The Providential Pabst Adventures

Claymation Kit First Video

2012-01-22T16:00:00.001-08:00

Basketball!

2011-12-10T10:56:00.001-08:00

A.J. has only ever wanted to play baseball. This year, though, he asked to play basketball in the winter. We thought that was a great idea. Not only would it improve his conditioning, but help him to make new friends, too. Last Saturday was their first game. And he was nervous! He's never been nervous about a game before. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do!" he said. But it's because in baseball there's always a right choice, depending on each situation. In basketball, the situation is always changing, and there are always many right choices. He did just fine, and even had one dad declare that he must be lying about never playing before. :)

It was not easy to get pics. Gyms aren't exactly photo-friendly, with all that bad lighting. But here are a couple.

School Picture Time

2011-11-08T11:36:00.001-08:00

So behind!

2011-10-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

Many, many fun things have happened, even before we moved, that I still haven't posted. There's the video from A.J.'s first orchestra concert, and his birthday, the first day of school, and lots of baseball. (Surprise!)

Today, though, I'll just put up some things from this week.

Wednesday was Parent/Teacher conference, so they were both out of school. I scheduled Levi's conference for 8am (A.J. is too old for mandatory conferences now!) and we headed out by 9. First up was the Trinity River Audubon Center. This is a new center, built along the Trinity River (which runs through much of the DFW metroplex) an on top of an illegal dump site. They "sculpted" the trash, covered it up, and planted lots of native grasses and other seeds. It is still in the early stages of succession, so it will be even more beautiful in future years. The drought this year also didn't help. The building, though, was mostly a disappointment. There was very little information available. Minimal, non-changing displays, and no staff to answer questions were bummers for me. I wanted to learn more about when the monarchs arrive back in TX, but no luck there. We did get several things passed off for A.J.'s Webelos requirements, and the river was beautiful.

Here are some fun pics.

A.J. had to help Levi find the turtles sunning themselves on the logs.

They liked this little fence.

This is Levi learning to perch with the binoculars.

He spent several minutes up there.

After hiking the trails for a couple of hours, we headed over to the Ft. Worth Zoo. It's a really nice zoo. Much nicer than L.A.'s. They even have penguins there! I didn't get any pictures, since we were getting short on time.

Yesterday was Levi's school fundraiser, the Fun Run. They set up cones on the soccer field, and the kids ran 30 laps each. Levi looked like it was easy, he just kept running and running, and running.

What a goof

2011-08-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to say that my boys are still around. They just haven't gotten much blog time lately.

Today, A.J. told us about ~~having~~ getting to learn Spanish during Social Studies. His school bought Rosetta Stone for the kids to use in the computer lab. His computer was having troubles, so he only managed to watch the introductory video, and didn't get to "talk at it. You know, with headphones and a microphone like pilots and commentators wear."

Levi starting quoting some of the Rosetta Stone commercials, and then announced that he wanted to learn Latin. He picked Latin because "nobody speaks it anymore. And then nobody would understand me. It would be funny." See? He's a goof.

What we've done so far...

2011-08-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been in the house for almost 3 weeks, but only owned it for 2. We've been quite busy with various projects. And the shopping! Good heavens we've done a lot of shopping. Between new clothes, school supplies, food, furniture, tools and such, and other sundries, we've spent more hours in retail outlets in the last 2 weeks than in the previous 2 months.

Here's a rundown of what's been accomplished so far.

Painted A.J.'s room for his birthday. (Pictures later.) Curtain fabric bought, but not made yet. That's a project for this week.

Bought desk/table surfaces for the office and put them together. Finally got the computer off the floor. :)

Opened and put away most of the boxes. Only a few left in the office and the master bedroom.

Bought, installed, and improved some used laundry appliances. Only $500 for both!

Set up the furniture, more or less where it will stay.

Got lawn care equipment (weedeater and riding lawn mower) and tidied up the lawn. Good grief it looks so much better.

Bought and assembled some garage organizing/work bench pieces. And put up peg board. And then actually put the tools away!

Scrubbed (with Soft Scrub and a brush) the grout lines in the kitchen. Well, I've started, but I sure haven't gotten anywhere near finished. WHY WOULD ANYONE USE WHITE GROUT IN THE KITCHEN?!?! If you happen to be grouting in your kitchen in the near future, do not choose white. You will regret it. At least it's coming mostly clean.

Scrubbed our shower. Eww. That's all I got on that one. And got a bench for it, since there's not even a soapdish!

De-cobwebbed the upper corners on most of the first floor.

Signed myself up to help with the garden at the elementary school. I figured that's in my skill set.

Got both of the boys through the first week of school. They're both making new friends and enjoying their classes. Levi is excited that his school has music, computer, and art classes, and that he gets to have PE three times a week. A.J. is thrilled to have PE every day, and that he's doing really well in his Honors Math class. And he gets to see his teammates. They're all 6th graders, so he has no classes or lunch with them, but he sees them in the halls frequently. It's a pretty small school. :)

Up to bat for next week:

Get Aaron to his new office.

Sew curtains for A.J.'s window.

Actually get all the stuff off my kitchen counters that doesn't belong there.

Vacuum and use a Rug Doctor on the carpets. It's not particularly easy to tell, but they had two dogs. And they weren't imaginary.

Get some mulch to put around our poor trees. Especially the ones in the front of the house. They're younger, and taking the heat and dryness a little harder than the mature ones in the back.

Get Levi out to his first practice of the fall season.

Have the missionaries over for dinner and Family Home Evening Monday night. And then go to Levi's curriculum night at school.

Stop eating so much fast food!!!

Find a pediatrician. They're up for their check-ups in a few weeks.

And just enjoy being right where we belong. :)

It's finished!

2011-08-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

We finally, finally closed on Monday. That was awful. I never want to do it again. Good thing I like my new house!

And, finally some pictures!

First, the front: The house faces south, and we have no western windows. So, it doesn't heat up unnecessarily every afternoon! :)

Next: the music room. This was originally the dining room. But, the boys aren't allowed to eat over carpet, and the breakfast area is huge. And we needed a place to put the piano!

The kitchen, breakfast area/dining room and living room are one long room, which I love. Bring on the friends! And, I now have possibly the largest kitchen island ever.

Here is the living room. Yes, we already have a Texas star. It's an unwritten law around here that you must. (The master bedroom is through the little hallway on the right. And the boys' rooms are upstairs. Score!)

The entryway. Music room is to the right, and the study is on the left.

The guest bathroom. It's small, but beautiful like all the bathrooms.

This is the boys' homework/art room. The girls that lived here before left some magnetic boards and some cork boards. We're going to paint the dormer wall with chalkboard paint for some more art space.

Levi's room. He wants blues and greens for his paint colors.

A.J.'s room. There is a bed under there, I promise. :) He wants Cardinal red on one wall. Of course. Notice all three upstairs bedrooms have window seats. We love them. It's time to get cracking on some good comfy pillows!

Obviously, it's still a mess. Once we get some paint, and some pictures on the walls, it will really start feeling more like home. It's a beautiful house, and we feel really blessed to have it.

NOT Homeless!

2011-08-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

Let's just call this Aaron's worst birthday ever. I really hope there's never one even worse. Apparently, the mortgage company we picked is worthless. And so, we ~~may be~~ are likely to be homeless for at least a couple of days next week. We are hoping, but I don't have any idea how likely, that a different company can get us closed by Monday. If they can't, we'll probably lose the house. And then we're in real trouble. So, send up a prayer or two, please?

* Update: We won't be homeless! The loan won't close before we get there, like it was supposed to (Stupid, lazy mortgage co.!) But, we're going to lease the house from the sellers until it does. Whew. Thank goodness.

My special, long-time friends

2011-07-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

When I went back to Missouri for Jared and Shelby's wedding, I got to see a couple of my childhood friends. We haven't all been together since graduation, more than 13 years ago. One lives nearby, but one was only in town while her husband finished basic training. These are friends who I know will always stand by me, no matter what, or how long it's been since we saw each other, or how far away we are. I love them!

My boys were just starting their drive from California, so they didn't get to come hang out with us, but Janey's cute boys were there, and Teri's adorable son and daughter. Here are a few pics from our fast-food picnic at the park.

Clay: almost 2!

Little Levi: just turned 4!

Emily: gonna be in kindergarten!

Spencer: big 3rd grader!

Emily, Teri, Spencer, Clay, me, Janey, and Levi

Friends are so special. So glad we got together.

MONOPOLY!!!

2011-07-13T15:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, me and Levi made the board game "Monopoly". We started at about 1:30 yesterday. We stopped to go to bed at about 8:30. then, we started back up today at around 2:00. We only had the money left to do, and we finished at 2:30. It looks great, and here it is:

I told you it looks great! well, see you in my next post.

A.J.

Baseball...have you missed it?

2011-07-06T19:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, the boys both played baseball this spring. It was very busy, and not terribly notable for most of the season, so there weren't many posts about it. But, now that Levi is done with his tournaments, lets look at some pictures!

In one of the last games of the season, A.J. hit his first real home run. No, it didn't go over the fence, that's a really big field they're on, but you can see that the ball hasn't even been thrown to the cutoff man yet, and he's rounding 3rd. He was very happy. :)

In their second playoff game (everyone makes the playoffs, double-elimination), they went up 12-1, but barely won 13-12. Yikes. A.J.'s buddy Nate Dog (they all had nicknames on their jerseys, it was very confusing) got his "daily home run." Nate's not the most natural player out there, but when he connects, the ball goes a long, long way.

