Iphone Photo Dump

Another edition of the blog staple

 

 

The menu for the buffet on Thanksgiving at the Wynn.  The line was about 2 hours to get in…..Christopher demolished the omelette station; he had two of them before they closed it down…..

Not many pictures from Christmas this year; this is one of them (duh!).  Cpher asked for and received a digital camera….

 

And I’m not sure what this…I think it’s a Jedi…the boy likes Jedi…the boy likes Jedi a lot….

 

This boy likes his Harry Potter….

And we now have a Xbox Kinect for the boys entertainment….have to say, at this point, it hasn’t been used nearly as much as I would have thought…..

Random picture of Kevin sleeping……

And the first of five pictures of Savannah….we drove the hour down here one afternoon from Hilton Head….this is one of the many public squares…we walked through at least 10 of them.

Above, and this one, are panoramas…..

This is not….I think this is the biggest of the squares and it leads to a fountain…..

Shown here…..

Matthew in a staring contest with a Greek God

and Cpher and the Snow Queen.  We parked, when we stopped, on the street right outside of this store, and as we piled out, Cpher exclaimed “Hey Mom, look at the freaky woman with no arms!”.  and the owner of the shop, who Cpher didn’t see off to the side, quickly said “Don’t you make fun of the Snow Queen!”. 

Cpher learned a lesson about being loud (yeah right) and we got a laugh, and Cpher posed for a picture with the Snow Queen.

Catching Up – Fishing Part 2

So, seeing how obsessed Matthew has been with fishing we decided to go out on the Atlantic and do some real fishing while in Hilton Head.

 

That’s the “True Grits”, the boat we went out on the right.  Those two herons were just hanging out on the dock.  Seeing those kayakers inspired Matthew, Kevin and I to go kayaking later in the trip.

No pictures from kayaking….afraid to get the phone wet.  We paddled A LOT and it was fun, but tiring.  I don’t think I heard the guide very much from having to paddle and paddle and paddle to keep up. Had fun in the double kayak with Matthew…..Kevin?  he was off on his own single kayak and man, that boy was good.  Might have been the best kayak’er out there other than the guide, and that might have been close.  Could stop on a dime, turn whenever, and had absolutely no problem doing whatever he wanted to do in that thing….

 

This guy came up to the boat as we were heading out….literally 3-4 feet away, no zoom on this picture (as an aside, no zoom on any Iphone pictures posted here, zooming I’ve found really messes up the quality). 

 

And so, we went out here….about 36’ feet of water where they’ve placed some tires and other stuff to create an artificial reef.  The spot has a name but I completely forget the name right now….

 

This boy is sometimes a reluctant participant in his younger brother’s fishing obsession but I would say overall has done better than Matthew in pulling fish out of the water (I can recall a few times he would have the biggest fish of the day).  He was the first to pull a sea bass out of the water, but, this picture is of maybe the fourth or fifth fish he pulled out, but, the first one he would hold on to…..really had to be bullied and cajoled into holding the fish

Matthew certainly had his share of success but his trip highlighted, we hope, to him that he needs to be patient….he kept reeling in his bait and recasting when the better approach was to leave it down there and wait…and wait…and wait….

This boy has no problem grabbing, unhooking, and even kissing, the sea bass before returning the fish to the sea…..

Even Mom got in on the act…….

and had her own sea bass to show off…..

This was probably Matthew’s biggest sea bass of the day

 

But the highlight of the day was the dog sharks that we caught towards the end of the trip…..this is the one Matthew reeled in (with a little help from the crew)

 

and the Bass Pro Shops poster board holding on to another dog shark…..

 

But the biggest catch of the day was the dog shark that this fisher-wonder-woman reeled in…..it was so long that Matthew couldn’t hold on to it…..

another dolphin came up to say ‘Hi’ as we motored back into port at the end of the day….

 

We had to reschedule this trip; the original plan was to go out at 9 am and we had to wait until later in the week and went out at 1 pm.  The benefit of that was returning at sunset……

 

Quizzing the year away

Kevin, as a sophomore, can now participate in the high school’s quiz bowl team.  Teams are groups of four, he’s not the top 4 but is generally considered the first alternate.

