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Neighborhood

After a full day of schooling, cleaning, and let's be honest, trying to survive our youngest, I decided to take my son out to play catch. The entire neighborhood showed up. It turned into a sort of running bases, soccer, baseball-ish game. There's only so much you can do with 5 kids who don't come up to my elbows. Relaxing evening? No. But priceless, none the less!

Sports Fragments

After I began this blog I found out that managing two blogs is a little much for me. I basically have been lying low recently and not posting much of anything here. I have decided that from now to the end of the year I am going to try to post more regularly here.

Today I will start by participating in a meme called Friday Fragments.

It is basically where you just share bits and pieces that would normally not make it into your blog. Since this is a sports blog mine will all be sports related.

Fragment 1 I was mistaken for a Cubs fan today. I received a book today from paperback swap about the 1906 world series between the Cubs and the White Sox. There was a yellow stick from the previous owner that said go Cubs! Now, I am a follower of the Cubs and can speak intelligibly on them, but when it comes to the Sox and Cubs I am much more a fan of the White Sox.


It is kind of unusual for a White Sox fan to not hate the Cubs. I like the Cubs, they are my second favorite team. I grew up a Cubs fan and used to make the annual pilgrimage to Wrigley each year with my family. My 10 year old switched to the Cubs a few years ago. I indulge him this betrayal, as my father indulged me by taking me to about a White Sox game a year in my youth.

Fragment 2 Speaking of the Cubs, I think the move to get Theo Epstein from the Red Sox and have him serve in some capacity in the Front Office is a wonderful one. When that announcement is finalized, I will be interested to see what kind of moves they make. I am a big Ryne Sandberg fan and hope that one of Epstein's moves is to hire Sandberg to manage the team. We shall see.

Fragment 3 My son's soccer team went 7-0-1 last spring. This year most of his teammates and the coach moved up to the next age level. My son did not. He and the new coaches son are the only players that remain from last year's team. This year after 6 games the team is 3-2-1. I am assisting the coach on the sidelines during the games an even had to coach 2 of the games while our coach was out of town. We are 2-0 in those games, not that I'm keeping track :)

I am kind of glad that my son is on one of those win 1 week lose the next teams this year. I was afraid that going undefeated last season and only 1 defeat the season before that would give him the idea that such success is common. This year he is playing the best soccer he ever has and is enjoying himself and learning good life lessons win or lose.

Fragment 4 Now that the Rangers and the Cardinals are tied 1 game all in the 2011 World Series, it might be a good idea to share who I am rooting for.

This is a complex question for me. Normally, I cheer for the American League team as a victory bodes well for the White Sox. I also like to cheer for the team that hasn't won the World Series before or in a while. These two factors put me in the Texas Rangers camp. The Cardinals won it all in 2006 and while the Rangers finally made it to the World Series for the first time last year, thwy did not win.

On the other side of the coin, I like the Cardinals. They are like the Minnesota Twins of the N.L., they always seem to end up in the mix each year even when they are not expected to. Tony LaRussa who led the White Sox to their first playoff appearance is now the long time manager of the Cards. Also when I coached T-Ball for 2 years our team was the Cardinals. Also, John Rooney one of the announcers for the 2005 White Sox, and quite possibly the best play by play man in the business is now an announcer for the Cardinals.

So basically I am torn. My tradition based rooting system says Rangers and my root for the people I like mentality says Cardinals. I am hoping for a 7 game series and don't really mind which way it goes.

That's all the fragments I have for now. Check out the rest of Friday Fragments at Half Past Kissing Time by clicking here.

In the past 24 hours . . .

I went to a fundraiser for Japan earthquake victims at my wife's school where, among other things, Amy and Spiderdroid got to play volleyball together.

AND

I helped out at a Bebo Norman/Chris August concert at our church:

AND

I went to Spiderdroid's soccer game where they tied a team that pounded them last year (giving them their only defeat of that year)

AND

I went to Puppy's (she's the one in hot pink) last ballet practice before her dress rehearsal and recital next weekend.

WHEW!

No wonder I hardly ever get time to post stuff here anymore. Running out the door to do more stuff. Be back soon. I hope!

Off to the races!

It seems like the beginning of January seems to be a rude awakening of activity that we somehow forgot about in all the holiday flurry.

First, we forgot to sign Spider Droid up for spring soccer, which we took care of in the nick of time!

While at the park district signing him up, we remembered to sign up Puppy for ballet...which started yesterday. Got that in just under the wire. Whew!

On top of that, the Lego Robotics state finals is next Friday and Saturday.

And then the homeschool co-op starts up again. Not to mention Awana on Monday nights, in which the two older are working on Bible Quizzing as well. Then after that is over, I am sure that Spider Droid will want to be in the Awana games again. There's always something, you know. Homeschooling doesn't always involve being at home! Homeschool, it's not a place, it's a state of mind. In fact don't think of it as homeschooling, it's more like life.

My son the action hero: the slide show

Talking about my children is one of my favorite things to do on this blog. In terms of labels the # 9 through the first 300 blog posts has been posts about my son and his action hero ways. Here is an interview conducted by his sister this past winter . . .

He has many facets ...

Teammate

Fashion Plate

Athlete















School Project assistant


















School Project Model
















































Day Laborer



















Goofball




















Big Brother





















Goofball





















Military Archivist

















Did I mention

goofball?

Next Time: A Lucyism by any other name.

Soccer Pics Kick

For other peoples pictures head to Wordless Wednesday.

Next Time: Six Word Book Review

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!

Emma Writes (Photographic Edition)

Recently I gave Emma about 20 random pictures from our picture drawer. I asked her to choose 2 of those pictures and write a story somehow based on them. Here are the pictures:




This is Simon. My father in law's dog. This makes him our first dog, once removed.










This is Charlie. Almost 2 at time of picture.



Here is Emma's story:

Charlie and Simon: The Soccer Star

By Emma

One day Charlie was working at the zoo, when he heard a noise. It was coming from the dog pen. Charlie ran over there, and there was little Simon. Simon got stuck in the fence because his soccer ball rolled in there, So, Charlie opened the gate and Simon ran out with his soccer ball. Then Charlie asked "Simon, what are you doing?"

Simon answered, "Practicing for the Pups soccer tryout."

Then Charlie said, "You mean you are not old enough for the Doggies?"

Then Simon answered: "Yep, well time to go. Bye!"

Charlie tended the animals until closing. He went down the path until he saw . . . Simon, in line for the doggies! Then Charlie said: "What are you doing here?!?"

Simon said: "I was good enough. Want to stay?"
So Charlie stayed for the try-outs. Then Simon ran out saying, "I made the team!"

Then Charlie said"That's Great! Now, let's go home."

So, they went home and after supper they played a good game of soccer. Simon won.

The End

Next Time: Awana