A.J. loves catching. I took a few pics of some good stops. The pitching was mediocre, at best, so he had some nasty stuff to try to stop. Lots of balls in the dirt, and some way over his head. He got to most of them, though. I must say, he's pretty good. :)

On to Levi: he is a very scrappy little player, and loves to get dirty. He dives for anything, even if he has no chance at all to get to the ball. This won't serve him terribly well as he gets older, but for now it just means he's aggressive. And his coach liked that a lot. He played pitcher and 3rd base, even as a lefty, and made lots of outs. He even caught some fly balls!

He is one of the most encouraging kids I know. He pats the other team on the back when they make it to 1st. He applauds foul balls, and good effort. He can turn around and tell you that you messed up, but we're trying to stay positive. :)

He's really fast. I don't see him run very often, we just don't have that much room in our yard. But when he lets loose, he flies. As for his number, no, he's not 00. He's 99, but the jerseys were enormous, so most of the numbers were tucked in to their pants.

We had good seasons, with a lot of learning going on. The biggest accomplishment: A.J. has improved dramatically at controlling his emotions, and not taking a loss so hard. It's still not fun, but he's usually not devastated anymore. Hooray, baseball!

The Best Couple Ever...Jared and Shelby

2011-07-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

My adorable brother Jared married sweet Shelby on June 18, and then had a ring ceremony and reception on the 25th. I knew she was a keeper after my Grandma's funeral in December. She sailed through that stressful time, and then through Christmas with us, too. Our family quirks (cause every family has some...some families have more than others) didn't scare her away, and she fit right in. Can you tell that I love her? :)

They asked me to take pictures for them at the temple, and I gladly did. Here are some of my favorites.


The super cute couple. They giggled through most of the pics. :)

Smiling faces, and the beauty of the temple all in one photo.

Simply love this photo. They clearly love each other an awful lot.

Meet Mr. Nubman. Jared lost part of his finger in a work accident a couple of years ago. He occasionally draws a face on the stub and calls it "Mr. Nubman." What a goof.

Shelby's great family that drove out for California to be there for her. That's her brother in the back, her mom in blue and her aunt on the right.


These are all the Sudholts that made it. Somehow we finally managed to get a nice picture. After Aunt Karen stopped making faces. Left to right: cousin Emily, my mom Jan, my sister Hallie, Shelby, my brother "Uncle Jon," Jared, me, my dad Bob, and Aunt Karen.

Jared's sweet son Gavin, ring bearer for the ceremony at the reception.

Shelby's pretty little Jasmine, the flower girl.

I am so excited to have such a great sister-in-law. Their new family is beautiful, and I can't wait to watch them bloom and grow together.

Lots to catch up on

2011-07-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

I think I'll do this in a more or less random order. I'm not organized enough in my brain right now to do it any other way.

First up, we have a contract on a house! A gorgeous house, even. Never thought I'd have one so nice, especially that I can move right into. A couple of pictures for the curious, but no interior shots yet. It's still not mine, after all.

It's a 2-story house. The boys were thrilled. They've been begging for one for a couple of years now.

And, it has a nice, long backyard. There's room for a big garden, and lots and lots of baseball.

There's a shed in the back. Nothing terribly fancy, but the girls that live there now have been allowed to spray paint one end to their hearts' content. They're actually quite good.

Up next, my brother Jared's wedding to the best girl ever.

Operation Lone Star

2011-06-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

Operation Lone Star is our next family project. It will involve a lot of work, from everyone. There will be packing, and purging, and patience. There will probably be tantrums, there will definitely be some tension, and it will all end in the state of Texas.

We have requested, and been granted, a transfer to the Ft. Worth office. This is a really exciting time for us. We'll be able to own a house, rather than rent. We'll be able to have enough space to spread out. We won't have to hear when our neighbors turn on their Wii, which we can now. Hopefully we won't be able to smell if our neighbors smoke a cigar every night, like we do now.

We've narrowed our choices to a couple of communities. They are both far enough out of the city to have large lots, and smaller schools. But they're not so far to have terrible commutes.

We are lucky enough to have some fabulous friends nearby already. The Johnsons are a great family. Gail was A.J.'s first babysitter when I went back to school. They have boys about the same ages as our boys, and all of them are good friends. We are very glad to be moving close to them again. We won't be next door, like we were in Columbia, but close enough for lots of barbecues and other get-togethers.

And, it puts us much closer to almost all of our family. I have some cousins in TX, one near Houston, and one in San Antonio. We'll have to have our own family reunions, since none of us have been to the "big" one for several years.

We've got a lot to do, and it will be stressful, but by the end of the summer, we're hoping to be in a place we can really call "home."

One did, and one didn't

2011-05-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Levi! He made the Shetland (coach pitch-level) tournament team! He is very excited, but he doesn't quite know what it means just yet. :)

They'll be going to three tournaments, but he'll only make two of them. He must have been good enough that they didn't care, because the initial information was adamant that you be available for everything. His first tournament is over Memorial Day weekend, so we'll see how they do and report back.

Sadly, A.J. did not make his team. He was on the bubble, but he's little, and they only would have put him on the bench. So, they just left him off. He was not happy about the decision. He didn't get angry and stomp around, but he was crying quietly. He's in the younger group, being 9 rather than 10. So there are a lot of boys older and bigger than he is. A.J., however, knows that he works harder than just about anyone and thinks that should make him more valuable. I agree, but I'm not coaching the team, and the guy who is coaching, well, he's a little loony. We weren't terribly surprised, but A.J. was terribly disappointed. Maybe next year.

Spring Break and All-Star Games

2011-04-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

So since we last posted the snow has all gone away, the baseball season is well under way and spring break has come and gone. We finally went somewhere for spring break this year. Bethany didn't have classes this year, so there was no conflict with her school and the kids school having break at different times. We did a little road trip down to San Felipe, Mexico. It's a little fishing village on the Sea of Cortez side of Baja. We stayed in a house close to the beach and got a lot of peace and quiet. Here's some pictures of the Giant Cactus forest that we drove through there.
Yesterday was our league's all-star festival/fundraiser. Both AJ and Levi were voted onto their all-star teams by their teammates. It was a long but fun day.

It SNOWED!

2011-02-26T19:18:00.000-08:00

What wacky weather lately. Today, it snowed. Dippin' dots style. It was a little strange. I've never seen snow like that. It looked like sleet, but wasn't. The boys ran outside to be in it, catch it on their tongues, and touch it...in t-shirts and no socks or shoes. A.J. was even in shorts!

The boys enjoying the first flakes.

It stopped for a while, and then started again with a vengeance! It eventually accumulated to somewhere between 1 and 2 inches.

It covered our road. Jon was out with a friend, and came home to say it's not even cloudy 2 miles away, and doesn't stick until 3 roads south of us.

They suited up (as best they could, with no boots or snow pants, or decent mittens) and headed out for a snowball fight. First, though, they stopped to make their first snow angels.

We found some small mittens for Levi, and some knit ones for A.J., but they didn't work all that well.

The boys threw snowballs, and Aaron rolled up the balls for a snowman. And, our lemon tree doesn't look very happy right now. Poor thing.

This is their first ever snowman. Carrot nose, raisin eyes and buttons.

American Folklore Through the Years

2011-02-12T22:07:00.001-08:00

Our Blue and Gold Banquet Skit from this year.

H stands for...

2011-01-23T17:38:00.000-08:00

Harry, Hermione, Hagrid, Hedwig, Hogwarts, Hufflepuff, and Happy Birthday.

"Mom? Can you put a little R next to it for Ron?"

Levi had his party last week. Clearly, it was Harry Potter themed. He adores Harry Potter. His favorite character is Ron. I'm not really sure why, since Ron is kind of a dork. He's a lovable dork, though. :^)

First, each guest had to be sorted. This was a way to make them wear nametags. About half the kids were from church, and half from school, and there's not a lot of overlap between the groups. And, I didn't know some of the school kids. So, it helped us, too. The sorting hat was the same hat I used for my snowmen as a kid. It's nice and well-worn.

The next task was to make/decorate a wand. We bought little dowels and had them use markers, crayons and stickers. Then we added some metallic pearl crinkle (fancy Easter grass) to make it look like a spell was coming out the end. One little boy (whose dad is a professional magician) decided he wanted to make his wand black. He spent nearly 30 minutes painstakingly coloring it perfectly black.

Following the pizza (yay, pizza!) they went outside for quidditch practice. They worked on throwing three quaffles through the hoops.

Then, they used our foam bat as beaters hitting the bludger away.

Since it's hard to keep your glasses on while flying around on a broom, they played "Pin the Glasses on Harry" when they came back in. Some of the kids were cheaters and looked out from under their blindfold. Others felt the glasses already on the poster. Some were happy with wherever they put it.

After putting the glasses back on, it was time for Potions Class. We picked up several pop rocks kits that included test tubes and a sour ingredient. We provided the tall vase of elixir, and the powdered dragon's egg, crystallized unicorn tears, crushed lizard teeth, and dried mandrake root. When these were mixed properly, it fizzed and foamed, and then would make the drinker invisible. The kids took this very seriously, and were very careful with the ingredients.

The foaming was impressive...

but the taste, not so much.

The cake and ice cream turned out to be the most dangerous part of the party. One little guy fell off his chair and banged his mouth on the table. :( He quickly recovered, though, and finished his cake.

It was a really fun party, but 12 kindergarteners in the house at once was a little crazy. I didn't mind seeing them go.

And Now We are Six.

2011-01-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Levi turned 6. He has been so excited for his birthday. All week he's been asking, "Is it my birthday tomorrow?" (He's not so great with spatio-temporal analysis.) I've tried to figure out how to write something for him, but he's tricky.