So, he missed the competition that gets you on the local PBS station (Okemos finished third, top two get 5K scholarships to MSU).  But the winter quiz bowl season has just begun…..Kevin led one JV team (just two of them actually) and they beat the foursomes from three other schools pretty soundly last week.

These pictures are from last fall at a meet at Holt…..

Kevin is competing with the varsity team here……

 

Kevin says he’s weak on the science questions (that’s ok, the other two boys on the team are very strong there).  Geography?  they all just turn to Kevin to see what the answer is….

 

There are a few more meets this winter before the season ‘ends’…..I think our JV team would beat most of the local varsity teams, so, we’ll see how the rest of the year goes

 

Deep in thought, or daydreaming?

Catching Up – Fishing Part 1

Can’t believe that I haven’t (or at least don’t recall a post about my youngest’s sons complete and total obsession with fishing.  I don’t know if I have the words to completely describe this, but, I’ll try as we present the fishing photos from the Christmas trip

 

A very still day on the Boggy Bayou.  Prime fishing?  Who knows…..it’s a body of water with fish, and that’s all Matthew cares about.

I really don’t know where this sudden obsession (the onset was sudden, but,  it’s no fad.  He’s been going on for almost 18 months now with no sign of stopping.  Today, for example, he reminded me that I said I would take him to the store to buy more fishing line) came from; watching fishing shows on TV?  Who knows?  I do know this, I know nothing about fishing.  I can only recall going fishing once in my life, and that was with Uncle Jim when I couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8. 

And that sucks for Matthew, because I can’t show him how to do things right and we stumble and fumble around when we do try and go fishing.  I have no idea if we are there at the right time, if we are using the right bait, if we are setting the bait at the right depth…..so that’s led to some frustrating fishing moments for Matthew and me when we have gone.

Last summer (2010) I asked one of my friends from work to come out with the boys once or twice…..we caught some blue gill at the local pond and Matthew seems to have been instantly ‘hooked’ on this hobby. 

Matthew on the dock at Lions Park…..

At this point, if I could go fishing with Matthew every day he would be the happiest boy alive.  And I”m sorry, it’s just incredibly boring for me.  But I promised the boy that we would go out while we were down in Florida.  So, a trip to the store to buy a cheap rod; a trip to the bait store (I described this experience to my friend as me being in a bait store like being “an Amish man in Best Buy”) and picked up some frozen shrimp and worms (the helpful clerk opened up the worms and showed Matthew that hey were moving and of ‘high quality’).

Matthew caught nothing here.  He caught nothing either time we came out.   The guy who was out there with us the second day caught nothing either so don’t think it was a failing on our part (unlike other days in Michigan)….

Matthew’s best Christmas presents:  a new portable rod with case; a new tackle box, a book showing lakes and rivers in central and southeastern Michigan.

Matthew’s present to me? 

I need this book.

I think we’ve agreed that we’ll do more fishing this summer; rent a double kayak and he can fish off the front while I paddle from the back….. 

Catching Up – January Sports Desk

I haven’t posted in so long that the summaries have been diminished by my memory over time.

Matthew – Basketball:  Nothing at all happening here while the cast is/was on….he was cleared for activity after 10 days BUT with the cast he couldn’t catch the ball and really couldn’t shoot.  He COULD dribble left-handed, so, he spent a lot of time at practice working on his left-handed dribbling.

We missed the first game after he got his cast on (his team was in Owosso, Cpher’s team played right after in Fowlerville, 15 miles away….just couldn’t handle the logistics and hey, he’s not playing).   But I was pretty insistent that he sit with this team during the other games (which, very conveniently, were either right before or right after Cpher’s games).  Matthew was completely against this…didn’t agree with me that he should be part of the team even if he wasn’t playing and we had some pretty good arguments about it.

Matthew’s team rolled on, racking up 3 wins in his absence.  One parent did mention that they missed his defense……

Cast came off Friday, and he was back on the court for a game at 9am, a battle of unbeatens as we faced 6-0 Perry.  Matthew was really rusty; completely missed the basket on his first three shots and called for travelling twice (in a game where the refs were challenged to call anything…they let an awful lot go).  Not real surprised by this; it’s going to take a while for his shot to return and left-handed dribbling isn’t the real thing.  He did make a nice long basket near the end of the game, but, it was waved off for one of those aforementioned travelling calls.

