Beltin' Melton The Bill Melton Story

Things Fortnightly

It's time once again for a thing or two or seventeen.

Thing 1: White Sox

I have been blogging about the top 25 labels of my blog for the first 300 posts. Tonights installment is the White Sox they were in a 6 way tie for # 20.

I grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. The NW burbs are Chicago Cubs country. My Mom grew up as a Cubs fan and my Dad followed suit when he moved to the Chicago area. Each summer of my youth we would go to a Cubs game as a family and every few years our school would go to a game.

The White Sox used to have a program where if students had straight A's or perfect attendance they would earn 2 free White Sox Tickets. My older sister earned tickets this way and I remember how she and my Dad went to a Sox Orioles game together. The next year I had perfect attendance and my Dad took me to a game. This is where I fell in love with Bill Melton, Richie Allen, Wilbur Wood, Rich Gossage and the whole Happy Days gang. I still liked the Cubs but they took a backseat to my passion for the White Sox. That was more than 35 years agao and I remember it like it was 28 years ago.

As I am writing this it is actuall Wednesday night and I just came home from a White Sox game. The White Sox still give tickets away and Charlie and another Dad and son went on the White Sox dime. The Sox lost, but we had a wonderful time despite the score. The White Sox have this section called fundamentals where kids can play catch, use batting cages, and a few other cool things. It's like having a theme park within a ball park. Charlie and his friend had a great time.

Today (Thursday) I am heading back to Chicago to see the Sox play again. Lucy scored 2 free tickets and we are going to dog night. Fans actually can bring their dogs to a special section and into the game. In the past I have taken all 3 kids to dog night. Tomorrow is the first game where it is just Lucy and I. I wonder if she will want to play puppy when there are actuall dogs who can do that for us. I am not sure, but I think this is the first time in 30 + years of attending ball games that I have gone to back to back games. I wouldn't mind if we got a win instead of a loss, although Lucy will probaly have just as much fun as Charlie had independent of the result of the game.

Thing # 2. Lucy Dance Revolution.

Lucy had her ballet recital about a week and a half ago. One thing I noticed is the attrition rate of dancers as they get older. Their were 3 classes of pre school dancers of about 20-25students each. There were 2 classed of kindergarten dancers. In the highest level there (jr. high to H.S) there were 6 dancers. I wondered aloud to Amy if Lucy would be one of those 6 10 years or so from now. We think that she might just be. She loves dancing!

Things have changed much in the few years since Emma's first (and only) dance recital. Emma's recital (run through the same park district) was free of charge. We were given 2 free tickets for Lucy's recital and had to pay $5.00 each for every advance ticket and $7.00 at the door. That part was sort of understandable. What I did not get was that no photography of any kind was allowed during the recital. Pictures like the one above were allowed to be taken at the rehearsal the day before. Well guess what? Grandparents don't go to rehearsals! You can't come between the trinity of grandparents, grandchildren and cameras. You don't mess with that!

The only footage taken at the recital was by a professional videographer who was selling the dvds and tapes for 20 big ones. So were photographs and videos not allowed so there would be less commotion at the recital or more ka-ching for the videographer? You tell me!

Thing 3: What's going on next year?

There is a home school conference this weekend that Amy and I usually attend. One of the main things we do there is choose the curriculum for the next calendar year. This is basically the first year that I will be the primary curriculum chooser. Two years ago we were planning on Amy teaching when we picked the curriculum. Last year we went mostly with curriculum we already owned. I am pretty sure of some things we will do this year and totally open on other areas. When I say I am the primary curriculum chooser, that is kind of a misnomer. We generally pick the curriculum together. When Amy was the main teacher, I would defer the final choices to her as she was the one who needed to teach the material. The only difference between now and then is now she would defer that final decision to me.

Thing 4: Reading Update

I started my summer reading last week. I am fully engaged in 3 books right now. Two from home and one from the library. When I read I tend to read more than one book at a time. Between 2 White Sox games, the home school convention and just regular life I'm not sure how much reading I will get in in the next few days. Hopefully some.

Thing 5: No Junk food June?

June is usually a good month in our family to try to eat a little more healthy and to exercise more. I started the month out by going to that most healthy of places, Dairy Queen. Amy had told Charlie that we would go to Dairy Queen after his last soccer practice of the year. This just happened to be on June 1st! Healthy eating will commence a little later in the month.

That's all the things!