Weekend Update

Derek's Japanese Table

Ready for Starnival

On Friday, Derek's class had Japanese Day to celebrate the conclusion of their study of Japanese culture. Each of the students made a Japanese style table to sit at while they ate all the goodies that the parents brought in. Adam's school had a carnival and the boys had fun jumping around in the moonwalk and throwing pies into the faces of the teachers.

At home, Helen finished mowing the lawn while the boys played outside with their friends. The lawn was a 3 day project: front on Wednesday, side on Thursday, and back on Friday. Helen and I stayed up and watched "Aeon Flux". It was different so I liked it. Helen thought it was weird and wasn't so sure. She said, "there's something to be said for a nice simple chick flick."

On Saturday, I had a tennis match and the boys had baseball games. At least the baseball games were back to back and the first one didn't start until 11:30. As the tennis team captain, I had to hang around until all the matches were done and didn't get to see Adam's game. I tried to pass the captain thing off this season after doing it for 3 years, but it didn't take so I got stuck with it again. Hanging around wasn't that bad though since I won my match, it was such a pretty day, and the other team had a nice spread of food and plenty of beer.

Helen said that Adam did a great job at baseball and hustled all around the field like he usually does. She couldn't break down the game specifics as I would have liked, but I got the gist.

I arrived at Derek's game just in time to see him hit a triple. When the next batter drove Derek in, I walked over to the dugout to see Derek. He had a huge smile and jumped into my arms. He was very proud. I've been working with the boys on their hitting technique trying to get them to keep their head still and pull their hands through the hitting zone first in order to get more power. It's great to see them realizing the rewards of their effort.

We stopped by home for a quick change and then I took the boys up to the school for Derek's school carnival. Helen changed into her running clothes and ran over to meet us. We saw lots of friends and the boys had a blast on all the super sized inflatables and, to top it off, they got to have Chikfila sandwiches and Sprite.

After the carnival we went home and chilled for a while. The boys were wired and kept wanting to do active things, but we made them sit and play quietly. For dinner, we did Adam's birthday choice of sushi. Helen said she was looking forward to it all week. We saw some neighbors at the restaurant. They were surprised that we were "open" enough to eat sushi. We were thinking the same about them, but didn't say anything. It was a nice experience and we were stuffed. We had planned on grocery shopping afterwards, but made the right choice and headed home.

The boys sleep together on weekends. Derek always reads to Adam while they're waiting for us to come and read. Lately, Adam's been picking the book of Curious George stories that we got him for his birthday. We're starting to work with Adam on reading. He follows along with his finger while we read. We expect him to read some of the words like "I, a, and, the" on his own. Derek is still working on "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".

Helen and I stayed up and I showed her some of the Disney stuff I've been researching for our upcoming trip. They have nice virtual tours of all the resorts so you can get a feel for them. We're staying at Coronado Springs based on recommendations from MouseSavers.com. We're starting to get excited about the trip. I printed off a bunch of material and read a little each night.

On Sunday, it was nice to have a day where we didn't have to go anywhere. I love days like that because I can do one of my favorite things - get organized. In general, I find organizing things very rewarding and therapeutic, but that's when I'm organizing my stuff - not everybody elses. I worked with Derek for quite a while to organize the clothes and toys in his room while periodically following up with Adam to get his stuff organized. The idea of not keeping things ordered is so foreign to me that sometimes I blow a breaker after the umpteenth time of telling Adam, Derek, (and Helen) to put their stuff where it belongs. Helen was very good and nicely worked me through my meltdown.

Helen went on a long run and the boys rode bikes along with her. Afterwards, the boys took a long and very needed nap. I did a sweep, vacuum, mop while Helen went grocery shopping. For dinner, Helen made some delicious fish tacos with mango and black bean dressing. She made them for the first time at the beach a few weeks ago. They were very yummy.

I finished yet another Harlen Coben novel, "Deal Breaker". Helen had checked out a bunch of Coben novels for our beach trip, so I'll dig into another one tonight.