities went house-to-house telling people to leave.  Telling them if they were going to stay, to put their social security number on their arms so they could be identified later because the area was going to be under water - that would scare me into leaving..

Back in Sugar Land, on Friday night the winds were howling.   The storm track moved east about 30 miles leaving us on the "clean side".  The kids were sleeping in their closet.   I stayed up till midnight watching the news as the storm surge pounded Galveston.    Debra got up to take the next shift.   At 12:30 the power went out and we both fell asleep.

We both woke up during the night to hear the wind.   And woke up to hear the silence of the eye. But we stayed in the confort of our bed until the morning when the storm had past.

We woke up to no power, a lot of debris in the pool, leaning fence and broken branches.  But we were lucky.  Our neighbor behind us lost lots of shingles from their roof (lots ended up in our pool), water leaked in their attic and the ceiling collapsed.   People in other Houston houses had trees crash into their house. 

And people  on the beach, Galveston, etc lost their entire house.   Our friends the Kris Carley's mom lost her entire house on Crystal beach.   We often wonder about those kids whose mom refused to leave.

According to the news, a lot of downtown high-rise windows were broken.  I did not know if my work was full of broken windows.

We drove around a little bit and saw some of the damage to the rest of the neighborhood.  The school had trees down and stop signs down.  The "Maple Down Street" sign was down.

We spent most of the day cleaning out our pool.    There was so many leaves and shingles and crud in the pool.  It was a bit stressful not having power and not knowing when the power would be on again.   And I needed to get to a computer with internet access to make sure my system was still working.  So we packed out and headed down to Shiner.

We went to Shiner Saturday evening and stayed through Monday.    The kids seemed to enjoy it.   We had internet access and we let them play video games as much as they wanted - and that turned out to be quite a bit.   We ate out several times walking through Shiner to get from place to place enjoying small town.   I ended up sleeping upstairs with no air conditioning -yes I came down to Shiner to get to electricity, but still slept with out AC.    Here are the kids enjoying Shiner..

Debra also got to see Ashton's baby, Kale around 3 months old.

We heard we had power on Monday so we were heading back.   Before leaving we went off to the farm for four wheeling and shooting.   Grandpa set Grant up with a 22 with a scope.   He started hitting cans of Soda at around 30 yards.  Then down to golf balls.  Then down to 22 shell casings.   Grant is a better shot than I ever was.. I tried and failed to hit the cans..

We got to the house and we had power and internet!  We were set.     My work had not started back down town so other than monitoring my system ever night, I was free.   

It was a bit stressful having all the kids in the house all the time, having to travel, being short on supplies.    The house was still in hurricane mode with the mattresses in our closet and the close contents strewn across the house.   Debra was a bit irritated and I was giddy which did not help her irritation.    But she got over it and it was all good.

Once the pool was cleaned upm, we had a litany of kids through into the pool and enjoying the hot-tub.    Gavin was happy that his Guuurlfriend Kennedy was safe and enjoying the swim.

Debra's work started back on Wednesday with a corporate tax deadline looming on Friday.  So I had the kids.   Partially because I wanted to cleanup the Debra-irritating clutter    and  partially because of Ike, I decided we should give away the kids clothes that had been accumulating in the front room.   So I had the kids pack it in the car and help me load it into the donation center.   

Then it was time for a little baseball practice.    Grant hit and pitched while Gavin spent most of his time just running the bases.

Surviving the actual hurricane was pretty easy for us.  Our house is strong and we have no big trees to crash into our house.  But the aftermath of not having power and supplies running low wore on us.  The continuous stress of whether our friends were ok and the running commentary of devastation on the news frazzled our nerves.   But we were so lucky, folks in the direct path suffered so much more and are under so much more pressure.

As I said before, I will admit to in a small way wanting the storm to hit us, so I could like through the storm.  But, being on the clean side of a category 2 storm and seeing the devestation that we so closely missed -I do not ever wish to go through another storm..

