What else is going on?

Blowing bubbles with Lindsay at Helen's parents

Berry picking

Father's Day

Pool picnic with Lindsay

With all the blogging about the road trip, I haven't had time to blog about anything else - so here's a quick update.

I had to go to work on Monday - the day after we returned. It was nice that Helen is off for the summer so she could handle all the laundry and stuff. The first few days after the trip were about getting everything back in its place. Helen also managed to get to the pool some.

The weekly summer outings with Helen's parents have also resumed. Last week Helen and the boys went to her parents house in Roswell for a visit. Helen's parents are keeping little cousin Lindsay since Helen's brother, Mike, is recovering from kidney surgery and his wife, Chris, is pregnant. Today Helen's parents brought Lindsay over for a picnic at the pool.

The boys had a week long tennis camp this week, so Helen had to be out of the house with the boys by 8:15 each morning. We've all been staying up too late to get up in the morning. We're used to the lazy summer mornings of cuddling in our bed together.

We stayed up until after 1 the other night watching City of God. Helen was exhausted, but couldn't pull herself away - she blamed me. We also watched two movies left over from our trip: Batman Begins and 3:10 To Yuma - all excellent films. The kids watched Batman Begins with us. There were some scary parts, but they didn't seem to be bothered.

I had rented about 10 movies for the trip to watch in the van, but we never made it around to "Batman Begins". The kids kept asking for it, but I would put in "Swiss Family Robinson", "Parent Trap", etc. The boys seemed to like the movies I put in, but they kept hoping each time it would be "Batman Begins". Besides wanting them to see some of the "classics", Helen and I wanted to see "Batman Begins" also and the person driving wouldn't be able to see it. They also watched "Indiana Jones : The Last Crusade", "Treasure Island", "White Fang", and "Enchanted".

We're also trying to redo Derek's bedroom this summer. It seems that, at 9, he's no longer appreciative of the hot air balloon theme. Derek's spent a lot of time figuring out what he wants to keep and what we can get rid of and now it's almost time to paint.

What's New?

We had a small respite from the rat race because it rained all day Friday forcing the cancellation of Adam's baseball practices on Friday night and Saturday morning. Derek's practice late Saturday afternoon was moved to an indoor facility. The kids were a little unnerved hitting within the confines of the indoor batting cages.

I picked up a cup and some batting gloves for Derek. Adam's hands are still too small for batting gloves. Derek needs a cup because he might play catcher some. He wore it to his practice game last night, but didn't tell the coach that he had a cup until the game was almost over so he didn't get to catch. He seemed disappointed. Adam had a practice game last night. Derek went with me and skateboarded around. Helen had her weekly tennis practice\round robin.

We're hoping to avoid the flu. It seems like people all around us have had it. I played tennis Sunday morning and then felt really drained and shut it down. Helen felt drained last night and is hoping to get some rest to nip it in the bud. Several years ago we all had it for the first time that we could remember, so we got flu shots for the next couple years. Then a couple years ago Adam still got the flu right before our ski trip and we all had to take Tamiflu, which made us all feel like we had the flu also. After that, we haven't gotten flu shots the past couple years and have been fine - so far.

Helen spent a lot of time grading papers last weekend and felt much better in terms of being on top of her work. She estimated a couple weeks ago that it would take her about 9 hours to get caught up on her grading. She tells me often how she really needs to grade some papers and I say ok and that I will take care of the kids, but then she says that she doesn't want to grade papers. She "needs" to, but she doesn't "want" to. So she keeps putting it off and gets stressed about it, which adversely affects her family. It becomes a typical male\female conversation: Helen: I need to grade papers. Me: Ok, grade papers. Helen: But I don't want to. Me: Ok, don't. We have many of these types of conversations where it seems simple to me as there are only 2 choices - yes\no, do\don't, etc.

On Saturday night, Derek asked to hear the song "The Weight" by The Band. He also often requests to hear "Up On Cripple Creek". That led me to put in "The Last Waltz" DVD that Helen bought me for our anniversary last year. We had rented the movie last year and were blown away by it. The kids really loved it also. My intention when I put the movie in was to just watch a couple songs, but we ended up watching the whole thing and keeping the kids up late. They were into it the whole time.

