Two trips out and about

Tuesday:  Went straight from basketball practice to dinner and then over to the Breslin Center for the Holiday Hoops Invitational….the last game of the night was the Okemos boys versus Flint.  We are pretty good this year; both the guards will be playing Div 1 when they get there and we were undefeated heading into the night.

The good guys warming up for the second half

We were up by ten in the first half and then slowly kept turning the ball over and let the other team back in it….and kept turning the ball over and let them pull ahead and win in the fourth quarter.  The fun part was watching Christopher watching the center for Okemos do what he’s been doing; box the other team out, grab the rebounds, pass to the guards, make the easy shots down low.  A fun night.

Friday:  After being cooped up all week with me at home while I worked, I said we’d go to Zap Zone if the rooms were clean and chores were done.  Shazam!….cleaning is the #1 priority. 

We arrived around noon and played two games of laser-tag, along with the usual tokens-for-tickets games.  The boys are all ‘veterans’ at laser tag now….they just don’t like it when they have to slow things down to explain rules to the ‘newbies’ and they know when and where to go to blast the opponents into swiss cheese.

fortunately, I’m still pretty good at this sport.  This is my scoresheet from the second game, I finished 3rd out of the 31 in the game.   I think all of us finished in the top ten in each game.  You have to love when the the little little kids are in the maze and don’t really know what’s going on….just easy pickings for more points!

Post-Christmas 2010

The wrapping paper is long gone….the cardboard recycling outside of our house was stacked almost as high as the trashcan! 

The hits this year are:

Table Tennis:  Suzanne had to talk me into this one….we’ve had other entertainment in the basement (foosball table, arcade games) that get used a little and then just sit there.  We’ll see how this works out in the end, but, it’s the big hit right now.  Kevin is currently “King of the Household”…I was able to beat him and hold the title for a day but I fear that it will be an uphill struggle to reclaim the belt.

(update:  I did regain the title for a day….beat him 3 times during that day and sent him to bed all pissed off.  He did trounce me yesterday to regain the title though)

Madden 11:  A very last minute request by Matthew, but, it’s been all that Kevin and Matthew have played since then.  I’ve especially enjoyed watching Matthew, Kevin, and Ashton play on the same team (the Seahawks, of course…).  Matthew certainly holds his own….

Franchise mode is really popular…here Kevin is guiding the Seahawks against Tampa Bay

Steeler Gear:  Christopher received the Polamalu jersey and some Steeler sweatpants….he immediately ran off, shed the clothes he was wearing, and returned in his new threads.  And did not take them off for three straight days….

 

 

he also got some mini-Fat Heads….

Compared to last Christmas, it has been really low key around here….of course, there are a lot of wistful sighs and longing looks back at what we were doing a year ago….

Hey China! Kiss off…..

Last night as I left basketball practice I was greeted with about 100 messages in my gmail account from people who were out of the office or whose accounts have been deleted/abandoned….turns out something accessed my account and sent out an email for some bs electronic site.

Turns out the ‘culprit’ was from China

(Enter curse words here!)  Still not sure how they did it but since my google password is the same as a bunch of others we are changing almost every login we have over the next week.

Third Graders

You don’t have to watch this video for long to see Matthew’s special talent….

 

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I think you can see him in pictures at the 8:19 and 9:25 marks as well

Project Work

Figured I’d scan in the two projects that I spent a lot of time this fall working with Christopher on for school before they hit the trashcan…..

The fourth graders tracked the high and low temperatures for two weeks and then came home and had to create a graph.  Both of these assignments came with detailed rubrics (a term I can’t ever recall hearing while I was in school) and that made it pretty easy to make sure we had all of the required elements to get a good grade.  Despite my best efforts, you can see the white out where Cpher got a little confused on the spacing for the text.

I wonder how many kids had the break in the lines for the weekend; it took me a while to explain that concept to Cpher…..

  

This is the front and back from the first book report;  Cpher had to create a book jacket.  You can see his artwork; all of the text on the front and sides was required straight out of the rubric (why the copyright date?….me no comprende).  At the end of the night I showed him some books that had reviews and quotes on them and we decided to make up our own for the back cover. 

“How do I love you? Let me draw the ways….”

 

 

Indoor Soccer

We’ve played six games so far (two each weekend) and carry at 2-2-2 record into our two weekends off (we finish up the week after Turkey-Day).

