Holidays in the south

Not much to report here over the last week; headed south after the sports were through last weekend.  Made it all the way to Bowling Green before calling it a night, and then finished up the drive on Sunday.  Drive was pretty uneventful; resisted the urge to let the freshly-minted driver take the wheel….mainly because I wanted to make good time and that wasn’t going to happen if Kevin wasn’t speeding; and the last thing that needs to happen right now is for Kevin to collect a ticket.  The drive always amazes me….I do 79-80 through four states and I feel like I’m pushing it; I hit Alabama and I feel like I’m going slow….

We’ve been down in Niceville in December and it’s been cold…..this year it hasn’t been very sunny, but, it’s been warm, highs in the 60s and 70s.  Fric and Frac have been in the pool almost every day (once the initial heater problems were resolved) and it’s been a good time.  Spent two afternoons playing mini-golf and go-karting:  Kevin may me taller than me; he may be a Quordy-champion….I can still kick his butt at mini-golf.  Go-Karts were a lot of fun…..Matthew is now tall enough to drive so that changes the whole dynamic of the go-karting. 

There are double-karts and single-karts.  And even though I typically would be in the double-kart with Matthew (and the heaviest kart out there); the double-kart is over-powered and we still would be the fastest kart out there….and make it easy to keep ahead of Kevin.

Well, now that we’re all in single-karts that dynamic is gone…..my fat ass slows my cart way down.  You start in single-file….the first time we went off Cpher and Kevin were so far ahead I had no hope of catching them and could barely catch Matthew and trade paint and bumping with him for a little bit.  The second time we switched it up….Cpher first, Matthew second, me third, Kevin last.  My whole goal in this race….keep Kevin from passing me.

We start, and I come off the gas and make him rear-end me, once, twice, again, and I’m laughing the whole time……he swings out to try and pass me and I cut him off and force him into the bumpers……I make it to the corner and force him wide as I take the turn and stay ahead.  He keeps swinging wide, I keep riding him wide and slow down unexpectedly and make him ram me again and again. 

There’s a hill on this course, though, and my fat ass slows my cart down too much.  The first time up the hill I’m ahead and maintain the lead and hit the corner at the end of the ‘run’ in front……lap 2 and we’re about even but I’m on the inside and still hit the corner on the inside and frustrate Kevin again.  The third time….well, he’s ahead and uses my tricks against me and rams me into the bumper and says ‘so long’ as he motors off to try and catch the other two (who I at least have allowed to build a decent lead)…..

Christmas tomorrow….head for Hilton Head next Tuesday. 

Yup, these are my kids….

(recently, in the car with Mom, Fric, and Frac, the conversation went something like this)

“Dad, if I did this….would you be proud of me?”

“Well, no….I wouldn’t be….that’s not a nice thing to do……”

Dad tries to turn this into a teaching moment…

“But, you know, for the most part, that’s a good thing to remember….if you’re doing something that your Mom and Dad aren’t proud of, well, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it”

……Cpher thinks this one over for a moment, and then, pretty quickly, says

“So, if I’m having sex with my wife, would you be proud of me then?”

……..I just can’t win……….

The last sports desk of 2011

Before the boys and I headed south for the break we completed the sporting events for 2011; Christopher had a basketball game and Matthew had an indoor soccer game.  Matthew had a basketball game on Saturday night (6:20 start) but since the plan was to be deep in Indiana at that point we opted out (happily, they won without him).

Cpher:  As predicted, we blew Owosso out; 56-5.  The running clock starts when you get up by 20; we were there mid-way through the second quarter.  Cpher had been complaining in the morning of stomach pains, and I don’t know if that was it, or something else, but, he just wasn’t to active in the first half (and he played a lot!…..way more than half).  Owosso was not big and even the disinterested Cpher still picked up a gaggle of rebounds. 

Clicking on the picture will take you to the video at the team website; this is from the third quarter, and if you go to the 2:00 minute mark you can see the Cpher highlights for the day…..he gets fouled taking a shot and goes to the line (makes 1 of 2) and then later on makes a basket.  Finishes with three points.  The next two games after the New Year are also against weaker teams so the blowouts will probably continue. 

Matthew:  The first indoor game of Session 2; a team from Kalamazoo came up to Lansing and played us and another travel team from the region.  They were good…and we ended up with a 5-5 tie. 

Matthew scored in the first half; another free kick from way out that he put between the goalie’s arms and the top of the goal.  In the second half he trotted out there with the goalie gloves and jersey on…..Mom goes “oh no!”….

The game was 3-3 at the half, so, Matthew gave up two goals but I thought he played really well and am sure that he’ll be playing more goalie in Session 2 (one of the regular goalies for our team isn’t playing this time around).  He had really long goal kicks and made some spectacular saves; one time he jumped up to stop the kind of goal that was scored on him…..threw up a hand and just deflected the ball high; another time he stopped the ball and gave up the rebound and made a heck of a save to stop the rebound shot.