He's hard to pigeon-hole. You can't put his personality in a box. He adores the spotlight. That's why he likes baseball so much: you get to go the plate by yourself, have your name announced to the crowd, and show off your mad hitting skills. He can be very emotional. This is both good and bad. :) He is a master of the waterworks. He can turn on the tears when he feels he will gain some benefit from it. However, he can't always control them when he'd rather not cry. This embarrasses him at school sometimes when he cries at being frustrated by the trickiness of a worksheet or a puzzle. He even came home with shiners under his eyes from pressing on them to try to stop the tears. :(

He is very aware of others and their feelings. Even when he was very small, he knew when I was having a bad day. He would ask, "Mama, are you happy?" Now, in school, he sometimes gets upset when someone else is in trouble. While reading Harry Potter, he doesn't get scared when Harry or Ron are about to get attacked or are in danger, he worries that they'll get expelled. Silly boy.

He also loves to play the bad guy. A.J. got a Star Wars Lego ship for Christmas, and Levi got one for his birthday. But I knew he would love to be an Imperial fighter, so that's what he got. I am not convinced this is a good quality, and I'll try to train him away from the Dark Side before it's too late.

He loves music, especially jazz. He asked me to teach him to play the piano, and was very excited to see some piano lesson books wrapped up for his birthday. He is brave enough to sing in front of others: he sang with A.J. at Susie's funeral a year ago, at Grandma Belcher's funeral last month, and they sang a duet as part of the Primary Program in October. I can't wait to see where this interest goes.

Levi is a really fun boy. Let's see what six has to bring.

11 years

2011-01-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

We've been through:

6 addresses in 3 states.

birth of 2 boys.

6 major road trips.

a few crazy medical things.

3 1/2 college degrees.

9 years of one or both of us being in school.

10 different employers between the two of us.

11 professional baseball seasons.

7 little league seasons, two with Aaron coaching.

11 cars.

3 couches.

And I wouldn't change a thing.

Weird Puppet Show

2010-12-11T19:13:00.000-08:00

I have no gift to bring

2010-12-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

...that's fit to give our King.

I always thought this was a silly little Christmas carol. It didn't make any sense to me. There aren't any drummer boys in the Nativity story, so who made this up? I get it now.

I've been sitting on Catalina Island, all by myself for three days. I've listened to a lot of Christmas carols in those three days. This year, The Little Drummer Boy stood out to me.

"What will you bring to Him?" it asks me. The little boy has the answer: the best you can do. His talent isn't special, some would say it's not even appropriate. This little boy can't even keep his own time, the ox and lamb have to do it for him! But, he "plays his best for Him." That's what He asks for. He doesn't care what your talent is, or how impressive it is. He just wants our best. He wants us to make our talent better and stronger than it was yesterday.

So, what will you bring to Him?

A new blog

2010-11-29T22:02:00.000-08:00

I have created a new blog, Natural Rambler. This is where all my nature/environmental issues/science thoughts will go. They don't really belong here. And, I want to create a public persona that I can use in my professional life. If you're interested, click on over and read it. I'd love both writing feedback as well as content discussion. That's what makes blogs interesting!

Veteran's Day

2010-11-24T11:41:00.000-08:00

HHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Veteran's Day was ccccccccccccccccccccccccooooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll! We went fishing but we didn't catch aannyytthhiinngg!! And you know what? Edgar threw his pole into the ocean(don't tell this to him but it was on purpose!) After that we went to Knott's Berry Farm! YYeeaahh!! We got to go on The Charlie Brown Speedway! It's really fun. We also went on The Log Ride. It's basically the life of a log, just not the part where they get cut down. And my favorite ride: JAGUAR. It is awesome.

Sincerely,

A.J.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

2010-11-15T14:02:00.000-08:00

...and school pictures!

First, Levi. Is he cute or what?

He's in kindergarten this year, and is smoking past everyone! He has already passed his 100 words test, even though she only sent home the first ten words. She knew he could read them, and tested him on them all. That means he's now allowed to participate in Accelerated Reader (AR) and take quizzes on the books he reads. So far, he's passed all three quizzes that he's taken. He and his buddy Mike went with a 2nd grade class to take the reading assessment test last week. His score is 2.7-3.6, meaning that he's reading at a 2nd grade, 7th month to 3rd grade, 6th month level. oh, dear.

Our big challenge with him is keeping up his effort in his school work. Many of the other kids in his class are still working on learning their letters, so he doesn't see why he has to write several sentences when everyone else gets a gold star just for a few random letters on the page. Then, he finishes before everyone else and distracts the nearest boy, who should still be working! That is exactly what I thought would happen if his teacher doesn't keep him challenged and interested. Thankfully, his teacher is working hard to keep him motivated, too. She's going to put him with Mike to see if they can put a little competition into the quality of their work, rather than him just sitting around pestering someone. We'll see what happens.
If any of you more experienced parents have ideas on keeping him interested and motivated, I'd really appreciate it. He has no interest in busy work, or perceived time-wasters.

Now on to A.J. He's getting awfully handsome, but don't tell him that!

I met with his teacher last week, also. He's doing really well in his main classroom, but his test scores haven't been so hot in science and social studies, which he goes to the other 4th grade teacher for. This means she has all 41 at once (there are only 8 4th graders in A.J.'s class, and 28 5th graders!) I can't tell if his poor scores are because she's got so many at once, or he just doesn't get it, or if it's the textbooks. The books are atrocious. In my view, they are woefully incomplete. Rather than defining phenomena, they simply describe them. This leaves the student with no idea what the causes are/could be. And it makes it hard to cement the concept in the mind. Grr. I'm kind of partial to science, so I strongly dislike anything that teaches it poorly. Mostly because I've seen the product of the books once they're in college. It's not pretty. In short, we will be teaching the concepts mentioned in the texts, because there is no way he'll get them any other way.

He has started to play the clarinet with the school band/orchestra. He's done really well at it, too! Once he figured out how to make his fingers cover the holes properly, he's taken off. It's been fun to watch him learn to practice with only a little help. And, his tone is actually pretty good, too! That's good, because the clarinet might be my least favorite instrument. It doesn't help that most of the ones I was in school with couldn't march, either.

He has impressed his classmates with his geographic knowledge. The 5th graders are supposed to learn all the states and capitals this year, and his teacher has dragged the 4th graders along for the ride. :) He's known all of them since about 1st grade, so he's smoking most of his classmates when they play games or have races to see who can get the match first.

I'm really glad they are doing well. They both are challenging to parent, and of course in totally different ways. But, they're tons of fun and I'm loving watching them grow and change this year.

A new team

2010-10-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

Everybody is hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllloed!

My new team is the Yankees.We are the best (or second best, depending on how many losses the Dodgers have) team in the league. We have 4 wins and 1 losses,so our winning percentage is 800. My teammates are
(in alphabetical order) Carsten, Ethan A;Ethan H;Jake,Jared,Liam,Nick M;Nick S;Ryan B;Ryan M;and Trent.We lost our very first game against the dodgers.It was 4-6.The order we play the teams are Dodgers,White sox,Angels,Dodgers,White sox,Angels,Dodgers,White sox,Angels,and last, but not least,the Dodgers.Thats all I can say,we got a lot more stuff comin' up!
Bye! A.J.

Blessings are sometimes hard as a brick

2010-10-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

I got a job! It is a really great blessing for us. We needed the income (there's nothing like paying out for school for a few extra years, now it's time to bring some in.) The timing was perfect. I am done with classes, and only have a few obligations left for my master's degree. Jon is around to help out/be a nanny (or manny, as male nannies are called in Hollywood)/chauffeur the kids around. The job is very interesting. It's with a consulting firm, so private enterprise, which I've never worked in before. It's a great resume builder, and could open quite a few doors in the future.

It is, however, quite a challenge. I have to drive to Bakersfield, about 2 hours away, and stay in a motel for the days that I work. We leave the motel at 6:20 to get to the field office by 7 to get our orders for the day. We walk. A lot. On Friday, I walked/trudged 6.5 miles in 7.5 hours. Total time working, including driving from the field office to the survey location (about 5 miles off the nearest paved road) was 10.5 hours. So, another blessing! Overtime! But, also hard. I was totally exhausted yesterday and today. I fell asleep for a couple of hours this afternoon, and couldn't kick my headache until I woke up. This, I think, is not the kind of job I can do forever and ever. But, it is a really great learning experience, so I'll stick it out until the current project is over sometime next spring, and try to get a job where at least sometimes I get to sit at a desk.

On top of that great and challenging blessing, my whole family got another one this week. My amazing grandma, who is about to turn 95, has started down what appears to be her slide into heaven. She has been a huge blessing to every member of her family. She has loved us, put us up in her home, shared her hard-earned money with us, when we haven't really done anything to earn it, and supported us in our crazy endeavors. We adore her. But, I know she's getting tired. She single-handedly cared for my grandpa until his death, about 15 years after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. His needs were her first priority for a long time, and weighed on her heavily. Now, it's about time for her to be with him again, and he can do a little doting on her when she gets there. It will be a blessing to know that she's at peace, although she hasn't been particularly suffering for a long time. She has been in fantastic health, as a matter of fact. But, I know she's not really comfortable right now, stuck in a hospital room. I called her yesterday while I was at A.J.'s game, and I think she enjoyed the play-by-play. A.J. even caught a foul ball while playing first base while I chatted with her.

Thinking back on her personality, I think she was a pretty fun person. She is the middle of three daughters. She wanted to be a doctor, just like her dad. Later, not long after she and grandpa were married, she caught a huge salmon, while wearing pants. The photo of her holding her prize is my favorite one of her.

Doesn't she look like a super fun person? She and my grandpa used to attend lots of Mizzou football games together. There are some pretty good stories from those, too, or so I've heard, anyway. She's little, but you probably shouldn't mess with her. She's a little rural southern belle. Very proper, always well-dressed, but says "tomatuh" and "potatuh." It's pretty darn cute. I love my grandma.