On Sunday, Helen's parents came over for brunch and then took the kids home with them for the night since the kids were off from school on Monday, but Helen had a teacher work day. We talked about having a date night, but I felt like I was coming down with something and slept for a long time. Helen caught up on some papers and then we watched some movies we had recorded. One was "War Of The Worlds". Helen kept watching it, but she was not happy. Anything that makes her think that the future for her kids is not bright upsets her. She claimed she had bad sleep that night and blamed me.

Last night, I finished reading "The Camel Club" by David Baldacci. I've also recently read a couple other books by him, "Simple Genius" and "The Collectors", and enjoyed them all. They're mystery\suspense novels that really grab you - similar to authors like Dan Brown and Harland Coben.

Weekend Update

Derek's Self Portrait

Me reattaching the tire swing

Ground Support

Adam had an eventful week. I was pushing him on the tire swing when the rope busted. He took a good fall, but didn't hurt anything. It did scare him, though. He cried a little and then thought it was cool and couldn't wait to tell Mommy and Derek. Adam also went on a field trip with his preschool class to the "Yellow River Game Ranch". He was excited all week. However, the biggest thing that happened to Adam this past week is that Helen registered him for kindergarten! I don't think she cried, but I'm sure she will when we take him to orientation.

Helen went to the dentist for a routine cleaning and when the hygenist asked if her teeth were bothering her, she pointed out one tooth that didn't feel right. The dentist looked at it and said that her gum had receded quite a bit and that she needed to see a periodonist right away.

Helen saw the periodonist and they confirmed that she needed to have a skin graft otherwise she would be in danger of losing the tooth. She made and appointment for this Friday to have the procedure done. The periodonist also noticed that there were some grooves in one of her back teeth that may be from brushing too hard. We were happy that the problems were discovered, but irritated that these are problems that take a while to develop so that it seems that our dentist should have noticed them earlier. What if Helen had never pointed out the tooth that bothered her? She said she's going to ask the dentist about that.

On Friday, we did our bowling outing at work, but were in a rush to get back for a meeting so we didn't make our usual Wendy's run. I was really tasting that triple too. So much, in fact, that we went to Wendy's for dinner - much to Derek's delight. Derek usually finishes Adam's burger, but this time he also finished Helen's, which is usually reserved for me. Looks like there's going to be competition for Wendy's cleanup from now on. I don't think there's any doubt that he could finish a double combo.

On Friday night, Helen and I watched "Children Of Men", which I borrowed from a friend at work. It was not a "feel good" movie, but very well done.

On Saturday, the boy's baseball games were canceled because of the overnight rain. It was a welcome break. We had a relaxing morning and then went to Johnny's Pizza for lunch before grocery shopping.

In the evening my friend, Tony, who I used to work with came over for dinner. It's hard to stay in touch with old friends once you have kids, so it was good to see Tony. The kids roped him into a couple games of "Go Fish" and checkers. Helen made a Mexican dinner with quesedillas in honor of Cinco de Mayo and even made authentic flan for dessert.

Helen and I stayed up and watched "The Prestige" - another very good movie, just not the "chick flick" Helen's looking for. I told her she's going to have to pick the chick flick herself. For me, it's like the NFL Draft - I'm not looking to fill a specific position - I'm looking for the best athlete.

On Sunday, I went on a long run. Then Helen went on a long run and the boys went with her on their bikes to the middle school track. I drove up a little later with the baseball gear and pitched some batting practice to the boys.

Derek and I went to the hardware store to get some new rope for the tire swing and various other items. He likes to browse the aisles like I do - looking at all the neat stuff. Adam stayed home with Helen and had lunch and a long nap. Derek and I had lunch when we got home and then we read some "Harry Potter" and took a nap.

In the evening, the boys helped me reattach the tire swing after it broke earlier in the week with Adam on it. After dinner we made calls to the family to setup Mother's Day plans for next weekend. We can't believe it's already Mother's Day!

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.