Vegas Day 4: Part Two – Cpher and Jordin

While Kevin was jumping off of buildings, Cpher and I headed to the Venetian for the kickoff of their “Winter in Venice” spectacular.  The highlight, for the Venetian, was the opening of their outdoor ice rink….the highlight, for Cpher, was having Jordin Sparks perform a mini-concert at 6 pm.

 

The ice rink…..Jordin performed on the podium in the middle.  We got in line at 5 pm and are standing here right up against the stone railing….there is nothing between us and the stage…..

I took video of the first Jordin song; Tattoo….I have no idea where that video went though….I’m sure I downloaded it but can’t find it anywhere.  I thought her performance was just fine….she had a sound track behind her but she didn’t just lip sync to her recording she did enough different things with her voice to make it interesting and stop me from writing her off as a no-talent hack.

The Venetian gets a thumbs down for the whole deal though…..they were late (Jordin didn’t start until 6:40, and the radio host announcers who they had talking to the crowd before the show were unbearable bad).  Sadly, Cpher came away less than thrilled with the long wait and Jordin’s performance (his favorite, is “Battlefield”…I was sure we weren’t going to hear that and was proven right).  We stopped by the Mirage volcano and watched that before collecting the car and picking up the daredevil to end the evening….

The Venetian Christmas Tree

Sports Desk – Matthew Edition

The second game of the doubleheader…..

 

Hustling back on defense after a made Fowlerville basket…..

and hustling down the court with the ball after a missed basket and a Matthew rebound…

A photo of how Matthew gets into trouble on defense….he had come over to help on the one purple guy who is sitting there in the center after driving and beating our team to the center of the lane.  Matthew came over to help out (and to be honest, here, he had no choice, it was either come over and help or give up an easy shot) and the guy passed it off to Matthew’s guy….who had the open shot…..

 

but he missed….and Matthew gathered this rebound as well….

 

He doesn’t get this rebound, but, unlike Cpher, Matthew will jump (Cpher doesn’t have too!)…..and when he jumps he gets the Cpher-like advantage….

 

Also unlike Cpher….Matthew is very very confident with the ball.  He plays facing the opponent as opposed to back to them, and…..

is not at all hesitant about driving to the basket to score….

 

but, unlike a lot of his teammates, he is very free with passing the ball too…..here’s he’s drawn these two guys in and is going to kick it out to Jackson on the wing, who drives in for the shot. 

Matthew also has no fear of diving for the ball or getting in a scrum.  He did get called for travelling for his ‘move’ on the ground for this loose ball…..

 

It’s a close game, we are up by two or three points at the half.  But the roof caved in for Fowlerville in the 2nd half and we pulled away for a 30-15 win. 

The two shots above are a Matthew-specialty; stealing the ball when you drive into the lane against him (that guy wasn’t his man in this defense…not sure if we were in a zone or not at this point).

Matthew also has a nice move he uses to head towards the lane; similar to his soccer move, he fakes left and heads right, but here, he heads left and then spins back right and heads to the basket….as shown in the next few shots…

 

I don’t think he made this shot though…..

He did make this one!  Had four points for the game….

Not afraid to tie the other guy up and cause a jump ball either…..I like the closed eyes though!

Late in the game for some reason Matthew appeared as the point guard…..I asked, it wasn’t a coaching move, just something that happened on court…..he brought the ball up the court a few times and ran the play and did pretty well at it…..

Sports Desk – Cpher Edition

Sunday morning features back-to-back games; Cpher takes the court to battle East Lansing Blue and Matthew follows against Fowlerville.  We brought the camera so it’s a letters and pictures post from this game.

Matthew had control of the camera early so, well, there aren’t as many good pictures here as there are to come of Matthew….

 

We won.  We won big, 50-18.  I would have thought EL would have had a better team but it wasn’t close at any point of the game.  This is early; this shot doesn’t go in but, in a trend, one of the ‘bigs’ gets the rebound and puts it back in.  All of our points in the first quarter came from down low where we dominated the boards (and the scoring).  14-2 after the first quarter…..

 

Cpher with the first of many rebounds….

and dumping it off to a guard to head up court. 

 

I think we are offense here so we have moved to the second half.  We must also be on some sort of fast break since nobody else is around.  Wish Cpher felt a little more comfortable just going up for the shot…..need to work (a lot) on his confidence in these situations….

A typical Cpher rebound Part One.  In the best position and can reach higher than everyone else….

I like that Cpher is dribbling here….it didn’t end well, another EL guy came from where he was guarding #42 and stole the ball….

The most frustrating moment of the game….we had stolen the ball on the fast break, the guard passed it up to Cpher who was late getting back and so, was still down near the basket.  AND HE DIDN’T TAKE THIS SHOT!!!   Ended up passing it off to Brook here who put in the easy basket…..but really wish he had dribbled and taken the layup himself.