Update: Her kids decided to stop some medicine or other, and either she would improve or not. Strong, crazy woman that she is went and improved. I think she's still in the hospital, but she's talking and moving around. Such a fighter. I told you not to mess with her. :)

So you want to see the rest of our vacation...

2010-10-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

Our next stop was Tybee Island Georgia. Some of you have seen the photos on Shutterfly, but I'll put a few of the best ones right here:

These two pics were taken at Ft. Pulaski Ntl. Monument on a very hot day.

Here are some little birds at the Oatland Wildlife Center on Tybee. This was with my cousin Candi's two older boys.

The cutest baby on the whole island.

The cousins were forced to get their portrait done at Sears in Savannah.

We sure had a blast. One week in a house on an Island with the entire family plus some extended family. Kind of like a reality show I guess. No one got kicked off the Island, although Levi tried getting lost the first day we were there. A local couple found him and called the police who showed up at the same time we found them. The man that found him was also a judge, but was very nice and gave Levi a ride on his bicycle while looking for where he belonged.

First Day of School - 2010

2010-08-31T13:03:00.000-07:00

Levi is a big kindergartener now, and loved getting his things ready. His teacher is Mrs. Barnett, who seems very friendly. He knows a few kids in kindergarten, but none are in his class. Not that it matters for him, Mr. Charm and Charisma. He'll have a dozen friends by Friday, I'm sure. We also found out that one of his t-ball buddies is moving to the neighborhood, and is in 1st grade at Valley View now. We are all very excited about this! Hank and Levi get along really well.

A.J. made a big leap this year, too. He's a 4th grader now, but because of numbers of students, is in a 4th/5th split class. There are 8 4th graders, and 28 5th graders. Some of those kids are huge! He knows half of the 4th graders in his class, but none are his close friends. He also stays an extra 25 minutes each day, which seems like forever to him. His teacher is Mr. Bender. He's never had a man before, so this is new territory, but he seems like a lot of fun.

We always take a picture by the sign. On the first day, and the last day.

A close up of my two cuties. Yes, they're wearing matching shoes. :)

the rest of our time in Florida

2010-08-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

Um, sorry about the long hiatus, again. It isn't very easy to get blogging done in between whatever the kids need right. this. minute. And helping them, mostly A.J., with summer workbooks. Plus finishing up my last class, and trying to keep up with making enough food to keep Jon full. (Oh, my goodness. That boy can eat. A lot.) So, here is the rest of our Florida trip.

When we came back from the Grand Bahama, we spent the next morning at a laundromat and the afternoon at a local beach. We headed back to the "hotel" and the following day went to the Keys. I know that it is rather bizarre to visit the Florida Keys, and even stop at the nation's first underwater state park and not even get in the water, but I was still rather sunburned from the snorkeling in the Bahamas, and just didn't feel like it. It just means we have to go back! :)

We did take several photos, though. Here are some of the best ones.

I just loved this little archway. It made me think of outdoor weddings, and since this trip was partly for our 10th anniversary, I thought it was particularly fitting. (No, we didn't have an outdoor wedding. Are you kidding? It was January, in Missouri. And snowing. But if we had, it would have been in a place like this.)

We walked a couple of short trails around the park, and kept seeing these little lizards everywhere! We could sometimes hear them rustling in the leaves and not see them at all. A helpful tidbit we learned while there: poisonwood trees are related to poison ivy. And, if you even stand under one to shelter from a rainstorm, you can get the irritant on you. So, if you are going to southern Florida, you should probably learn to identify this tree.

Look! It's me! You can't see the sunburn, it was on my back. But, apparently this state park is known for some sort of violent history. I just didn't bother to read about it.

John Pennekamp has a sister park nearby. Bahia Honda was going to be a very fancy gated community. Somehow, the state of Florida acquired the land and turned it into a park. It is very interesting. And the most spooked I've ever been while walking in the woods. There was NO ONE else there. Even the ranger is stationed at Pennekamp. Creepy.

This is a huge spider that we saw over us on the trail. Sometimes, there are great advantages to being a little on the short side.

This is a cute little hermit crab trying to cross the road at Bahia Honda, and probably totally surprised that there were people on his route. Eventually he hid next to my shoe trying to escape Aaron's pestering.

And, then? Ahhhh. After walking around South Beach (and taking no pictures, because the camera is heavy and it was HOT) we drove to the hotel we'd been waiting for. We had one night between our "package" and arriving in Georgia. So, Aaron cashed in some points and we stayed at the Marriott Harbor Branch. Oh, we will be staying there again. It is gorgeous!! And very family friendly. There weren't any kids running amok through the lobby or anything, but no one gave the kids that were there a second glance. The pool was fantastic. The beach (private!) was beautiful. The food was lovely. And, because he hadn't stayed in a Marriott in a while, the lady at the reception desk gave us a free in room movie. We watched "The Young Victoria." That was great, too.

I think that every room had a balcony. And, they were all secluded from the neighbors' balconies. Prepare to swoon.

This is the view from our 10th floor room. See the pool? It's huge. See the beach? Very quiet. Plenty of lounge chairs for everyone. A towel kiosk poolside, so you don't have to carry your wet towel through the hotel. Simply the best ending to the week we could have asked for.

Missouri!

2010-07-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

Hello there, it's A.J.
We had a great time in Missouri. First up The Moeglings. At least I had a good time there. We weren't there for to long. Next up Grandma Belcher! We went to Perkins. I ate my food, at least 1/3 of Levi's food and a bite of Mommy's food. What a breakfast! Third up, Brenda and Edgar! I killed Edgar in baseball 16-0,and in basketball 6-0. Fourth up, Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bob! I went to a Cardinal game, and the Cardinals beat the A's, 4-3. We went to the zoo. I saw otters and a raccoon, and geese walking around in the park! I also saw deer and tigers and a mountain lion and a jaguar and a lion. On Tuesday, Grandma Jan took us up to Columbia and Grandpa Al took us to his house. So of course, last but not least, Grandpa Al and Grandma Joy! We went to Sawyer's Creek and played miniature golf. I beat Grandpa Al by 1, +26 to +27. We also played bumper boats. We played with Jasper until he had to go to the doggy hotel.

And now, for the Grand Finale, the drive to Georgia! Not really a Grand Finale, is it? Oh, well, let's just get to talking. We played the alphabet game. It's pretty fun, but after, like, 3 or 4 games, your head starts to hurt. Here's how you play. First, you say "I'm going to (wherever you're going) and I'm gonna take (anything that starts with A)." And the next person says "I'm going to (wherever you're going) and I'm gonna take (whatever the first person said) and (anything that starts with B.)" And so it went, on and on and on, until the game's over. That night, we slept in Chattanooga, in the Chattanooga Choo-Choo. It was a pretty nice hotel. The next day, we got to Tybee Island at about 10:15pm! That's pretty late, isn't it? Not for us! It was only 7:15 for me. We had to carry all those luggages...up the elevator! Pretty neat, isn't it?

Bye, everybody! See you in the next post!

Florida, without kids

2010-07-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

We were lucky enough to get to leave the boys with family in MO for a week and be in Florida all by ourselves. It was lovely. Many, many thanks to all the people that took them in and shuttled them around.

We had some kind of cheap/free/reduced hotel* package, as long as we spent one morning listening to a timeshare sales pitch. And we got a (very) short cruise to the island of Grand Bahama out of it, too.
* "Hotel" might be overstating the conditions somewhat. Musty, old hotel smell. We stayed both before and after our cruise. When we got back, they gave us a handicapped room at the back door. The shower was zero entry, which really only meant that the floor got totally flooded, and had no drain. The battery in the key card reader died, so we couldn't get into our room after swimming (the pool was lovely, by the way) and the head maintenance guy had to hike to the front desk to get the hard key out of a safe, the sink was about to fall out of the wall, and the WiFi didn't work. That turned out to be the final straw. We got a different room at that point. The next one wasn't perfect, but also wasn't nearly as bad.

The first day we spent at the Shark Valley entrance of Everglades National Park. It was pretty hot, so we opted for the narrated tram ride around the loop, rather than renting bikes. Our tram guide Thelma was very knowledgeable about Everglades creatures. Apparently she had previously worked at a wildlife rescue center, so she even had intimate knowledge of turkey vultures. However, she was not very impressed with the National Park Service. Because she works for a concessioner that has an arrangement with NPS to provide tram tours, she felt at liberty to bash the NPS and some of the decisions and policies of the past. What she failed to recognize, however, was that some of us really appreciate the NPS and what they have managed to do. They're not perfect, and some really bad decisions have been made. However, without the NPS, there would be no job for Thelma, since there would be no contract for the concessioner to make, and most of the Everglades would have been developed. More even that what has already been developed.

Anyway, we saw a lot of neat stuff, and got pictures of most of it. Some we didn't get pictures of included a soft-shelled turtle, a baby gator, and some of the other things down in the water. Here are a few pictures of the good stuff.

First up, a beautiful Great Blue Heron just after taking off.

This is a Wood Stork, that should have migrated already, but continues to sit at this same spot every day.

The loop led to a tower, which overlooks vast areas of the Everglades. This is from the top.

This funny little guy is a Double-Crested Cormorant. He hung out under the kiosk with all the maps.

The Everglades were amazing, and I definitely want to see more in the future. We'll take the boys sometime.

After our torturous time-share tour, in which the sales people clearly didn't understand the basic principles of mathematics, we boarded our cruise ship to head to the island of Grand Bahama. The boat was fine, but nothing spectacular. We didn't take any pictures. Apparently, you have to drink heavily and gamble a lot to really "enjoy" your cruise experience. Whatever. We read our books on the quiet back deck, watched the lightning shows, and loved it.