There are only four teams in our division; unlike last year where we were the young team playing a bunch of older teams this year we are the older team and we’re playing a bunch of older teams.  So, it’s good competition. 

My experiment in formation is continuing, still trotting that 2-2-1 out there. 

Matthew – his best position are either of those 2’s up there; he’s just naturally a forward or a midfielder.  No goals, but, a lot of great passing.  I need to make the time to work with him on his kick; he still doesn’t have his weight forward enough and so he ends up on the ground after kicks and his kicks tend to sail (like today, right over the goal..). 

Christopher – His best position is that 1 in the back….while my change in formation is a good thing for the team, it’s a definite minus for Christopher….he’s not built well to be that one guy in back (if he’s not careful he can get exposed pretty easily…he was giving me nightmares in our game on Saturday by creeping up too close to the other’s team forward, who was a really fast and quick kid) and he’s just not built to be the midfielder I need in this formation (someone who can run end to end quickly and for long periods of time).  Oh well.  That game on Saturday was his best game in a long time; he was everywhere on defense and really held the fort as we cruised to a 4-1 win. 

(started this post in November…. guess I’ll finish it now)

We finished up 3-3-2.  Beat the team that we should beat 3-2 and then came out and laid a giant egg in the very next game and got down 4-0 really quickly.  I’m actually kind of glad it happened…..I had been telling the boys that the 2-2-1 formation had one really big down side….if the two midfielders didn’t come back to play defense when the other team has the ball, we are going to give up a lot of goals really quickly.  And that’s exactly what happened.  We were tired; we hadn’t played in almost three weeks and back-to-back games with tired kids will get them to start walking and watching instead of running.  But again, I’m glad it happened…..all of the boys got to see what a good team will do to us if we stop hustling in that formation.

There’s also some TNT news rumbling around…..looks like the team will split into two teams for the spring.  I think this is a good thing for Matthew…he’ll be up with the higher group and he’ll know more what to expect from this teammates and they know what to expect from him (can’t even describe how frustrating it is to watch Matthew center ball after ball after ball this fall into the middle and watch some of the kids just not be able to handle the passes and convert….).

…a few random things…..

• Dad to Fric and Frac today.  “the mailbox is not snowball storage!”
• Cpher = Polamalu’s biggest fan.  Watches every game just to see “his guy”.  Doesn’t care a lick when the offense is on the field.
• Looked back and realized I forgot to mention a notable event in the basketball loss to Holt….it’s the fourth quarter, and Christopher is out there battling with the other team’s center for position.  The kid shoulders Cpher out of the way; Cpher gives it right back to him.  The Holt kid wants that position…Cpher isn’t budging and gives the guy back everything he is getting.  Finally the ref blows the whistle….he doesn’t call any fouls but comes over to the two of them and has a little discussion with them and play continues.  Ask Cpher about this at the end of the game and the ref was very pointed “this isn’t football!”.  Cpher was very clear that he wasn’t going to let the other guy get away with his shoving, and that’s the way it went……
• It takes a while for the photos from the OnGoal camp to show up online…that happened over the last week.  Not any of Cpher worth collecting, but, Matthew had a few good ones as he competed in the dribbling competition on the last day.

 

Basketball – Game 3

I know I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again….been crazy busy at work, so blogging is taking a back seat.

We won our third game, 24-5 against Bath.  They scored the first two points, we scored the next 22 I think.

You can see that first Bath basket in the video posted here.  I clipped out three + minutes; you can see Christopher’s two baskets in the last 30 or 45 seconds of video.  He had about 5 chances, he made two of them.  Sat a lot of the 2nd and 4th quarter; that’s a good thing, we were pasting this team and the other kids should play more when we are up like that.

The other team, as woeful as they were, did have three very big guys…there were a couple of time they put them all on the court at one time and Christopher was immediately placed back into the game at those junctures.

Basketball – Game 2

Lost, 18-11, to the same Holt team we lost to in the tournament.   I wouldn’t have guessed this; we had a big lead in that first game and blew it…I figured with our best, or 2nd best player, playing this time, things would be different.  They weren’t.

The Good:  We played solid defense, every player, every position.  Christopher had 2 steals, which is somewhat shocking, he’s supposed to stay back and hold the middle, but he came out on his guy when we were in man-to-man and one time denied the pass to his guy and the second time just reached in and knocked it loose.  He also took a nice pass and converted it into 2 points in the fourth quarter.

