They say the neon lights are bright …

The kids’ spring concert at church was this weekend.  While they may not have had any of the starring roles (yet), it’s always a hoot to watch.  And like most parents, if you ask me what the other kids were doing while J and A were on stage, I will reply “There were other kids on stage?”

A is one of the few actually watching the director, while J works the crowd.

And scratches.

This is A’s “Dad, I noticed you taking pictures and now I’m even more self-conscious” look.

And here, J models the o-so-fashionable “sash and sandals” look.

Look out! Choreography ahead!

A, J, and their cousin L (on J’s left) obviously thought this part was a riot.

Despite looking as if he’s completely lost, J is the only one holding the choreography correctly. My boy.

And time for the big finish.

Ball of T

Another two weeks without a blog post.  Oh well.  Since a lot of what we’ve been doing the past several weeks has involved getting the kids to/from various tball practices and games, I thought I’d include a recap of some of the festivities.

Ready to play

Yes, that’s a pink bat.

A’s oh-so-cute ponytail. Which, BTW, she had cut off the next day. I wept openly.

Once again showing off a cool feature of my new camera, here are a series of rapid-fire stills of J at bat.  Neat-o-fun game to play at home: if you scroll fast enough, it looks like one of those old flip-book style Mutoscopes!

Not to be outdone, here’s some of A making a play at 1st.

J has the most fun running the bases

A prepares to knock one out of the park. Or at least back to the pitcher.

If you’ve ever watched tball, you know the rules are made a little easier for the younger kids.  There are no outs, which is convenient for two reasons:

1. At this age, batters tend to break down and wail uncontrollably when they are “out.”  Their parents tend to do so as well.
2. I’m not sure if, in the recorded history of tball, any fielding play has ever produced an actual out. Usually each play involves the fielders either all mobbing the ball and fighting over who gets to throw it, or they are too busy playing in the dirt to notice that the ball just went right past them.

This rule means every batter bats each inning and simply runs to 1st base, regardless of how far the ball is hit.  The last batter in every inning gets to run all the way around, no matter what.  This was J’s first “home run.”  And no, his name is not “Jack.”  That was simply the name of the child on base in front of him, whose parents felt it necessary to yell directions at him the entire time.

Here’s one of A’s hits.  The child on base before A (yes, his name is “Bogie”) also received a fair amount of “encouragement” from his parents.

After the game, it was deemed that ice cream was in order:

A’s post game fashion statement … pink Uggs.

A good time was had by all.

An Amazing Discovery

In 1985, I can remember going outside to watch the first Space Shuttle, named Enterprise, fly over the DC area on the back of a 747  while on its way to being turned over to the Smithsonian.  Fast forward to yesterday, when another space Shuttle, the Discovery, was also flown around DC before delivery to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum annex.

We’ve been hearing about this transfer for some time now.  TV and radio stations have been telling people about some of the best spots to catch a glimpse the Shuttle as it circled the city.  Not wanting to cram myself into any of these limited (and therefore crowded) spots, I figured I would stand on the roof of our church and hope for the best.

And the best is what I got.

Arriving at work, I went up a series of steps into a mechanical closet, climbed a ladder, then unlocked a small door that led to the roof.

It’s good to have a key to every door at the church.

From my vantage point, I figured I just might be able to catch a far away shot of the Discovery, so I brought my new, high-zoom camera. I kept listening to the radio, hoping to get a clue as to when it might fly near.  About 2 minutes after I got on the roof, I saw our Senior Pastor walking up to the building.  Since we were supposed to have our weekly meeting about the time the shuttle was going to fly by, I texted him, telling him I was going to be a little late, being on the roof and all.

He immediately texted back, asking for directions to the roof so he could join me.

As he was working his way through the building, I happened to glance up … and saw the 747/Shuttle combo flying slowly by our building.

If that’s all I saw, I would have been thrilled.  About that time, our Senior Pastor made it out on to the roof.  We could still see the Shuttle far, far away, and figured it was just going to circle the downtown area.  Then we noticed it was heading back out of town.

But then we noticed that it looked like it was turning…

And turning …

And coming … right … at … us …

Can you say A … MA … ZING !

Then it came around again.

And again …

Overall, we spent about 45 minutes watching it fly around the city.  Finally, we saw it head out to the horizon, on its way to the Smithsonian Air and Space annex to land.

Can’t wait to go to the museum to see it from even closer.

Too many balls in the air

So much for my “at least one blog post a week” goal.  But the past several weeks have been hectic at best.  If you remember from previous posts, this time of the year is when K acts as decorating lead for a local charity fundraising ball.  This also means that I am the decorating lead’s head lackey.

The whole process goes something like this:

T – 6 months: Nail down theme.

T – 5 months: Start to lazily design based on theme.

T – 4 months: What was that theme again?

T – 3 months: Oh yeah, I guess I’d better order some supplies

T – 2 months: Did I order supplies?  Oh yeah, I did.

T – 1 month: Did I order supplies?  Oooo, I’d better go pick them up.

T – 3 weeks: Whoa, we’ve got less than a month.  Better get things going.

T – 2 weeks: Whoa, we’ve got less than a month.  Better get things going.

T – 1 week: Spend all waking hours unboxing, unwrapping, building, buying ribbon, painting, buying more ribbon, chasing rat from the garage (true story), having even more ribbon FedEx’d in overnight, assembling, using original ribbon.

T – 1 day: Finally putting all those hours playing Tetris to good use during loading of trucks.

T – 20 hours: Spend 2 hours assembling half of displays onsite

T – 10 hours: Come back the next day and spend another 4 hours assembling the rest of the displays on site.