On our day on the island, we had booked a snorkeling expedition (but not through the ship, thankfully. The ship's snorkel tour got canceled. Ours didn't.) While everyone else on our boat boarded tour buses to head east, we got on a little shuttle bus and headed west. The 8 of us (there was another cruise ship also docked at port that day, and some of their passengers had booked with the same company) got a personal tour of some of the more interesting parts of the island. Little known facts such as Freeport is literally a free port. Companies that operate within certain boundaries, and their employees, pay no income tax. This was a result of a bargaining agreement with a developer and Great Britain, the governing body at that time. The Bahamian people are still required to abide by this agreement, until the 99-year time period expires. We saw a lot of damage done by Hurricane Wilma, some of which has been repaired.

The snorkel tour is run by a family and a few additional employees. They have a great little stand, with all the gear you need, and even a little restaurant/grill. $41 for all day snorkeling, including lunch was a pretty good bargain. The tour through the boat, that didn't happen anyway, would have been $69. I think we got a steal. This tour was a little different. Most of them are snorkel from the boat, but this was so close to shore that you just swam out to the reef and got to see several different habitats. We snorkeled over seagrass beds, sandy bottoms, and rocky outcrops. We don't have a waterproof camera, so we don't have any photos of the sea life, but we saw some great stuff. Aaron saw a turtle, while I saw a sting ray. It was a great day.

The reef. Off to the right of the picture is an opening in the reef where you can swim through to the back side. All the dark areas in front of the reef are the seagrass beds.

Us after our long day of snorkeling. We got burned, even though we used sunscreen and applied more than once. Ouch. It hurt to lay down, I stuck to the sheet, and the back of my legs were on fire, too. That was far and away the least fun part. Especially since we tried so hard to be careful. Oh, well. We managed.

After Grand Bahama, we headed back to Palm Beach, where we did our laundry (at the cleanest laundromat I've ever seen. Aaron said it was even nicer than the one at the MTC!) and then sat on the beach for a while. We had run into a frequent traveler at the Atlanta airport that suggested a restaurant to us, the Aruba Beach cafe. It wasn't spectacular, but it was fun, and I'm glad we went.

We did some more in Florida, but that's going to have to wait. It's time for bed.

Breathe in...

2010-07-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

...and oooooouuuuuuuuuttt.

Feels good, yes?

That's how our vacation was. :)

We had no plans, nothing set in stone, and had a great time. I'll chronicle a few days at a time.

First up, Missouri.

We weren't there long. We flew in on a Friday and spent the night with Aaron's sister and her family. The next morning we got together with my Grandma for brunch. Sadly, the nicest place we could take her to was Perkins, but I don't think she minded much. We went back to her apartment and got a few pictures. I want as many as I can get with her before I can't get any more.

Here is a time line of shots with her and my boys.

Holding A.J. just days after he was born. (2001)

Sad to see A.J. move to Chicago the day I finished at Mizzou. (2003)

On our first visit to MO after moving to California. (2007)

In her apartment that overlooks the Missouri River. (2010)

I'd be doing pretty well if I manage to age as gracefully as she has, don't you think? By the way, she has never dyed her hair. 94 and just barely going mostly gray.

After visiting Grandma, we left the boys with Brenda and Edgar, who would then drop them off with Grandma and Grandpa Sudholt for a few days of fun. Then Aaron and I took off for a kid-free week in Florida. Aaaaahhhhh, how nice.

A.J. will have to fill you in on the details in Missouri. I wasn't there!

Next post...the Everglades, Grand Bahama Island, and Key Largo.

Finally, a post. With pictures!

2010-06-09T22:52:00.000-07:00

My sincere apologies.

Do we even have any readers left? This spring has been MUCH busier than I expected. I knew two boys in baseball would be busy, but add to that Aaron coaching A.J.'s team and being the Wolf den leader (which has at least two boys with autism/Asperger's!) and me writing at least one ~~waste of time~~ lab report every week, there has been no time for anyone to post anything.

We do, however, have TONS of photos of this period. Mostly Levi's team. Earlier in the season, the Team Dad suggested we get a photographer to take some action shots on the field. At $5 for a 4"x6" image, that can get real pricey, real quick. So I volunteered to take action shots of everyone and post them to a team shutterf1y page, where hopefully they can download whatever they want. And probably get 20 prints for $5 instead of just one. So, I took a lot of shots. 2,200 between April 1 and tonight. Not all are of Levi's team, of course, but the vast majority are!

So let's take a look at some of these, shall we?

First up, Levi. He's been a pretty busy guy, too.

He had his first ride on a school bus, which he has been talking about since last year. His class went to the zoo!

We have been taking lots of walks, most of which end up at the park. He was hamming it up one day and posing for the camera.

He also showed off his hard work at the school's open house last month. Check out the answers to these questions:

And, meet his wonderful teachers, Ms. Azniv and Ms. Candy. They really are the best.

But mostly, he's been busy with baseball. They even got to try some coach-pitch for the last couple of games, and he was really excited. He got a big hit, too!

Other things he's been working on, but we don't have pictures of include: learning to write his numbers, getting his first loose tooth, watching Star Wars for the first time (and falling in love with the Ewoks!), and getting his first four cavities. So I guess some of those aren't exactly accomplishments, but that's a little look at Levi's life.

On to A.J. Of course, his entire existence revolves around baseball. Watching it, playing it, and now, learning how to figure out the statistics! He decided to figure out his batting average, so charted each of his games in an Exce1 spreadsheet, and then did all of his teammates' stats, too. It took him most of his free time for about 4 days. But, now he can do basic functions in Exce1 and is starting to understand how math can provide information. He also discovered, to his delight, that both his batting average (0.455) and his on-base percentage (0.636) are higher than those of Albert Pujols. So, A.J. decided that that makes him a better batter. We'll see about that. :)

Some pics of A.J. on the field:

That second photo is from a game they came pretty close to winning, against a VERY good team. That catcher is their starting pitcher and really good. His coaches saved him for last, thinking that the "lesser" pitchers would be able to handle Bistagne pretty easily. Cole was brought in, and the boys just kept hitting. He was nearly crying on the mound, he was so upset. He eventually got the third out to end the game, but our boys were feeling pretty good about themselves afterward!

A.J. also joined the 1-3 grade chorus at school, called The Singing Eaglets. They put on a show recently called "I Need a Vacation!"

He, too, showed off his work at his open house. His teacher, Mrs. Bringas, is also awesome. We'll miss her next year!

Cub Scouts is another activity A.J. has been working hard on. He has really come to love the program and wants to earn as much as he can. Tonight, he earned his Wolf badge, two arrow points, and two belt loops. So proud of him!

So, you can see that we've been doing quite a bit lately. My calendar is pretty full, and we've had at least one activity nearly every day for about a month now. I'm ready for vacation, too. :)

The Last Game

2010-06-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

Levi's last game was this morning. He was excited to get his trophy afterward, it's what he's been waiting for all year. Pictures will come later, A.J. still has his game today.

What a season!

Mother's Day

2010-05-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

I got flowers!

It was a rose "variety pack," and very beautiful. They're still looking pretty good, even!

A close-up of one of the peach-colored ones.

And, these pictures were taken with my new lens! I got the camera body last Mother's Day, and have been using lenses owned by my lab ever since. But, now that I'm graduating soon, I'll have to give the lenses back. So I got a very nice 18-105mm lens. I love it. It sure makes taking all those baseball pictures easier.

I also got a pot holder with Levi's hand painted on it and two lovely cards made by A.J. It was a lovely Mother's Day.

One of the Stars of the Game

2010-05-16T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hello it's A.J. again.

I had a pretty good game today. On Thursday, I scraped both knees, the side of my right palm, and my pinkie so that made my game a bit hard. But that never stopped me. I pitched 1 inning, giving up one run. (My second lowest, 1st lowest 0 runs) When we were batting I got to hit. I bunted and was almost safe. If my bunt was a little bit softer, I would have been safe. I pitched for the next inning, but I got taken out because I was at 40 pitches. I got put at first base. The next inning I didn't play a position. Then I played center field. We got 3 outs. Then we were batting. I batted. When I was batting there was a man on third with two outs. I am the youngest kid on my team, so what do you expect? On the 2-1 pitch I hit a FLYBALL into left-center field off of a 10 year old boy that was around 5'2 I bet. I hit in our first run. Then when there was a man on first in the next inning he tried to steal. He was there way ahead of the ball but it got past the shortstop so I backed it up and there coaches were saying "go go go!" But the kid didn't listen because I was already tagging him and if he ran to third he would have been dead meat. Daddy said I was the Co-Star of the game. The final score was 9-3 and we were 3.

Well see you next time.

A.J.

So much to cover!

2010-04-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

We have been some busy people. I've started spring quarter, the boys are gearing up for the end of school, Aaron has been to D.C. and back and is going again soon, and baseball, baseball, and more baseball. Did I mention baseball? Yeah, we're pretty busy.

We've also been hiking recently. We headed up a trail we've been on before, but we went a fair bit farther. This hike took us through parts of the wilderness burned by the Station Fire and then eroded by the torrential rains this winter. It was amazing. Most of the trees were completely blackened, but right under them were wildflowers popping up. Looking at the hillsides was like looking at a painter's palette. I don't think the photos will do it justice, but I did the best I could. Be sure to click on any photo you want to see better. It will blow it up.

These two show the torched trees and the beautiful wildflowers replacing them.

Here's a close-up of some of the purple flowers and the top of the ridge we hiked to.

These two show the power of the rains we've had. The gully on the left is huge. That pipe is about 3-4 feet in diameter. The bench on the right had been up where the boys are near the orange flowers. It's not anymore!