The Bad:  That bucket was the only made shot of his 3 or 4; just rushes things a little bit too much under the basket.  We were missing three players, so, we had a bunch of tired kids in the end (I’m not the head coach, I’m not the head asst coach, I’m the guy who keeps score, so, I don’t feel any need to worry if some kids aren’t getting enough playing time…that being said, we only had seven kids and I’m sure that two of them didn’t even play a quarter of the game).  Christopher played all but about 3 minutes (90 seconds in the 2nd quarter he was out, and he sat the last 90 seconds of the game when it was painfully obvious what the final score would be.

The Ugly:  The team, as a group, had a ton of shots and made almost none of them.  Our guards seemed to forget there were three other players on the court and tried to do everything themselves; never a good team concept. 

The boys were very goofy in practice on Tuesday…..the other coach mentioned that we seemed over-confident at practice.  Don’t think that will be a problem this week.

Season Record:  1-1. 

Seattle

Not a lot of posting because I’ve been super busy at work.

Suzanne, Kevin, and Matthew returned from Seattle late Tuesday night….they had a good time and I’ll share here the pictures they shared with me, either via text message or Facebook.

  

As I’ve said before; they had some sweet seats

 

Matthew was very excited; the tattoos were almost impossible to get off….I had to pull out the goo-be-gone stuff on Wednesday when they got home to fully eradicate the ink

 

The Seahawks fell behind 14-0…..I assume Suzanne took this picture of Kevin at some point when the Seahawks were floundering.

  

But all’s well that ends well…..they won 31-14 and here are two happy fans!

 

 

A few pictures of Matthew; one reading the funnies at breakfast one morning (I don’t think he’s ever read them at home; Suzanne found it amusing) and one of the “I want to go fishing” boy with the fish at Pike Place Market.

This was the view at dawn from the Marriott in Redmond

And they had a great view of the Space Needle when they switched over to the Westin for the last two nights downtown

You can go days (weeks!!) without seeing Mt. Ranier off in the distance; happily for the group they were able to spy it on three of the four days…this was the last day and the look out the window of the terminal as they waited to come back home

I received a lot of photos from Suzanne; she received one from me….this photo of Christopher having crashed for the night after a busy day here at home.

Weekend Update

Basketball:  Christopher’s team won the first game of the season, 31-11 against Mason.  No points for the big guy….he had at least 6 attempts and keeps rushing his shot and misses.  I need to try and find time to go and practice those up close shots with him although I’m not too sure what I can do for him, he makes them consistently in practice.  He had a lot of rebounds, and played excellent defense, even when he was matched up on the other team’s guards late in the game.

As opposed to the tournament where we were competitive and lost, this time we blew them out (it was 16-2 at the half).  Really, it could have been 51-11…if Christopher had made any of his shots and the other kids not taken so many long range jumpers and just driven the ball inside.  But, a win is a win is a win and everyone certainly got a chance to play.  While the game was still ‘in doubt’ Christopher played most of it; he only came out for 90 seconds on the game clock in the first half.

The Mason team, on average, was about 1-2” shorter than each of our corresponding players (and their big guy wasn’t very good….).  Lots of blocks, lots of turnovers for them.  To be fair, it was their first game, and we had played in the tourney….

Refrigerator:  Suzanne’s been wanting to ‘upgrade’ our aged decrepit fridge for a while.  There’s been one big obstacle to this plan; when we redid the kitchen we put the cabinet above the fridge and left only 2-3 inches of clearance.  That was fine then, but, now, you can’t find a fridge that is shorter than the room we had.  So, this purchase was put off, and put off, and put off, and finally we realized we were going to have to take down that cabinet if we wanted to upgrade.

Now, of all the cabinets we installed, that cabinet, the one above the fridge, was the biggest pain-in-the-ass.  It’s heavy, way heavy, and it’s deep, so, securing it to the back wall is a huge challenge because you have to be standing high enough to reach inside it the 30” to get to the support screws AND it’s so stinking heavy that it’s very difficult to maintain the cabinet in place while you are doing this.  I remember finally having to utilize the fridge as a support and put phone books between the cabinet and the fridge to get that bastard in place.

I swore, after I got it up there, that it was never coming down.

Of course, last night, I took it down.

(insert music from ‘2001’ here)

It was not easy getting this bad boy into place, it takes up every bit of clearance between the walls and cabinets.  In fact, you’ll notice the drawers are gone on the bottom cabinet….the 1/2” thick cover panel that used to sit just to the right of those cabinets had to come out.  So, last minute, I had to remove all the screws that held the cover panel in place.