Well this is our last weekend before our life gets a lot busier.   Baseball and Sunday school are starting up next week.   It has been very relaxing for the last two weekends.   We look at the calendar and there is only one or two things all weekend...    

We each got in naps and had a relaxing weekend, nothing really picture worthy this weekend.

Baseball - T-ball/Coach Pitch

After seven seasons in WSLLL, I have decided to step in an manage a team.  I am excited.    I have had some really good coaches through the years and look forward to bringing what I have learned to the field.   I may not be the best athlete and be able to provide the ideal form, but I think my excitement and drills I have learned from other coaches will make me a good coach.

I had my draft this weekend.    At this age, most of the coaches do not know hardly any of the kids.  In upper ages the coaches know the kids (and/or parents) and there is a little more skill in drafts.  Now it is us just picking names that sound like ball players..   I think I did pretty good.  Afterwards when I got a list of the parents, I had drafted one high school baseball coach and one high school basketball coach.  One whose kid has played two seasons and is better hitting off the coach pitch than the t-ball.  All the parents sounded excited.

It is a non-competitive league.   With every kid in the order batting every time regardless of how many outs are made.  But I still feel pressure to do well.  To make sure the kids learn.   That those who go on to the slightly more competitive coach-only-pitch in the spring do well.   To learn to throw the ball to first, to run the bases, learn to stop a ground ball, to have fun, those are my goals

The practices start this Saturday. I will know a lot more about how the season will go after that.  I will know if the dads will help and if the kids will pay attention.

At the same time Grant is starting baseball.   He is the older one on his team now.  I have been working on his hitting the past several weeks, but let his pitching slide.  I think I may need to work on his pitching a little more in case he is needed.

Sunday School

The same weekend that baseball starts, our Sunday school was starting.  I went to training on our curriculum this past weekend and got all our stuff.  So I am ready to get their learn on.

We had a meet-the-teacher day today.  Debra and I have one of the largest classes.   It went pretty well, we had a small accident with one of the kids, but it meant everyone could go outside - which they loved.   This class seems much more controllable than last years class.  Last year, we had a couple of girls that were 7 going on 17, with the attitude...

In addition the church activities starts.  We are having a KFC(Kids-for-Christ) swim party at our house on Sunday (If Ike does not come).  We are not sure how many people are coming, but it could be a huge crowd in the Gillar-pool.   We have a camping trip the following weekend with JYM (Junior Youth Ministry).

Other stuff

And while all this is going on, the homework is also starting to get piled on Meagan was whining this evening about how much homework she has to do.   Grant is reading every night and is starting to bring more homework home.

Next weekend will be the start of another busy time in our lives.  Baseball season is cranking up... lets play ball!

Last Thursday, Aug 28, was our 15th Wedding Anniversery.  All our babysitters also go to school, so we took our kids with us to Pappasittos for some fine Mexican grub.  By the time were were done with kid's chior at church and our mexican food, it was time for our kids and us to get to bed.   What a boring anniversery, but it does reflect our life.

On Friday our friends from church (Lisa and Kevin Dolezal) came over with their kids and exchange student for a swim/pizza party.  They have a pool, but there kids still enjoyed our, although I think they enjoyed the Sandbox more.  Their exchange student Deer, from Thailand is still in the initial amazed, shy, hard-to-understand-you-fast-talking-americans phase of her exchange program.  But by the end of the day she seemed to be having fun with our kids playing guitar hero with Grant.  It did make us miss our little kiwi Jess though.

Saturday and Sunday we were just plane lazy. I helped a little at the church, we went to church and small get together to church on Sunday,   Debra got her PTA trreasury work going,  we glued to the weather channel watching Gustav head toward Lousianna.   But until Monday noon, we were pretty sluggish.