Last Wednesday was A.J.'s first Pinewood Derby. He designed his car all on his own, and did some of the shaping and all the sanding and painting. It won the design award titled "I Wish that were MY Car."

It was also pretty fast. It came in 5th place overall and is leading in this picture.

Levi running to first base after a MONSTER hit to center field (left). Throwing to first after making a play at 2nd base (right).

He LOVES his team and his teammates. Note: the kid standing next to him in the left-hand picture is less than one month older. Evan 11 (his nickname) is the tallest 5-year-old I've ever met.

If you get walked, with more than one ball in the dirt, you'll be smiling at first.

These two are simply examples of how much bigger most of the competitors are!

This is A.J. warming up to close out the game. He came in with a runner on 2nd, 1 out, and a tie game. His team isn't likely to win many, and this game felt like the playoffs for these boys.

Celebrating after what felt like a win. It was the most exciting tie ever. The other team treated it like a loss, and our boys were thrilled to treat it like a win. Note: the boy standing next to Levi (red hat) is our ace pitcher. He's really good. He got a home run to take the lead, but then felt dejected to give up the tying run. Don't be surprised if you see him in the majors in a decade or two.

Life is crazy right now, but we sure are having fun. I'm starting to apply for jobs, so feel free to pray for me if you want to!

The last trip to Catalina Island...

2010-03-30T23:06:00.000-07:00

...for field work! I spent last weekend (Saturday through Monday) at Catalina for my last weekend of field work.

Hooray!!

Here are a few photos from my trip.

Tying the sync cord to the leg of the stand, so it doesn't get bashed around when the water comes in. At high tide, it will be about 5 ft deep where my feet are.

My advisor, Dr. Carlos Robles.

A couple of sea lions (young ones) that we scared while we were working. Cute little things, but don't mess with them!

These sea lions are sheltering away from some pretty big waves (that we had to brave!) and jumped in the water when the boat went by.

Some of the other wildlife we often see include crows (the smaller birds, wingspan ~3 ft.) It's the bird of prey that is unusual. So far, the guesses include an eagle or a young osprey.

These little birds are California quail. There were several running around near the room where we stayed.

There are lots of beautiful plants, here, too. This is a closeup of flowers on a lovely tree near the dorms.

Just one of the many kinds of amazing flowers.

And, finally, my buddy Gerry. He put up with me and my crazy schedule ("Can you get us to Bird Rock and back? We need to go at 2am and come back at 5am. Thanks!") for three years. I sometimes bribed him in brownies or cookies. He would have taken us anyway. It's his job, but he always does it with a smile.

Thanks, Gerry.

(And, yes, he looks a lot like Uncle Mike. They even have the same voice. Creepy!)

New journals and Bistagne's first win!

2010-03-25T20:12:00.000-07:00

A.J. mentioned a journal the other day, so when I was at Target last time, I picked up a simple composition notebook for him. I also happened upon a cool one for little guys that has space for drawings at the top and the lines are extra wide for new writers. So, both boys got a journal. They were awfully excited to get it, and immediately sat down and started writing.

Levi wears that silly sweatband all the time. He loves it.

And in other news, A.J.'s team won their first game! I wasn't sure if that would happen this year. His team is quite small, and most are rather inexperienced. However, they have made huge strides just in the last couple of weeks, once the games started. A.J. ended up only playing first base in this game because he smashed his hand into the corner of our chimney while playing basketball on Monday and bruised his fingers pretty badly. He could catch fine, but throwing was another matter. It's been a crazy season so far, having two kids playing, and A.J. has moved up a level and now plays two games a week.

Always ready. We've had other coaches comment on #42 and how hard he plays. It kind of makes me proud. :) Notice the tape on his right hand...that's to try to hold the bandages on.

As Promised

2010-03-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

You wanted a little bit about Levi's birthday and other goings on besides sicknesses and evacuations?
Ok, ok. Here goes.

Levi had a Spongebob themed birthday with a homemade Patrick Starfish cake and games headlined by Extreme Jellyfishing (popping balloons tied to kids' ankles), but also including pin the nose on Spongebob, and a Krabby Patty relay.

Mommy's birthday theme was you're getting older aren't you. She didn't seem too pleased that the candles said 40 instead of 30.

Things got pretty busy around the time of Bethany's birthday as I had to spend 2 weeks in Phoenix and she had to make a trip to Catalina for a rain shortened research trip. We decided to go back to Catalina over President's day to have a little fun kayaking and looking around. We got this great shot of Levi falling asleep looking out the window on the boat ride back.

The other major happening of course is the start of baseball season. Levi likes baseball, but for him its more just an excuse to look good for the camera in his new uniform.

AJ likes helping out at Levi's practices and games. The kids on Levi's team call him Coach AJ.

That's all for now.

-Aaron

How A.J. got sick

2010-02-21T17:24:00.000-08:00

Hello guys its A.J. again,

I first threw up Thursday night after baseball at about 9:30 and I had a headache but after that I said I felt better but I had more throwing up to do.And I threw up again at 11:30,12:30,1:30,and 2:30.On Friday evening I threw up at 5:30 and I don't even remember it because I fell asleep right after that.
    The next morning I had the fever with a 100.9 temperature.I had baseball practice at 2:00 at batting cages so I knew I could go.I did and by then most of my fever was gone so that was good.The rest of the day went fine and today nothing bad happened.
                                                                                                Sincerely,
                                                                                                                 A.J.

Mom's note: Isn't that way more than you wanted to know? He kept asking, "what detail can I add to my sentence?" This is because detail is what he has to work hardest on when writing for school. I told him that this time, no one is really interested in the details. :)

Baseball season is coming soon!

2010-02-04T19:35:00.000-08:00

Baseball is almost here! We got info for A.J.'s team today, and Levi's should be coming soon. A.J. was a little bummed that his team won't have an MLB team name this year, but that's what happens when you move up a level. The teams at his new level all have corporate sponsors. His is the Bistagne Bros. Body Shop in Glendale. They must really like baseball, they've sponsored a Foothill League team for at least the last four years. It also appears that a son/grandson/nephew is in the Twins minor league system. He is lucky enough to have four friends on the team, though. One of them is from the Pirates last year, and we know he's pretty good. And, since the manager backed out at the last minute, Aaron is now it. He had signed up to be an assistant, but got an email yesterday from the league president asking if he'd be the manager. I think he's kind of excited about it. :)

We think that Levi will be on the same team as another Pirate "little brother." And, Coach John, the assistant from the Pirates is planning to coach that team. So, we're looking forward to two great seasons this year. Levi can't wait to get his uniform. He's asked about it several times, and every time I say something about t-ball, he asks again. And, he thinks he'll be the best player on his team. We'll see about that. :)

Oh, What a Week

2010-01-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

...and the craziness has really only just begun. As a quick recap: It started raining on Sunday, with only a couple of breaks between then and Friday morning. With the severe burn in the mountains this summer, there are no plants left to either soak up rainwater or prevent erosion, so there was a pretty great risk of mudslides. Therefore, homes that were deemed vulnerable were evacuated as of Wednesday morning. That night, residents were allowed in with ID. Whew. Thursday, however, was a different story. Levi and I were not allowed past the barricade, so we called Aaron, who was at home with A.J., and we all headed out. I am lucky enough to have an awesome cousin that lives in Las Vegas who had already invited us to stay at her place if we needed it, so I took her up on it. It was so great to have a relaxing weekend with lovely sunshine.

This week, Aaron is in Phoenix until Thursday afternoon. I'm supposed to leave for Catalina Thursday morning. He leaves for Phoenix again on Sunday before I get back and he'll return again on Friday. Oh, my goodness it's going to be challenging.

However, I did take a few pictures of the fun.

Since Jake and Carrie were taking Lila to Disney on Ice Friday night, and our boys were absolutely not interested, we went to an aquarium instead.

Look at the size of that fish!

This aquarium is one of the most interestingly decorated I have seen. It's in the Mandalay Bay casino/resort thing. Because ALL entertainment, including movie theaters, in Las Vegas are in casinos. Not my favorite place, but there's not much I can do about it. Casino money buys nice looking stuff, though.

They had a really neat exhibit that made you feel like you were inside a shipwreck, and then one wing was a tube, so the sharks and rays could swim all around. It was pretty fascinating.

This is a very impressive waterfall that we missed the first time we walked past because from the back, and upstairs, you can't even tell it's there.

And finally, one of my favorite photos of the trip. The three little ones together. A.J. and Levi and sweet little Lila.

Ten years and two weeks...

2010-01-17T14:50:00.000-08:00

and counting. Yep, Aaron and I have been married for 10 years. Doesn't seem possible sometimes, it's gone so fast.

Jon was still here, so he watched the boys for us while we went out to dinner at a place in Pasadena. Red, White and Bluezz has live jazz every night. We went on a Monday, so it was just a solo guitarist, but he was pretty good. Here's to another 10 years!

Winter Break is over...Yay!!/Boo!!

2010-01-10T21:02:00.000-08:00

I'll give you the full holiday recap but first just let me say that I'm glad that the kids are back in school. It was nice to have lots of time together, doin' all the holdiay and birthday stuff, but after a while the lack of a routine starts to grind on all of us and things get a little crazy. So, since it's been almost a month since we last posted how about some nice pictures from Levi's school Christmas program to start.

Posing for a photo op before the performance...

And rockin' the moves to the songs like he was born to do it.

On Christmas Eve the boys opened their Christmas jammies and sang carols for us.

And a collage of favorite gifts from Christmas morning:

That's right. A.J. was using his batting cage and pitching machine outside on Christmas day. 68 degrees outside. We all got Mizzou shirts from Santa and watched the MU vs Navy bowl game on New Year's Eve. Boo. We would have gone to the game if they were at the Insight Bowl in Tempe, but alas they were not picked for that game. They probably could have won that one against Minnesota.