Putting the cabinet back above the fridge is a challenge that will wait a week or two….there are logistical challenges (I have to saw off two bolts I never thought I’d have to remove and I have to hang another support bar above the current support bar) that need to be solved before that project can occur.

Away:  Suzanne, Kevin, and Matthew are away in the Pacific Northwest this weekend.

 

It’s a sports weekend in Seattle; Saturday was University of Washington –vs- Texas Tech in basketball….the Huskies won easily.  Tomorrow is the trip to Qwest Field for the Seachicken, er, Seahawk game.

Basketball – Preseason Tournament

The Ugly:  The 4th Graders lost all of their games; once to Holt, once to Grand Ledge, once to the other Okemos team, and once to Ionia.

The Bad: The team’s got a long way to go; one guy put up 90% of our points and the rest of the kids were varying degrees of ok; some good moments, some not-so-good moments.

The Good:  Except for the big guy in the middle; who had four very good games.  He had more rebounds than I can count; certainly between 5 and 10 in each game.  He had baskets in two of the four games; he would have had more but his teammates seemed unwilling/unable to pass him the ball AND there were times he did exactly what he needs to do, get the ball passed into him and if there isn’t a shot make the pass back out to wide open teammates (our center had two assists!).

There’s some video of the first two games; I’ll try and get some of that uploaded this week.

Because he’s the big guy he’s playing a ton of minutes.  This is something that I hope goes down over time; he doesn’t need to play 95% of each game and only come out when he requests to come out because he’s tired BUT it is a switch from wondering if your son is getting enough playing time and why the coach isn’t playing him more.  He’s one of the few that knows his position and what to do on both offense and defense, so, he gets the playing time.  Plus, if he’s not there, the other team’s big guy just tears us apart….the few times we did take him out and ask someone else to play Center it inevitably ended up with the other team’s center scoring basket after basket until we have to relent and put Christopher back in.

The Future:  We were missing two players from our team for these four games; one of them is certainly our best player and his return will mean nothing but good things.  I think as we learn to run more plays and to pass the ball more we’ll improve…

One Last Thing:  Christopher and I had many “cracker barrel mornings” for football….we trudged out extra early for a good breakfast.  A staple of those days before football games was Christopher, over breakfast, and on our drive to the game, telling me how nervous he was before the game.

Today, no such talk.  Asked him about it over dinner, and he said, yup, not nervous.  Asked why…he thought about it, thought about it again, and said “I know what to do in basketball”.

Pittsburgh Trip – Sunday

Kind of a gray misty morning as we woke up and started our trek downtown for the game. The original plan was to attend the game, but, I had scrapped that plan after seeing how much tickets were going for online (approx. 4x-5x face value….it was going to be at least $800 for Christopher and I to have two tickets in peanut heaven). Thankfully (another thing I have to be thankful for!) one of Rob’s group of tailgaters decided they weren’t going to go to the game and two tickets opened up for me and the big guy…at face value!

I decided to go to Station Square and take the Gateway Clipper across; figured Christopher would enjoy that and it would probably be the best route for ‘escape’ after the game. The misty and gray started to burn off as the boat left the docks and took us over to the game.

The Fort Pitt Bridge and the West End Bridge (Civil engineering note here: Wow have they reconfigured the West End Circle approaches!)

The big ketchup bottle, as they say on ESPN. Stadium doesn’t open up until 11 am for a 1 pm game time; we arrived at about 10:20 am. That’s ok, we hiked up the river walk to the PNC Park and the Mason tailgate….Christopher had some light snacks (including bacon!) and Dad had a nice omelette (cheese, ham, onions, green peppers….can’t beat that!)

You can still see the misty grays going on here…

a panorama….

One of the best things about coming to the game was seeing all of the various pre-game activities at the stadium….Christopher enjoyed hearing the band from Boardman playing Lady Gaga outside the stadium as we walked up. This picture is from the concourse on the north side of the stadium which hosts the Coca-Cola Great Walk of Fame (or something like that..). Just a lot of Steeler photos and memorabilia.

View from our seats…..under cover (not needed today) but in the sun for the first half (should’ve brought a baseball hat). I was worried that Christopher would be cold and he was layered up but this turned out to not even come close to being a concern and his jacket spent the entire game under his chair.