We have been trying to teach our kids about saving money.  I have told them I will pay 10% of whatever they have saved ever month. Debra will pay them 10-15 as a salary for doing chores.   I hope to teach them that by saving and not spending the results will be exponential.     Meagan gets it and is eager to save her money.  Grant on the other hand..

On Monday we headed to Zuma funplex.  We road a little gokarts, played video games, and Grant hit at the batting cages.

Then it was off to discovery park.   It is a relatively new park opened in downtown Houston.  Within a couple of blocks on Minute-maid park and Toyota center.     They have a couple of splash parks, a playground, and kite/parachutes.   The boys had fun, although it was designed for a younger crowd so Meagan was exhibiting a little pre-teen angst...

This next weekend I have baseball drafts on Sunday for Gavin's T-Ball team, I am officially the manager - not sure what I got myself into.

I love to read.

My reading has been a bit hap-hazard.  I have read all the recent non-fiction (Freakonomics, Power of Now etc).  I have read a fair amount of new fiction from the best sellers list.   I have found authors that I like (Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Copeland) and read everything in the public library by him.  I have looked at others lists on Facebook and read some of their favorites.    I had gone through the library and looking for books that look interesting based on the cover and read those..

Quite a variety for choosing which books to read for a Type-A person like myself.  With mixed results, I found I was no good at judging how much I would like a book by browsing and looking at book-jacket for one thing..

I decided to do what any normal, non-free-thinker would do,  look to someone else's list.  So I have looked for the list of 100 books to read before you die and came to one from Random-house (how classic sell-out I am it is even a book publishers list).  

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

After looking through the "The Readers List", I found that I really liked all the books that it had recommended.  So I thought that boded well for the rest of the list.    So I now I have a plan, to attempt to read all 100 books.  I am about 10% done already, we will see how much smarter I am after I finish..

Books I have read in my adult life from the list so far..

1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
6. 1984 by George Orwell
19. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
51. THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
90. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey

Books I have started to read, but hated so much I could not finish

11. ULYSSES by James Joyce

Books I have read earlier in my life that I plan to re-read

5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
12. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
25. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
79. WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams

Between the pool, the vacation, the AC repairs, a huge electricity bill, and the lightning strike we have been running low on cash.   We still have our 6 months of savings, but we are fighting to not have to break into that.   One of the suggestions I read about was a spend-free weekend, so we decided to try it this weekend.

Debra and I had different opinions on what a spend-free weekend meant.  I thought is was we could spend money on the necessities, groceries, toilet paper etc - but we would have no discretionary spending - no going out to eat, no toys for the kids, no movies, no videos, no haircuts,  nothing we could live without for the weekend.  Debra felt it was no spending unless we found another way to pay for it, for example old gift cards.   In opinion we could buy clothes detergent, but not go out to eat.  In Debra's we only buy the clothe detergent with her gift certificate, but we could go out to eat to Pappa's because we had a gift card.   Either way we did pretty good the only thing we spend that was not really covered under my definition was some beer $5 and something to add to our waterbed for $15..  

Since we could not spent money, we spent a lot of time in the pool,  which was accidentally heated.   We had problems with the heater and left it on, and it came on and heated the whole pool.  The kids loved it for a while, but after about 10 minutes it was annoying..  They still had fun jumping in and out, but just did not spent a lot of time in the pool.

Last weekend Grant had a back-to-school party, two of his best/oldest friends (Austin and Caden) could not come last weekend.  This weekend they made up for him spending hours at our house and in our pool.     It was a good time, they enjoy having Debra throw the ball over the pool as they stretch their bodies to try to catch it before they splat into the water.   It is good fun.

On Sunday Grandpa, Grandma and the Katy Gillars came in to drop off some furniture and swim.     My dad swam for the first time in several years, but spend most of his time just relaxing and playing with the grandkids.   Uncle Troy's water-wrestling a favorite with Grant and Meagan although he is a bit rougher than their father - I told them I had a mean brother.  Then it was off to Joe's crab shack for some playground fun and seafood.

