Weekend at Norris Lake

The kids got out of school on Friday, May 25 and have been at the lake nearly every day since. Yvonne took them to lake on Friday while I was at work and then we spent most of the day there Saturday and Sunday. Surprisingly, the water temp was pretty good. We've had a few cool nights, so I was expecting much colder water. It was definitely comfortable enough for swimming.

Yvonne's sister Betty and her family have a nice ski boat and the kids had a ball wakeboarding and tubing behind it. When we weren't on that boat, we were hanging out at the houseboat and I still feel like I am rocking with the waves as I sit at my desk and type

Anyway, on to a few images from the weekend.


Nick learned how to wake board on Saturday. He was a pretty quick learner, but was initially pretty cautious and did not want to go across the boat's wake. By Sunday though, he was getting braver.

Sarah watched Nick wake board on Saturday and had no interest. By Sunday, though, she knew she could do it and she did. She got up her first time and did great. She is a toughie.

And then we did some "hotdogging" on a large hotdog tube. Sarah gave it a try on Saturday, but the bigger kids like to go fast and Sarah was not so keen about that. I've got to agree with her. After about 20 minutes of shooting images out of the back of the boat and try to stay focused on the riders, I needed to head back to solid ground to give my stomach a rest. You can see in the first image below, Sarah is not too excited about the ride.




And finally, while I was on shore resting my stomach, I made a few new friends. These guys pretty much wandered right up to me and camped out for a while.

And, thanks to all of our Vets out there for serving on this beautiful Memorial Day weekend.

Sarah loses two teeth in two days

I said I would post some pictures of Sarah's missing teeth and here they are. We got to her game a few minutes early tonight and she was nice enough to model for me until her teammates showed up.
One action shot. It's been dry here, so she scoops dirt and ball at the same time. Oh well, she made a nice throw to 1st base on the play and got the batter out. Not exactly a routine play in this league.

Weekend Fun - May 19 and 20, 2007

We had a nice weekend. It was very pleasant and we played outdoors most of the weekend. Sarah had a game Friday night and she had fun and played well. Her team won again. On Saturday and Sunday, we did not have any sports games, so we mostly played around the house.

The big news is that Sarah lost her first two teeth (bottom middle teeth) and somewhat surprisingly, I don't have any pix of the big event. I'll upload some soon though. They pretty much fell out as her adult teeth were coming in and pushing out the baby teeth. She lost one Saturday night and second on Sunday morning. She did well with the tooth fairy.

On Saturday, Nick had a short practice and then we all went to an exotic animal farm / petting zoo. One of the highlights was a 17 foot Burmese Python that weighed as much as me. Well, OK, almost as much as me. No, we did not pet that thing.

Nick is not the animal lover Sarah is, but then who is. Here Nick reluctantly feeds a small, but ornery goat.

Sarah does love animals. Here she found a baby goat that could not outrun her.

I coaxed Yvonne into kissing camel.

On the other hand, Nick wanted no part in Camel kissing. Even when the camel was cool with the idea.

I got a bit too close to the ostrich. He (or she) was a bit peckish.

Another view.


Sarah still wants a puppy and this place had two puppies, but they were already sold. I told Sarah she could ask the owner if they were for sale and she very politely asked him if the puppies "were available?" She was disappointed to learn they were already sold, but somewhat heartened to hear that the dog wearing her hat is pregnant and due in two weeks and we could put our name on the waiting list.

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - Mother's Day

It's been hot around here so we've been trying our best to stay cool and stay outside. Here are some fun photos.

Yvonne cools off Cadbury, who returns the favor.

Nick sits by and cooly watches all the action around him. The new buzz cut and popsicle are helping.


Okay, so you are asking yourself. What is that child doing. Surely it's not Halloween yet.

Quite simple really. She is using the mask and racket as protection from the water. I can't say she had much success as she still got drenched.

Oh, Happy mother's day to all you moms and soon to be moms out there.

Oh, I just realized that when I upload high resolution images, you can click on the embedded images and see them much larger and more clearly. Give it a try.