A panorama….about an hour maybe before game time. Christopher had a good time checking out the pre-game warm ups (“they warm up like we do!”) and I got a kick out of the scoreboard stuff that I’m sure is just plain annoying for people who come every week but was fun for me (I really liked the two minute game ‘intro’ they did right before game time, Steeler highlights, fans talking, and shots of the ‘Burgh….one of the last images I remember was taken from the Ohio River side looking back at the city with this big CSX locomotive moving into the picture)

Christopher was seated to the left of me and wasn’t very pleased with the dude with the antenna headphones. This picture was one of the first plays of the game….

This picture was the first play of the 2nd quarter. I recall it being the pass play, but, maybe I was wrong. Anyway, the Steelers scored shortly thereafter

“2nd and 10 at OAK 16
R.Mendenhall up the middle to OAK 12 for 4 yards (R.Seymour).

3rd and 6 at OAK 12
(Shotgun) B.Roethlisberger pass short middle to M.Moore to OAK 5 for 7 yards (Q.Groves, R.Brown).

1st and 5 at OAK 5
R.Mendenhall right guard for 5 yards, TOUCHDOWN.”

I think this play was this “3rd and 9 at OAK 12 (Shotgun) J.Campbell pass incomplete short right to D.McFadden (L.Timmons).” Raiders punted, 5 plays later we scored again, and again to end the quarter. Good way to end the half.

Christopher has been focused on swear words recently; he received a master’s level course in their use during the game! The referee-ing was bizarre to be kind and just horrid at other points (we saw a record-setting game; most penalty yards by the Steelers in a game! And we still won by 32!)

The top moment was this…..“(No Huddle, Shotgun) B.Roethlisberger pass deep left to E.Sanders for 22 yards, TOUCHDOWN. Penalty on OAK-R.Seymour, Disqualification, offsetting. Penalty on PIT-C.Kemoeatu, Personal Foul, offsetting. #92 Seymour ejected from the game.” We had no idea what happened on the field; we were watching the TD celebration in the end zone and they initially eject #93 from the game. That got Tomlin to run across the field to yell at the ref to get the number right, and they eventually got the right guy, and he walked off to a chorus of boo’s and Christopher and I waving “Bye Bye!”

You suck.

Anyway, back to the swears…between the guy behind Christopher who complained about everything and anything using a wide variety of words, to the “Bullshit” chant that echoed through the stadium at times, the “Referees Suck” chant that dominated the fourth quarter, and the two guys behind us in line on the way back to the boat after the game (I mean, really, they couldn’t end one sentence without it!….Christopher just kept looking over at me…..) he certainly got an ‘ear’ full!

But, all’s well that ends well. Christopher decided Polamalu was “his guy” and followed him everywhere he went on defense in the 2nd half. This play was a big hit:

“3rd and 10 at PIT 24 (Shotgun) B.Gradkowski pass deep left intended for J.Ford INTERCEPTED by T.Polamalu at PIT 8. T.Polamalu to PIT 46 for 38 yards (J.Veldheer)”

Christopher was pretty disappointed when Troy’s day came to an end with about 5 minutes to go in the game as they put in Mundy for scrub time. I asked him when we were shopping if he wanted a jersey and he didn’t, but, at the end of the game, he wanted a white #43 that I’m pretty sure will arrive in time for the playoffs.

We left at the 2-minute warning; didn’t need to see the victory formation. Random things that Christopher liked:

• those tipping ketchup bottles as the Steelers entered the Heinz red zone. “Dad, they’re open! They’re tipping!”….
• He saw a set of Steeler Uno cards in one of the shops at the field; I said ‘no’ at the game but again, think that this will arrive on or around Dec 25. Might make a perfect Kris Kringle gift though…hmmmmm.

The ‘escape’ went well; I was on the parkway at full speed by 4:45 pm and we were on our way to Michigan. Made it back by 10:10 pm (that’s some seriously good time!).

Thankful

As we sat down at the table I was thinking about what I was going to say.  Turns out I didn’t have too…both Matthew and Christopher had some words prepared…

Matthew:  ‘Dear God, thank you for my family and this meal that this turkey died for.  A.M (hastily corrected to Amen.)”

Christopher:  “Rub-a-dub-dub, let’s get to the grub!”

BUT….I was thinking that I had things that I wanted to say, but didn’t.  So, we’ll say some of it here.