Sunday night, we all got to bed early ready for the big day.  Gavin started kindergarten, Grant 4rth grade, and Meagan middle school (6th).  Gavin was excited.  Grant just did not want to go to school because it cut into his video game time.  Meagan was the most nervous middleschool was a big change for her..    For us, we were excited this marked the end of day care expenses (unless I can convince Debra to have another)

We dropped Gavin off first,  he went right in without any issues.   I had to pull Debra away from the class she kept looking back in, it is hard to let her baby go.   Grant was a non-issue just walking into Mrs Johnson's class (the same teach Meagan had). 

Meagan was a bit more nervous,  not knowing what to do or where to go.   Debra and I walked her in and helped her get situated.  Debra wanted to stay in until she found the right group of friends for her to hang with, but I pointed out we were the only parents there - all the others had walked them in and left.  So we were the Helicopter parents of the day hovering around to swoop in and save our child... oh-well we have to laugh at ourselves sometimes.   I am sure she is going to do fine..

As drove back to the house we talked about our baby finally going to school.  And how far he came since we enrolled him in preschool last year - last year we watched him on the daycare-video feed, and they put an unpeeled banana in front of him and Debra was scared our child would starve, he does not know how to peel a banana...  Gavin is pretty self reliant now.   He knows his letters, his numbers, his colors,   it is time for him to start school and us to let go..

We have been putting more responsibilties on our children, especially Meagan over the last year.    Although they do not have as much as I would like.  I was driving tractors most of the summer and Debra was washing dishes at a resteraunt by the time we were Meagan's age.

I thought I would write their responsibilities all down so in 6 years when Gavin is 11 we can see if he has the same level of work.

The kids will usually  do what they are told after a little arguing.   But there is no arguing about these being their tasks...

Meagan

• Feed Cat
• Water Plants
• Unpack dishwasher
• Log library books into the reading-challenge on the computer
• Edge grass

Grant

We had a busy weekend.    We went to a movie and hosted a couple of parties...

On Friday night, the newest Star Wars movie came out and the boys and I wanted to go.  Debra was not as excited.   After a supper at our favorite Willies,  the boys went to watch Clone wars,  while the ladies went to see Sisterhood of the traveling pants.

On Saturday, we hosted a back-to-school party for a couple of Grant's friends.  The kids swam and played for 3 hours straight..   Grant had a couple of really good boys there and they all got along great.

On Sunday, we had some of our old neighbors, the Royalties, back for food and drinks.    I drink enough to get hung-over about twice a years, this was one of those days.   We always enough hanging out with them.    One of the funniest episodes was when Beth saw our clothes line - she was "Oh my god" - she had to go see how it worked.     I expect that sealed us as her white-trash friends..

One of the coolest things about having the pool is being able to entertain people.   We have had more people over in the couple of months than we had in the years before we had our pool.  It give us something to do, gives us a place to hang around, and with the new grill - a place to cook.

This is our last week of the kids being out of the school.

We had a relaxing time this past weekend.   We had very little on our schedule and spent a lot of time just hanging around this house.

On Saturday, we went to see a girl from our church sing  in the Sugar Land version of American Idol at town square.    It was a good time, there were some good singers and some boring singers.  Renee, who we came to see, came in third place which was respectable considering the contest started months ago with a 100 people..

On Sunday we went to the Swinging Door  in Richmond for some Bar-B-Que.  Since our vacation and replacing stuff struck by lighting, we have been trying to spend less money and eat in more often.   The Swinging Door was a break from the routine..

We finally bought a clothe dryer.  For the past couple of months, we have been using a clothe line to handle all our drying needs.  It worked pretty good except for a couple of rainy days.    We are keeping the line up for some of our clothes, but whites are just too much to not use the dryer.

On Sunday we had a good family swim/pool tile scrubbing.

This coming weekend we are having a back to school party for Grant...