We'll give you the details of Levi's birthday party in a little while, so stay tuned.

-Aaron

Lights... Camera... Levi

2009-12-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

Take a look at this compilation of other funny Levi moments. If you weren't able to watch the other Levi video, try again now. I forgot to change the settings to public.
-Aaron

The sound is a little off towards the end but I'm not gonna go back and fix it. It's funnier this way anyway.

We've been busy!

2009-12-12T21:12:00.000-08:00

We've been doing a lot lately, from Cub Scouts to Holiday Shows. Here are a few pictures from the last little while.

First up: Levi and his classmates put on a Holiday show last week. It was a huge improvement over last year's show. Everyone participated this year. Last year some were shell-shocked by the lights and never moved a muscle. Not Levi, of course. He adores the stage.

This is the action you do while singing "The grandpa at the house goes snore, snore, snore."

And this is Levi with his best buddy Ryan. Look how ~~cute~~ (sorry) handsome they are in their sweater vests.

A.J. has been dutifully working on his Cub Scout requirements.

This afternoon he built a "barn" for our nativity set. Our poor little people have been huddling together with no shelter for years now. They finally have their stable.

And, since he's worked so hard, he earned two belt loops, a pin, and a bead at the December pack meeting. Daddy is his leader, so A.J. got to receive his awards from Dad.

And finally, a lovely sunset.

We went to the beach on Black Friday and hung out with some great friends. It was a little chilly, and rather windy, but we were rewarded with this view at nightfall.

Levi Practicing Football

2009-12-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

We went to the High School football field last Saturday and practiced a little punting and kicking. Levi is truly an actor and spent a long time trying to perfect this technique to make it look like a blooper. Enjoy!

A Christmas Carol

2009-11-29T15:57:00.000-08:00

We discovered a great little theater this weekend. The Glendale Centre Theater is a theater-in-the-round, meaning that the stage is in the center of the room, and the audience literally sits all the way around. There are two "tunnels" like in sports arenas that they use for moving props and people around. There are NO bad seats. It is relatively small, and can hold maybe 200 people or so. Contrast this with something like the Pantages theater in Hollywood that can hold 200+ in just the balcony, and you can see the difference.

This weekend, they started their annual production of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." It was fabulous! Even with the small cast of only about twenty members, including a 3-year-old, the quality was great. All the singing was a cappella, which they used as segue between several of the scenes. Several members were simply part of a group of carolers, which sang several traditional carols. With such a limiting stage, the show could have been rather drab, but they maximized the space by incorporating the stairwells as staging for the carolers or the three narrators. All in all, it was an extremely impressive show.

The real joy for us, though, was watching the boys, especially Levi. We were seated right by one of the tunnels, and the show began with the singers coming out to greet the audience personally. We had three different cast members speak with the boys, one of them for quite a while. Levi was absolutely loving it. Then, when the show finally started, he was bopping up and down in his chair to the music. His favorite character was Scrooge, "Because he turned nice." He wasn't too fond of Jacob Marley, though, and kept asking if that was a ghost or an actor.

We've known for a long time that he loves performing. His body language and word choices scream "Entertainer!" He, however, wasn't really able to distinguish acting from real life, until yesterday. He kept asking where the screen was, and referred to the show as the "movie." But, he finally realized what acting is and what it means to play a character. This theater hosts an acting camp in the summers, and I think we'll send him once he's old enough.

This was a great way to open the Christmas season, and I think we might have to go every year.

Jon, this is for you!

2009-11-25T16:03:00.000-08:00

A picture of Levi.

Yes, that title does say "The Odyssey of Homer." He's just getting a head start.

Picture of the day...smashed ball

2009-11-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

Our favorite picture of the season. Look at the deformity on the ball! They use a semi-soft ball, somewhere between a teeball and an official baseball. Granted, he's not actually looking at the ball when he hit it, but it still went pretty far. Sadly, the really good first baseman managed to catch it heading onto the outfield grass, but A.J. hit it really well. Look at the form in his body, too. It's perfect! You can draw a line from his foot through his hip to his shoulder, just like it should be.

AJ Pitching

2009-11-21T20:08:00.000-08:00

Here's an animated GIF of AJ from a couple weeks ago. Just trying out a few tricks with the camera. We've got 350 pictures in just the last 2 weeks to try and sort out.

Vacation next year...and walking there

2009-11-07T18:47:00.000-08:00

Next year the Al and Joy Pabst Family will be vacationing...together...at a house on Tybee Island, just off the Georgia coast near Savanna. We decided to help us all get in better shape, that we would walk there. No, not for the actual vacation, but collectively walk the distance from our house (since we live the farthest away) to Tybee. That's a distance of 2438 miles. So far, we've gone about 37.

I set up a googledoc spreadsheet to help us keep track of our progress. The link is http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AoMNJc5xw5DYdHZvY1FscWQwOFFMblRHZEwxWWE4dGc&hl=en and everyone can view it. Some of you I've invited to also have access to edit it, so that you can enter your own data. I figure that from here on, if each adult walks 7.8 miles per week, we can get there. Kids count, too, so all the times A.J. walks to school will be included. Let's go, Pabsts!
Inspiration Photo of Tybee--

Families can be Together Forever

2009-10-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

That's what the boys and their cousin Shyanne sang at Susie's funeral on Monday. It's so true! Families really can be together forever, and knowing that is so comforting. Who wouldn't want to be with these cuties forever?

Pop's been gone nearly four years now, and Susie was ready to be with him again. We were all sad to see her go, but took comfort knowing that she had a great life, and that she was excited to see Charlie (Pop) again.

Susie was great. She loved her kids, and especially loved the grandkids and great-grandkids. We miss you, Susie!

A pitching sequence

2009-10-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

A.J. is on a kid-pitch team this fall, and he is usually the starting pitcher. A couple of others have come a long way in their pitching techniques, but because A.J. prefers to spend every waking hour thinking about, playing, and dreaming about baseball, he has some advantage over those who simply "love" baseball. So, for your viewing pleasure, here is a compiled pitching sequence. This is over several batters, but is representative.

Set.

Windup.

Reach back.

Stride.

Grimace.

Release.

Follow through.

Conference by the umps after you question their call at first.

Flickr Photo Set From Our Trip To Canada

2009-10-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

Now we know

2009-10-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

That Dodger fans are the rudest we've ever seen. Never before have I felt unwelcome as a visitor to a ballpark in the away jersey. Not only were we unwelcome, but Cardinal fans were booed just for walking up to stairs to go to the concession stands. Even when we were ahead, it was the worst game I have ever attended. It was unbelievable what they yelled at us as we walked past. Especially considering the boys were there. After the game was over, there was one fan who was kind enough to try to console A.J., who had tears streaming down his face. He was saying things like, "Hey, they played well," or "we're all baseball fans." A couple of guys were nice enough to curtail their language when the noticed the boys. Most of them were just obnoxious 20-somethings that would probably be out-pitched by A.J. It was still rather disconcerting, and we waited until the stadium was mostly empty before walking to the parking lot. I had joked with Ms. Candy (Levi's teacher) yesterday that if we got mugged or shot she would know why, but I didn't think we would really be at risk!

I will cheer for the Dodgers if we go to a game that doesn't involve the Cardinals, but I will never be a Dodger fan.

Don't be Jealous

2009-10-04T20:26:00.000-07:00

We're going to a baseball game.
But, not just any game.
A post-season game.
We'll be at the Dodgers-Cards game on Thursday!
Kinda high up, though, so you probably won't be able to see us. But, you can try anyway!

End of Summer

2009-10-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more pictures. Have we taken too many? Maybe. But, there sure was a lot happening at the end of summer this year!

More Canada pictures!

2009-09-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

We had a great time in Canada. Here are some more pictures of our activities there.

First up, some of the wildlife. This is a banana slug hanging out on the window of our dorm. Pretty cool, huh?

Then, Jon called for A.J.'s birthday, and Levi got to talk, too. Does he look a little too grown up for his own good?

Here's A.J. looking too grown up. His big birthday present was an MP3 player. His favorite song? "Mr. Roboto."

The boys were fabulous helpers. All my labmates went on and on about how well behaved they were, and how much fun they were to have around. This is A.J. helping Luis weigh and measure some seastars.

Then, Levi helped by carrying boots after they got rinsed.

The boys also liked checking out some of the other experiments going on at the research station. In this tank are some dogfish, a small shark.

We spent a lot of time at the cabin where my labmates were staying. It's nothing fancy, but it does the job.

The boys loved playing soccer out in the "yard." Notice the high-waters both of them are wearing. We took the worst pants they had, knowing that they would probably get destroyed. And, we were right.

In the midst of chaos...

2009-09-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

We had a baptism. Yeah, things were a little crazy. Here's the timeline:

Monday, August 31:
8:15 am School was supposed to start, but all local schools are closed.
11:00 am The boys and I head out to run some must-do errands. There are no cops at the end of our street, so we assume we will be able to return home without incident. I am so wrong about that.
2:45 pm Blockade three streets south of ours, not letting anyone through. No matter what. I have frozen chicken in my car. Ack!
3:00 pm. I arrive at the bishop's house. They are kind enough to share their fridge and freezer with us and entertain the boys.
8:00 pm We all (finally) manage to arrive at the O'Bryans' house. The boys are buddies with their boys, and everything gets settled.