T – 4 hours: Try not to collapse since you know you will never wake up in time

T – 1 hour: Turn on all elements of displays, including 35 battery operated centerpiece lights, 12 ficus trees with light strings, 6 trellis up-lights, 3 lanterns, a recording of birds singing, and a 200 pound fountain complete with running water … inside the ballroom.

Event: Enjoy 3 hours of relaxation and great food.

T + 3 hours: Start removing all of the above.

T + 6 hours: Finish repacking trucks.

T + 6 hours, 1 minute: Collapse into a heap.

So, that being said, let’s do a quick visual review of the evening.

A was ready to help

Staging room Friday night

After putting together so many centerpieces, we had to prop up K's arms.

Nana brought the kids by on Saturday afternoon so they could see the fruits of our labor. Of course they were most impressed by the shower in our hotel room.

10-foot gated arch serving as the entrance to the ball.

Obligatory "photo spot" for guests. Of course, two women plopped themselves down on the bench as soon as the festivities began and never budged. Lesson learned.

This fake rock normally covers our well head at home.

Breaking up dead space with up-lit pyramid trellises

Topiary centerpieces, complete with battery lights, fake moss, real potting soil, and rocks from our house.

The working fountain in the ballroom.

Overall, another fun and successful evening.

And it's always fun to break out the good clothes. Especially when I can now fit into the same tux I wore in high school.

Old man

Today is my (much older) brother’s birthday.  Buying gifts for him is usually pretty easy, since we tend to have a similarly warped sense of the world.

Except when it comes to certain TV shows.

For some reason, my brother developed a love of long, drawn out, romantic, historical dramas, ones which are normally targeted at women.  Of course, recently this means Downton Abbey.  He jumped on the craze a little late in the game, and needed to spend a couple of days catching season one on Netflix.  Unable to stand the suspense, he then borrowed Nana’s season two DVDs and spent the next several days holed up in his basement.

While I may not understand his penchant for these types of shows, it did make getting part of his birthday present a little easier …

Ear today, gone tomorrow.

For about a week or so, we’d noticed that A had been tugging on her ear a lot.  When we asked her if it hurt, she always said no.  She never complained about it, but it was obvious that something was going on.  So, while the kids were out of school last Friday for a teacher work day, I finally took her to see the doctor.

 

This is what he pulled out of A’s ear:

 

Note my finger to give a sense of scale.

Needless to say, after pulling this wad of … something … out of her ear, A felt much better.  The doctor thinks an insect may have flow into her hear, gotten stuck, and her body compensated by completely mummifying the bug in ear wax.

And checking Google, the phrase “mummifying the bug in ear wax” has never appeared on the Internet.

 

Bracketology

K’s office, like approximately 99.95% of the offices in America, is watching its productivity take a nose dive during March thanks to the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  This diminished productivity is exacerbated by their tournament pool.  K “donated” $2 for two brackets for us to fill out.  However, since both K and I watch a grand total of about 7 seconds of basketball each year, we figured it would be just as effective to let J and A pick our brackets.

So far, A is 3 for 15.

J is 11 for 15.

I’m thinking about taking J to Vegas.  Although I’m a little worried about his choice of Murray State to win it all.

A's bracket (click for larger view)

J's bracket (click to larger view)

Sign us up for ER frequent flyer miles

So we’ve done something that can only be described as good intentioned, but that will most likely lead to many trips to the Emergency Room in the future.

We bought a trampoline.

I can really blame my brother for this.  He bought his kids one last year, which instantly became the object of desire for J and A.  Any time they saw it in use, they would ask if they could go over and join in.  As Christmas approached, there was only one item on A’s Christmas list.  Figuring it would be a good way to get them some outdoor exercise, we gave in.  Santa “miraculously” left one in our garage Christmas morning (mostly because Santa’s helper did not want to risk multiple hernias from attempting to move the two 100-pound boxes into the house).

Fast forward two months, when the weather was marginally able to support extended bouncing activities.  Last Friday, I spent a good portion of the day setting up this monstrosity.

One of the two boxes after having spewed forth its contents.

Aforementioned contents.

So far so good. Frame assembled.

After attaching 4,284 springs, the bouncing surface is attached.

Removal of the bouncing surface and 4,284 springs, after I realized I misassembled the frame in the first picture. Did I mention I have an aerospace engineering degree?

After a total of two hours, it's ready to go. Not bad considering I pretty much built it twice.

The entire time I was assembling it, the weather was sunny and warm.  However, an hour before the kids got home from school, a cold front moved through, producing a lot of rain and dropping the temps by 20 degrees.

But this did not deter A.

She pulled on two pairs of pants, three pairs of socks, and winter coat, and headed out.

I got a new camera a couple of weeks ago, so forgive me for indulging in a couple of useless videos showcasing its slow motion capability.

The geek in me loves the drops of water flying around in slo-mo.

The next day was slightly warmer (and much drier), so J made it out.  Not wanting to miss the fun (and after being prodded by the kids), K decided to give it a try.

K should be out of traction by next week.

Double date

This is how we’re spending our morning:

More fodder for the memory file

Here’s another thing to file under “cute things the kids have done.”  Our facilities manager surprised me the other day by installing a large whiteboard cabinet in my office.  He knew I’d been looking at some for a while, so he bought one for next to nothing at an office furniture auction and had it installed on my day off.

Behold the woody goodness.

When I opened the cabinet, I noticed two little elves had left notes for me.

From J

From A

The only problem is I’m not sure I can ever bring myself to erase these.