What We've Been Up To

My wife has gotten pictures edited, so if she can find the time this week, she swears she's going to blog. If not, I'll see if I can't get some pictures up of the kids sometime soon.

This weekend is Benjamin's third birthday. So hard to believe that the kid is growing up! He's a heck of a boy, even if he's got some of that three-year-old in him in regards to listening and following instructions. It drives his mother crazy on a regular basis!

Since I last wrote, we had our last softball game. I went to be a part of the team picture (something else that I'll post if I get a copy of it) but I didn't play in the game. I was dealing with the aftereffects of a rough weekend, nasally, and figured the cold air would just kill my throat. From what I heard, we played the team pretty close for a while before the inevitable happened. When you look at the run differential for our team, the worst in the league, you kinda get the idea that next year we have to pitch better or score a heck of a lot more!

Last Saturday, I went up to Fayetteville to watch the Hogs with my brother. Those that knew the relationship my brother and I had even 7-8 years ago would be pretty shocked by that. However, ever since Benjamin's first birthday, he's done a great job of growing up and being decent and we've gotten along much better.

The Hogs rolled over Florida International for homecoming and we left with a few minutes to go in the third quarter. I wanted to walk up and see my name on the Senior Walk. I'd seen it before, soon after I graduated, but being that this was 10 years after the fact, I thought I'd check it out again.

If nothing else, I proved out out of shape I am. I used to be able to make the walk from my dorm to the business department in four minutes. When you see how steep the hill is between the two, that was saying something. When I tried to make it this time, I wasn't sure I was going to survive to the top. I had to sit and take a breather after I made it up there before we finished walking across campus.

Lots has changed up there. Coming back from finding my name, I saw the backside of these buildings and didn't recognize what they were. Turns out it was a whole complex behind the business department that had been built since I was there. It was just amazing to think that what had been a parking lot was now all these buildings.

This Saturday was poker. Unable to defend my title, but that wasn't a surprise. The big blow was fairly early on in the game. I had pocket aces and tried to bet Russell off, but he wouldn't budge. After the flop and turn, he bet big and I called. The river came another ace, which I thought did it for me. He bet, I raised, he called. Trip aces looked nice, until he threw out the straight he'd made with that last ace. I stuck around for a while after that, but it was just to see how many I could outlast--I knew nothing good was happening after that beat. Finally went all-in with A-8 suited. Charles called with A-7 and a 7 came on the turn.

What else is going on.....Sarah still tends to favor her mother when she's tired. She'll play with me great when she's happy and rested, but when she is tired, she will scream her head off rather than fall asleep on me. If she does sleep on me, she's down for a while. But most of the time Meron has to come get her, and she immediately calms down when Mommy's there. I was Pillow Daddy for both kids again yesterday as Meron did her picture editing, so that's not gone out of style yet.

Halloween was a lot of fun. Benjamin went as an alligator, Sarah as a kitty cat. We spent the evening at the church, doing trunk or treat, then games, then the hayride. Benjamin brought home a lot of candy, which he's been going through at a not-terribly-fast clip, but that's only because we've been watching him. He got to play with his friend Micah a lot that night, which made it much more fun for him. Sarah, she didn't quite know what to think, I don't believe. She just kept watching everyone to see what they were doing.

This writers' strike is going to be a problem, I can tell. When you have waited forever to watch just a couple of shows, and there are rumors both could be curtailed, that's not a good thing. There is talk that 24 won't even be shown this season if the strike lasts too long, and I've read conflicting reports about Lost. One said that they'll cut the season to 8 episodes instead of 16, one said that they've already gotten 14 of the 16 episodes written. Who knows. Outside of that, and all the reality TV that is going to be out there, it doesn't faze me much.

Speaking of TV, Meron and I still haven't finished the first season of Heroes. We got down to the last two episodes, but haven't had a chance to get them watched. Hopefully we'll be able to do that this week.

That's really about it. One of us should get pictures up this week before having some from the party early next week!