• I’m thankful for my wonderful wife.  I could (and probably should) spend paragraphs on this, but, won’t.  I’m thankful that I am lucky enough to have someone to share our family’s experiences with, and there have been enough great events in the last twelve months to last a lifetime.
• I’m thankful for Matthew.  I’m thankful that he has spent the last week with a football in his hand and has asked (repeatedly) to go and play catch so that he’s ready for tackle football (which is 10 months away!). 
• I’m thankful for Christopher.  I really enjoyed my weekend away with him last week and couldn’t help but smile when he suggested earlier this week that next year we should make a trip to see Penn State play.
• I’m thankful for Kevin; I’m thankful he hasn’t killed me driving yet and that he continues to laugh and laugh as the separation between the top of his head and the top of my head continues.  I’m thankful that it’s hard for me to think of someone else in his grade who is more successful in the three A’s: academics, arts, and athletics. 

Pittsburgh Trip – Saturday

Morning: Started off the day down in Homestead, at the hotel

Looking West, down the Mon

Looking East; you can see the Homestead High-Level Bridge in the background and a Gantry Crane from the old Homestead Works in the foreground. I think it’s pretty amazing that 20 years ago I was down here surveying the steel mill with Beirwerth, Barton, and Burr and today it’s this huge shopping/entertainment complex.

The Mon: a tourist attraction? Who would have thunk it?

Saturday morning began with breakfast at Eat & Park with Dad; I guess the strangest thing about the meal that I haven’t shared in other conversations was that Dad had nothing, zip, zilch, nada, to drink with his meal. To me, who dings waiters/waitresses when the water isn’t refilled as needed, this seemed really weird…I don’t think I could eat a meal without drinking anything.

Made our first stop for sports swag before the museum. Collected a Nittany Lion jersey for Matthew (picture forthcoming), some Steeler fleece pajama pants and a nice sweatshirt for Christopher and a Penguin Winter Classic t-shirt and a Pouncey jersey for Dad.

Christopher asked to return to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, so, that was the plan once it opened.

Christopher was very clear; let’s skip the Roman and Greek architecture that we did last time and go straight to the good stuff. So, off we went, walked right through the first exhibit and onto the crystals and rocks.

this one is pat of a display that is backlit from behind

these are fluorescent

and this one I was told to take a picture of…

Rocks and Crystals done; off to the Dinos. Don’t think we spent more time here than last time, but, that was enough. Because we weren’t tired from all of the Greek and Roman stuff, we headed upstairs to a part of the museum we hadn’t been to before, the animal exhibits/dioramas.

It’s not big surprise that Christopher really liked this section. Having been with Kevin to the Natural History museum in Chicago, I have to say that I think these exhibits were way better than Chicago’s…just more action and better poses (those poses seemed very 1950-ish…these seemed much ‘newer’ and ‘fresher’.

This one, however, is a famous reproduction of an attack in the North African desert.

“Dad, look, these leopards are tearing this apart!”

One of the nice things about these exhibits was the detail in the landscape; the written description mentioned small animals in the landscape that were camouflaged that you really had to look for.

A panorama of an African landscape

There’s a hands-on Discovery Room in the basement; I wouldn’t have thought we wouldn’t have ended up back there but, Christopher asked for another trip down there.

Afternoon: Headed to South Fayette to see my cousin Jodie and her family. I have no pictures of this, but, am sure that I will see some pictures of Christopher, Garrett, and Colin online somewhere and grab them for here. They haven’t appeared yet though (grin!….probably some advanced lens issue delays their posting and I’ll have to ‘wiki’ to figure it out…).

After a few, uh, um, geographical issues, we finally arrived at the right house (….woman comes to door, says, can I help you, Scott looks at phone again and goes, oh, wrong address! Kevin would have just called me a ‘dork’…Christopher thankfully passed on that..). Had some worries about how Christopher would do; he can be awfully shy around new people at times, but, the words ‘Wii’ and ‘Hide-n-Seek’ seemed to do the trick. He’s asked when he can go back and see Garrett and Lil’ Dude again (Lil’ Dude being the name Christopher chose for Colin after forgetting his name for a while…) and enjoyed looking at Garrett’s swimming photos with me the other day….so, the next time we'’re in the ‘Burgh we’ll have to stop by again.

After leaving SF we headed over to the Mason’s for a quick “hey there” before heading to the hotel. Swimming, pizza, and sleep ensued.