 

Solid on defense….we played man-to-man the entire game and he was aggressive towards the ball and here, has just reached in and stolen the ball from the guy in front of him.

 

This is the Cpher-special….rebound, reload, and put the ball up for a basket (he did score here).  We worked a lot this week on having Cpher take the extra time to get in a good shooting position; where last week he would be leaning back and shooting with the ball starting from a position right behind the top of his head, here, he’s taken the ball and gotten behind the ball before he shoots.  With better results….

A typical Cpher rebound Part 2:  He misses this shot, and is out of position for the rebound, but, he can reach more than the smaller EL kid in front of him, so, when the ball comes down he can yank it away before the EL kid can get possession….

Cpher finished with four points, the first basket of the game and next to the last…..next week?  We play a team that lost to EL by 21!  It’s going to be ugggggly!

Vegas Day 6: Grand Canyon Day Two

I have not forgotten about the second part of Day 4….I have either deleted or seriously missplaced the video that I want to use and haven’t gone on a full search for the video.  Maybe tonight

If pictures of rocks aren’t your thing than this post will be verrrry boring.

 

Sunrise Panorama at the Canyon. 

 

Sunrise Panorama at the Canyon Part 2

 

After breakfast we headed out again on the bus to the Herman’s Rest Route to get a small hike/walk in before we drove out.  We went all the way to the end, to Herman’s Rest, and then walked back to Pima Point

A panorama from Hermit’s Rest….you can see Kevin and Mom off on the left….

 

Rapids on the Colorado River visible down below.  It’s about here that I did something that would come back to bite me later…..yet another reminder that if you give a boy a rope he’ll have a noose in his hand soon enough.

There are warnings, both verbal and written, everywhere…..do not throw rocks over the edge because there might be hikers below.  When we went out to Herman’s Rest we were well away from any trails that led down to the bottom, so, as we walked back towards Pima Point I told each of the boys to go for it….grab one rock and throw it as far as you can.  Of course, the boys were dying to do this, and enjoyed listening and listening to hear it hit the sides and bounce toward the bottom…..

More on this later….

 

 

After Pima Point we took the bus back to the main portion of the visitor complex and the boys and I hiked just-a-little-way down into the Canyon, so that boys could say that they hiked even-if-just-a-little-bit down into the Canyon.

We passed these burros on the way up….they were slow but better suited for the walk back up then I was. 

 

You can see the trail across the way that heads down…and down, and down, and hours later gets to the river.  We didn’t get that far.

We stopped here.  And I took this picture of the boys, and then used the phone and called Mom to let her know we were on the way back up so that she could take a picture of us at the arch-tunnel that is between the top and here.

As I talk to Mom, the boys sit down or stand around, and I literally am on the phone long enough to tell her we are heading back up when this old guy turns to Fric and Frac and says “Hey, don’t throw a rock…there’s hikers down there!”.

Tell Mom “Bye!”, turn around and look at Fric and Frac and say ‘what the heck are you doing???’.  It’s not Fric (Cpher), it’s all Frac….and he has this stupid I-don’t-know face on him.  Old man is just going on and and on and on about it, I’m about as mortified as I can be but by the end of it I’m a little pissed off with the old man, who just won’t shut up and let me handle it.

Suzanne, of course, says I enabled this by letting them throw the rocks over the edge earlier (it’s my fault, not Matthew’s).  I looked at Matthew after this statement and made sure he knew that I didn’t think it was anyone’s fault but the little kid who picked up the rock…..

Always a fun time with the boys!

The rest of the Canyon time was taking the Desert View road to the East to the leave the park…..there are multiple scenic points to stop at along the way. 

There’s this one….

 

and this one….

and this one….

 

You get the picture….we leave the park around noon, and instead of heading back west and backtrack the way we came, we decide (ok, I decided) to head out of the park to the east and go south into Flagstaff and then head west….

Part of the reason we headed out that way was to stop at the Wupatki National Monument just north of Flagstaff…this is a Hopi Pueblo, and it was pretty neat seeing the building and the other structures….

Two pueblos actually, and a circle for sports and gatherings…..

The other attraction in this area is the Sunset Volcano National Monument (you can drive from Wupatki to Sunset in 20 minutes….please note that the landscape looks completely different…).  The volcano went off in 1000-1100 AD, and you can still see ash, sand, and lava flows everywhere…..

No picture of Sunset Volcano (it’s directly behind me at this point) BUT the sun literally was right behind the volcano and no picture was going to work out under those conditions.  Even this picture is iffy…..basically everything you can see in shadows here is a giant lava flow, tens of feet high and hundreds of feet wide……

Drove back to Vegas, arrived around 7 pm, had a pretty quiet night before Thanksgiving.