On Saturday, we invited my brother, Troy over for some swimming and food.    The rain came and cut our swim short, but it was still a good visit.    We enjoyed burgers, hot dogs, and Kiwi Pavlova

A couple of days later, we had a scare that a hurricane that was coming.    Although I did not freak out and try to get to another town, I did spend time cleaning out my back yard from all the debris.    It looked quite bare.  The next day, Grant and Gavin enjoyed playing in the puddles that were left behind

Next weekend we have little on our calendar other than going to see a church friend at a singing contest at Sugarland town Center.

Debra left us on Friday for a PTA training/Junket in Austin.  So it was just dad and the kids, what trouble could we get into.   Our family is together so much, and do many things together, it is seldom that I get to spend time with just my kids.   I was looking forward to it, but in the end I did not accomplish most of what was on my list.

Friday night was Pappa John's Pizza (Debra least favorite pizza), Blockbuster, and Sonic ice cream.    One of the joys of parenting is driving your kids to get ice cream.    Meagan with her Reeses Blast (no whip cream), Grant changing every time, and Gavin just happy as a clam with his plain ice cream cone.

We are not big on giving our kid chores. I would like to, but lack the discipline. But I have insisted they help with the yard-work.   We are one of the only people on our street who mow their own yard.   And it is good to have the kids learn a little hard work.    Meagan and Grant got promoted this week.    Meagan took over edging for me,  it is bit loud and scary but she says it is easier than blowing.  Grant took over blowing the grass-cutting's from Meagan - he does a great job at it.    Gavin kept his job of gathering the grass clippings and putting them in the trash.  I am not sure I am ready for Gavin to take over the poisoning the weeds that Grant had, so he did not get promoted.   Here is a shot of Grant at his new job...

On Saturday, I took the kids to see Journey to the Center of the Earth, in 3-d.  It was as intense ride, with all three kids climbing on in parts and kids jumping out of their seats.  I thought it was one of the best use of 3d of any film I had ever seen.

All weekend long we had kids in and out of the house and through the pool.

On Sunday we headed down to Shiner.   After a lunch at the country country cafe, it was off to help out.  Dad had helped me move a couple of times and I never thought I would have to return the favor.  But while I was down there I helped dim move some of his big stuff from Shiner out to the farm.   Thanks in part to the AC going on out in the Shiner house this past weekend, they had to quickly move to the coolness of the farm.   He is getting the farm all setup with comfortable beds and better drinking water.

Grant is enjoying the farm for the week.  Before he left us, he had to get his love in with Meagan. Isn't sibling love great!

Grant thought he would get to stay in Shiner, with the step-uncles video games for entertainment.  But since the AC is out in Shiner, he is spending the week at the the farm - with only the great outdoors..   We called him yesterday and although he is missing the games, he is doing all right.   He was fishing and had caught a couple of mud-cats. 

Debra spent the weekend in Austin, on the PTA tab.  Her hotel was a couple of blocks from 6th street so she got to experience the fun with her PTA brethren.   She got drunk at a bar one night and for ice cream the next.    Like me, she just enjoys people-watching walking up and down the streets.   While there she noticed PTA moms,   you easily spot them a group of middle-aged women in capri-pants, slightly out of place, but having fun.

Next weekend I will go to the farm to pick up Grant and we have a birthday party to enjoy.

On Thursday while Debra and I were at work and our babysitter, Katherine, was watching the kids, lightning struck our house.    The alarm started and would not quit, a neighbor had to remove the speaker to get it to stop.

We ended up loosing three TV’s, phone, DSL Modem, Router, dryer, and our upstairs AC was fried.   We are submitting it to home owner insurance, but not sure if it will exceed our deductible.

On the 4th of July, we had Melissa and Nikki come spend to day as we cooked hotdogs and hamburgers and hung out in the pool.   And for dessert, nothing more appropriate to celebrate the birthday of our country than some American Pavlova.   Melissa left Nikki with us and she hung out with us for the rest of the weekend.