May 8, 2007

Holy Cow, time is flying by. We have been so busy these last couple of weeks, I've neglected the blog. Things are starting to slow down, I think, or at least, they will be slowing soon. Sarah's soccer season ended last weekend, but unfortunately her game was rained out. The kids did have small pizza party though and got their trophies. In what turned out to be Sarah's last game, I let her keep her shirt untucked and she rewarded me with about 7 goals. Well, I am not really sure how many goals she had. At one point, she scored a goal and she held up all five fingers and looked at me, indicating 5 goals. I saw her score at least 2 more goals. Yvonne did not think she had that many, but I think she did. Here she is with shirt untucked, but about to score again!

One more picture of her playing soccer. You can barely see her face behind all that hair. Yvonne has solved the hair problem though and promises that from now on, her hair wont fall in her face. The hair was also causing a problem on the softball field, but apparently was not too big of an obstacle for her. In her last game, she got a nice ribbon that says, "Dynamite" and got the game ball. Is there any money for girls softball scholarships at UT? Hmmmnn. Finally, one last picture of her. Here she is fielding the ball. In this league, outs are hard to come by, so usually the bases get loaded and it is the pitcher's job to field the ball and out run the 3rd base runner to home plate and get an out. With her team on the verge of being outscored, Sarah single-handedly fielded the last three hits and outran the base runners to home, recording three outs in a row and securing the victory. For this, she got the dynamite ribbon and the game ball. Yes, we were very proud of her and yes, she knew it!

April 24, 2007

Here is what we've been up to the last couple of weeks. I let too much time slip by before updating the blog.

Sarah has a loose tooth. She can't wait until it comes out and she can leave it for the tooth fairy. Last night, she left an old tooth (I am not really sure where it came from and what species it came out of) under her pillow. She got $2.00. I told her the tooth fairy might not be happy being fooled like that, but she thought it was hilarious.

Sarah played soccer again and did quite well, but no goals this week. She played well and had fun too, so all was good. Well, almost anyway.

Before the game started, I made her tuck in her uniform shirt and she was not happy about that. Here is the face she made at me when I made her tuck in her shirt. Clearly, an unhappy camper. I still think she looked a lot better with the tucked-in shirt in the photos (as in the above photo).

Last Friday, Nick and I went to an international dinner night at Betty and Todd's (Sister and Brother-in-Laws) church. They had sponsored the Russian table and thought it would be cool if a real live Russian came so while Yvonne and Sarah went to her softball pre-season pizza party, Nick and I went to the dinner. Fortunately, no Russian food was served and I enjoyed the chicken breast, mashed potatoes and green beans and he ate about 30 chicken nuggets. I think he is growing. Anyway, the highlight of the evening was the the Chinese acrobats. Everyone enjoyed their show.


Nick has had about a 2 week break from baseball due to a weird schedule, but will be back in action Thursday night. In the mean time, here is a pic of him hanging out in the back yard. Notice the small white fleck on his chin. Remnants of a marshmallow from a little bonfire we had Saturday night. We roasted hotdogs and finished with marshmallows.

April 14, 2007

Nick's baseball season starts in two days, but they had a pre-season tournament. Unfortunately, his team did not advance out of the first round (1 win-1 loss), but they had fun and are now prepared for the regular season. Nick is playing second base this year. It is a privilege to play the infield and he spent most of last year in Centerfield, and not by his choice. He is a much better player this year. He can throw better, field better and hit much better. And most importantly, he is having more fun because of it.

Before I post some pix, I tell a bit of conversation I had with a neighbor friend the other night. He is the president of the boosters for the Halls High baseball team and I have been taking pictures of the team, and especially his son, in exchange for free admission to the games. He was telling me his son was not going to pursue a college baseball career, but rather, was going to spend more time with his friends fishing, hiking, camping and the like. He had enough of baseball. He told his dad that it would be great if he and his dad could start doing some of these activities they had missed out on while focusing on sports growing up. He said his son told him he did not regret the large role sports played in his childhood, but he was ready for a change. I hope I am not pushing too hard.

Anyway, on to some fun pix of Nick and his buddies playing ball and by the looks of it, having fun doing so.