One really nice thing from today’s game…..he dribbled up the court one time completely left-handed….he never would have done that before and being a little better with his left hand is a good thing.

One bad thing…..late in the fourth quarter he fell…and landed almost completely on his right wrist near where it was broken.   Left the court in pain, but, no harm done.  A few anxious moments for Matthew, parents, coaches, and all the other parents (lots of ‘oh no’s’ from the crowd). 

The score:  we killed them, 38-18.  Seems like Matthew’s team has a pretty good chance of finishing the season undefeated.

Matthew – Soccer:  Being cleared to play didn’t mean he could play basketball; it did mean he could play soccer.  So, he was out there 9 days after the break playing indoor soccer with the cast wrapped up in gauze and a towel (a Terrible Towel even!).  He was pretty good keeping the cast down and making sure that he didn’t hurt other kids with it……probably hurt his style of play the most since he couldn’t be as physical as he would like to be.  The Soccerzone team has won the three games he’s been in and none of them have been particularly close (ok, the last game was only a 7-5 win but the ref waved off two goals….one of them Matthew’s…for the kids going to the ground after the shot).

The TNT team has been playing intra-club scrimmages; the first two games have been against the older U11 boys.  Our team won the first game 8-5 against a mix of the red and white teams and lost this morning 6-4 to the Red team.  Really like how the team was playing though….a lot more energy and possession than I remember from last year.   Still some very poor finishing and lackadaisical play from the forwards at time.   Thought Matthew had a great first half but a not so good second half…..he/we really need to ramp up the conditioning; he played all but one minute of the first half and just was too tired to be the same player in the second half. 

Cpher – Basketball:  When last I wrote we had just finished a stretch of three games against lightweight teams; the last two weekends have prevented some stiffer challenges. 

Failed the first challenge completely; told and told and told the boys in practice we needed to step up and scored all of 12 points through 30 minutes of a 32 minute game to lose 2517 (scored five garbage points late in the fourth).  Cpher always plays a good defensive game; he’s hardly ever out of position and knows when to help others, but, it has been a brutally ugly stretch on offense…he only ever gets the very short putback opportunities but has not made a shot in several games and hasn’t been particularly close either.   We’re working a lot on this in practice right now…..

We won the second game 39-34 but it shouldn’t have been that close, we blew a 16-point lead from the half to make this game way closer than it ever should have been.  Still no points from Cpher; didn’t even have a shot in this game.

No games this weekend, but three next weekend.  Hopefully things are looking up on the offense front though; we scrimmaged the 6th grade boys Thursday night and that team played this 1-3-1 zone that we just tore apart, our two big guys each had five to six wide open shots and Cpher finally made a bunch of them, even under pressure.  Hope this means he’s coming around because we need him to step up to do well; of the next four games to end the season, three are against the best teams in the league (there are 16 teams, these teams are probably in the top 4, and we, based on results right now, are in the next group of 4).

Catching Up – Hilton Head

Ugh, a big dry spell of non-posting.  I went through and finally renamed the photos I want to save and post and realized just how far behind I was.  So, we’ll start here, a few posts about our trip to Hilton Head after Christmas.

 

The first sunset of the trip….drove all day from Niceville and arrived here just as the sun was setting.  Walk a minute on a wooden boardwalk and you are at the beach.   Not the sandy, soft beach we’re used to in the Panhandle either, this beach is rock hard and very wide….this is low tide.

 

I didn’t take many pictures of the interior of the island, mainly because I was driving as we went through most of the time.  Very taken by surprise by the controlled nature of the development…..this picture is taken from the top of….

 

the lighthouse…..we all climbed to the top.  We booked our deeply discounted hotel knowing full well that the weather could be completely horrible, but, it was as good as we could have hoped, highs in the mid 60’s and low’s in the 40’s, bright sunshine every day.  The pool at the hotel must have been 88 degrees, just crazy warm. 

 

Fric and Frac on the beach near the lighthouse

Sunset on the next to last day of the trip

We rented bikes one morning from the hotel and headed north along the beach…..I’m pretty happy with these pictures; I took them while I (and they) were moving!   Went about 2 miles up the beach and then headed back (against the wind…not fun).  Had a good time.