On Saturday, we headed down to Half Moon Holiday parade in Shiner.   It was good to see the cousins and my Dad in the float.  My dad drove one of his antique tractors pulling an outhouse with one of my step-brothers throwing out tootsie rolls.

We spent Saturday night at the Robert House with the Tomaseks.  The cousins enjoyed playing and sleeping together.

Sunday we spent mostly on the farm.  Nikki really took to riding 4 wheelers, she wants to come down often to work on her skills.

This week we will be recovering from the lightning strike.  This coming weekend Debra and the kids are going to Round Rock, while I spend my weekend at work.

The blog has been kinda slow lately.  Not because life has been slow, quite the contrary.

We have had the kids out of school, the pool being completed, and a vacation.

All this leads to precious little downtime to keep my journal to the world updated.

The pool is the biggest drain although not in the ways I thought.   The pool maintenance (chemicals etc) has not been that bad and Debra has taken the lead on a lot of the that. But after the pool was built, there were lots of backyard projects that needed to be done, grass planted, gates installed stuff like that.  These have been taking lots of my time.

Vacation across several states left no time for blogging although the pictures did make it into Facebook for my friends to see. We rented a van and had a couple of all night driving adventures in our 3,000+ mile vacaction.   We went to Grand Canyon (Hiked 1/3 the way down), Hoover Dam (cooler than it sounds), Las Vegas (Caught a couple of shows), Colorado Rafting (Family style, with little whitewater), and Royal Gorge (Swang over it).

Jess is leaving us on Monday.   Maybe after that I will find time to load up a couple of pictures and start the blog again..

We had a long weekend.  It was nice that we got off work for Debra's birthday.   But we were sad that they did not get our pool done in time to enjoy it this weekend.

Our pool has been going well, with little rain it has stayed on schedule.   We were hoping it would be completed by this weekend, but the current schedule has us starting to fill it on Tuesday.

Friday night we mowed the lawn even got Jess involved

Cooked some food, you like your fries crispy right.

Meagan had one of her new friends, Britta, over for a sleepover.   They tried out the sleeper sofa, while Jess got off..

Granny B, Jr, and Uncle Robert came into town for some family bonding.  We ate at Willies, went shopping, but together Debra's new grill, and grilled some meat.

On Monday we went shopping leaving Jess at home with a whole lot of kids.     We bought some patio furniture and spray paint to fix up our old stuff.   The pool is coming along quite nicely with furniture and new grill we are getting ready for some swimming..  The neighborhood kids enjoy our pool (and watermelon) even without water..

This weekend we are have two all-star games.  Depending how we do in those games will determine the rest of the weekend.   We may go down to Shiner for graduation on Friday... We may go up to Round Rock for Kyle's birthday celebration..

Well I missed a couple of weekend updates.   Been a bit busy, but here is a recap..

Schlitterbahn, Friday, May 09, 2008

- Rode lots of rides because it was a school day for most schools.    The last 30 minutes I rode about 6 rides with no lines. 

- Grant got separated from mom and was worried about her.

Galveston Beach, Friday, May 09, 2008

- Played a little in the sand and surf

Canoeing, Saturday, May 10, 2008

Had a canoeing trip with Meagan and our church group.  It was a blast.  My arms were sore for a week.     Here is Meagan making a sand Angel.

Gavin's Brithday

Gavin had a birthday a chuck-e-cheese.  Here he is opening a gift.

Baseball Playoffs, May, 2008

Grant won the baseball playoffs.  His team the Rivercats finally beat the their Nemisis the Hooks.  They won by the ten run rule, 14-4.    Grant was the 14th run.  He made all-stars and we are running to practice every other night

Jess Senior Ring, May 17, 2008

We got Jess a senior ring for Austin High school

Maybe I will be better at keeping up..

I have pictures and stories of Memorial Day and Debra's Birthday to post next..