Yeah I know….

it’s been crickets around here.  I’ll try and catch up over the next few days.

• Probably need two posts for Hilton Head
• I’m certain we have a tried and true Iphone photo dump coming
• Always a note from the sports desk
• I need to talk about the return of orthodontia……
• ….and driving.
• ….and planning for German exchanges…..
• A few summary notes about Wiley and Holly’s misadventures are probably needed….

From the Sports Desk

Matthew:  Placed on Physically Unable to Perform list.  He will go to practice this week to do what he can (more soccer than basketball…cast interferes with dribbling but a good time to get better with his left hand…) and after next weekend’s game can play in games with his cast.  Cast comes off on 1/27.  Both of Matthew’s teams won in his absence…..

Christopher:  Travelled to Fowlerville for a game on Saturday.  This week was getting back in the swing of things and included a scrimmage against Holt on Tuesday.  We had lost to them when they scrimmaged us at home before Thanksgiving….this game was a little different, we won going away and were winning by a lot early in the game.  Not sure what to think of it…..

We played sloppy against Fville……missed a lot of layups.  Cpher was abysmal on offense (missed all four of his shots) but really played well on defense, a lot of broken-up passes and one sequence where he ran the entire court to get a loose ball.  Won 43-14, but, there’s a lot to work on in practice.  Looks like our string of easy games is coming to an end next weekend; we play a team with only one loss so it will be good to have more of a challenge. 

We knew it was coming….

We’ve even joked about it; it’s amazing that Kevin is the only one to have worn a cast to date.

We can amend that now.

That is Matthew’s wrist (at the top).  you can see the one arm bone (the ulna) clearly, the other arm bone (the radius) is behind it.  if you look to the left near the wrist you can see the radius bulge out a little bit.  That’s called a torus fracture or also called a "buckle" fracture. “The topmost layer of bone on one side of the bone is compressed, causing the other side to bend away from the growth plate. This is a stable fracture and the broken pieces of bone have not separated apart (displaced).”

So, what happened?  Still a bit unclear in my mind and will have to ask Matthew to demonstrate this at the school at some point, but, the short version is he was on some sort of playground equipment (with a ladder?) and his friend was sliding under him while he was standing on it (so it’s a slide?) and to get out of the way he jumped but his buddy still clipped him and he landed right hand first and twisted and then he hit with his head (and he has a pretty nasty mark). 

We are notoriously slow to take the boys to the doctor….typically we need to be really sure (Matthew just went on Tuesday for a cough he’s had for weeks….).  I barely touched his arm to check things out and he winced in pain…we went to urgent care right after that.

 

Our calendar looks a lot less cluttered all of a sudden as sports drop off of the radar screen for a while.  Should get the cast off on 1/27…..but strangely ok to play (with the cast on) after 1/15…..

Itunes Match (or not to match….)

Figured I’d take the plunge and sign up for the Itunes Match service.  What’s that you ask?  Here’s the abridged skinny….For $25/year you can take your Itunes Library and match it up online (or upload what doesn’t match)….at that point you can access it from other devices under the same account (in my case, my phone, and the boys Itouches).  Basically, your music is saved and replicated just about anywhere.

There are some drawbacks….they are pretty major drawbacks right now but hope that they will end in happiness and more functionality later

• The biggest problem is that the service has a 25,000 song limit right now.  My library is at 52K songs…..to even started this I had to remove a lot of music.  I figure that, eventually, this limit will go up, but even right now it would be nice for Kevin to have access to my Beatles albums or even for Fric and Frac to have access to music that Kevin has purchased
• It’s taken a long time to match up / upload my 25K songs.  Started Sunday…finally finished last night.  I think it matched up about 21K of the songs and I had to upload about 4K….
• The matching process hasn’t gone quite as planned…..for example, I have two artists now….’The Beatles’ and ‘The Beatles’….I’m not sure why.  I’ll play around tonight and see if I can change the tags to resolve this issue and just have one ‘Beatles’ directory.  But that’s a pain…..and I noticed I have more than a few artists like this……

Figured I’d give it a month and see if it made sense to keep going down this road…..if not, call Apple and drop the service and hopefully get a refund.