Tuesday, September 1:
8:15 am No school, again. The boys are thrilled.
10:00 am Start to worry about visitors coming and having nowhere to stay. Aaron starts contacting beach vacation home rentals.
11:00 am Head to the evacuation center at the local high school to see if we can get any information. Get interviewed by a German television station about how we're handling all of it. Levi gets REALLY jealous. He keeps telling me, "you're so lucky! You get to be on t.v.!" Even getting filmed while walking back in doesn't console my little performer. He felt like he wasn't close enough to the camera.
2:00 pm Leave the evacuation center without the info we wanted, because Levi had a check-up. With shots. He was mad again.
4:00 pm Return to evacuation center, we figured the fire marshal had come by then to give the update. We can go home! A.J. is bummed. "I wanted to go back to the O'Bryans'" he said, in a very sad voice.
4:45 pm Offer to get pizza for everyone, but find out that another family has invited all of us over for dinner.
5:30 pm Hang at the Masons' for the next FIVE hours! Thanks, Masons!
11:45 pm Finally arrive home.

Wednesday, September 2:
8:15 am School starts for Levi! Hooray! A.J. is still on "summer vacation."

Levi's first day as a Dragon!

2:55 pm the boys start swim lessons and gymnastics. The first of many days we spend at the Y. Every Monday and Wednesday, we're there until 5:30!
5:45 pm Arrive home to find...Grandma Joy and Grandpa Al! Hooray!

Thursday, September 3:
8:15 am A.J. FINALLY starts school! My big 3rd grader. He is at a new school this year, but finds he's in the same class as a girl from church. Everyone acts like this teacher is the one you want to get, so we're pleased. She seems really great.

Yeah, they didn't change the date on the sign. Their mascot is the Eagles, so they use SOAR as an acronym to help them write better. See, organize, assess, revise.

1:00 pm Sarah and Brenda arrive at LAX, Grandma and Grandpa pick them up.
5:00 pm We swim for 2 hours before getting too cold. Levi scares Brenda with his fearlessness in the pool. He loves to swim! I, meanwhile, get seriously congested from all the smoke, in combination with swimming. Shouldn't have gone underwater.
10:30 pm Most of the Sudholts arrive at LAX. I pack them into Aaron's car, and we try to get home. It takes a little longer than usual, because in Los Angeles, most road work is done at night. And I didn't know that some of the exits were closed! Manage to find everyone a place to sleep. Jared in the boys' room. Brenda in the living room, Sarah in the "art" room, Joy and Al in the office, Bob and Jan in the sun room, with Hallie at the other end. Whew. That's a lot of people!

Friday, September 4:
11:30 am Pick the boys up from school (yes, we took them out early. To go to the beach!) Sing Happy Birthday to A.J., and recognize the other THREE August birthdays, Aaron, Brenda, Grandma Jan. Have lunch, and go to the beach!
2:30 pm Ahhhhhhhhhh, sandy beach. Jared loves the ocean, and doesn't want to get out. Ever. The boys build a sand castle and decorate it with kelp (seaweed). A.J. decides they don't need the piece Levi has and tells him to put it back. Levi walks toward the ocean, and just keeps on walking. He's REALLY going to put it back!

See the lovely kelp forest? It surrounds the castle and makes it extra nice!

5:30 pm Dinner at Bubba Gump's, there on the Santa Monica Pier. The brave ones rode the Ferris Wheel at sunset. So beautiful.
7:45 pm Jon arrives at LAX. We're all here now!

Saturday, September 5:
morning Shower in turns, save some hot water for the others! Clean the house, hiding all air mattresses in the office.
1:30 pm Arrive at church, get A.J. dressed, take some cute pictures.

A.J. and his friend Hayden. Baptism buddies.

2:00 pm A great baptism.
3:00 pm The "reception to follow" has fewer guests than we anticipated, but we had a great time anyway! Congratulations, A.J.!

Sunday, September 6:
11:00 am (Thank goodness!) Get to church. A.J. is confirmed and receives the gift of the Holy Ghost.
1:00 pm Aaron takes most of the Sudholts back to LAX. I had to teach a class.
2:30 pm Finally start relaxing a little bit.

Monday, September 7:
5:00 am (Yikes!) Aaron takes Brenda, Sarah, and Jon to LAX. Only two guests left!
9:00 am We head to Knott's Berry Farm for a little fun. Surprisingly, it's not very busy.

Tuesday, September 8:
4:30 am Joy and Al get themselves to LAX. No more guests. Just clean up now.

We had a great time, but now you know why there haven't been any posts! I, for one, am really glad to be getting into a regular routine. I know we all need it. I am still trying to catch up on my sleep!

Finally a chance to catch up! First, fire pictures

2009-09-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

We have a lot of pictures of the fire, but some are hard to see. All of these were taken on various days between August 29-31.

Taken from the backyard:

Fire-retardant dropping aircraft.

Water-dropping helicopter. These went RIGHT over our house for several days.

Remember, all the ones in the backyard are taken in mid-day. When the sun is nice and bright. Does that help put the darkness in perspective?

Taken from the sunroom window:

Later in the evening.

All is calm now, the kids are back in school, and I'll be there soon. We're finally getting back into a routine (though a VERY busy one!) We are so thankful for all the prayers from around the country. I have no doubt that they supported the firefighters, and helped to keep homes and people safe.

it has begun

2009-09-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

The craziness of A.J.'s baptism weekend, that is! Four people are here already, another four arrive in about an hour, and Jon comes tomorrow night. And, they're all staying at our house. Hope no one minds controlled chaos!

How about some pictures?

2009-08-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

And not of the fire, but our vacation! We just spent a couple of weeks on Vancouver Island (you know, that giant island NW of Seattle) with my labmates, helping a few of them with their research projects. I was just unskilled labor, and it was great not to be in charge! I was busy most mornings, but usually had the afternoon to hang with the boys. My boys were not bored in the mornings, however, because the community school was down the road, with a ball field. Every morning, they headed down there to play ball for an hour or so, and then head back to meet me for lunch.

First, some friends of ours that just moved to Ireland (how exciting!) came over the night before the boys and I left for the long drive. We'll miss you guys!

On the way up, we stopped in Seaside and Astoria, OR. In Seaside, we ran across a re-enactment group spending the weekend as part of the Lewis and Clark expedition sent off to make salt. This is the tent they actually stayed in all weekend. They were a lot of fun.

And then, we found that Astoria was all prepared for our arrival...with a parade, a regatta, and the grand re-opening of the Astoria Column, which you can climb (and climb, and climb, and climb...and climb some more) to throw off a balsa-wood plane and watch it go a long way. It reopened literally one hour before we got there. See, I told you they knew we were coming.

While we were in Canada, the boys went fishing with my advisor Carlos and his son Paolo. They did manage to catch dinner for our BBQ, and it was quite tasty. Good job, boys!

We also spent an afternoon at Brady's Beach, with Paolo and his mom Andrea. This is the boys building a ramp for the tennis ball, before they spent 45 minutes throwing it for a dog to retrieve. We had a great time. More to come later!

Prayer Request

2009-08-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

Please consider adding the communities of southern California to your prayers today. We are only a couple of miles from the biggest fire, and many of our friends are much closer. One family, best buddies of A.J. and Levi, is only two houses away from a mandatory evacuation area. Thanks for your help!

Update: a couple of hours ago the fire raced along the ridge above our house, and there is now a mandatory evacuation for the area around A.J.'s new school. We are currently outside the evac area, and I don't think we'll have to leave. I'll continue to update as warranted.

Second update: I think we're out of the woods. Looks like the fire is heading north, further into the forest. Hopefully it's just smoke now.

Third update: It's now almost 8pm PDT, and it now appears as though I am a liar. I can now see flames from our windows on the ridge to our northeast. I don't know what that means for us. Aaron has some pictures, and we'll post them when we can. If we get evacuated, I'll put another update on here and head out. I really hope it doesn't come to that. Many of our friends have been evacuated throughout the day. I guess we'll all just party at the shelters!

Fourth update (4pm Sunday): I have decided that this fire is schizophrenic. For a while yesterday it was moving very quickly, today it's just creeping. I'm not even sure creeping is slow enough. Currently, at least as current as I can find, it has burned 35,000 acres, crossing the entire mountain range and now threatening towns on the other side. Thankfully, there is very little wind, so now that it has burned much of its fuel on this side, it's moving very slowly. And, to get to us, it has to go down some very steep terrain, which fires don't like to do, especially without wind. Therefore, even though we are technically under a mandatory evacuation order (which turns out isn't actually mandatory at all...then why call it mandatory?) we are at the very edge of the evac area. And, it appears, not actually in any danger. We have been watching the flames at the top of the ridge for the last few hours and have not seen them move. At. All. If things change, then we'll leave, but it seems not very likely.

More summer fun...a garden and a new drum set

2009-08-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

I decided that I had so much success with my tomatoes in little pots, that I should put them in the ground. That way, they'll be much more likely to survive our vacation. So, I picked an area of the yard that I thought would be suitable, waited for the right moment (a morning when I had time and it wasn't too hot yet) and started to dig.

Oh. My. Goodness. It was so much harder than I thought! It seemed the ground was bedrock, with the shovel barely making a dent! I finally asked Aaron for help, and we hacked at it with an axe. Instead of actual grass, we have a grass-imitator, until you get to the roots. Then, rather than grow in nice, fibrous strands, this stuff has big roots, and they are all intertwined. A HUGE pain. But, we did it. Here are some shots of the garden.

Before-before.

Before.

After! It looks so good because I bought seedlings, rather than just seeds. We have a lot of growing season left, but not that much! So far, I'm growing more tomatoes and some zucchini. And, we made lemonade recently with some of the lemons. It was pretty good, and I don't like lemonade!

Now, on to the new drum set. Levi and I did some work a couple of weeks ago restacking the wood pile. It was the worst pile I had ever seen. Just big logs tossed on each other. So, we cut them and restacked them. I did most of the lifting, and Levi did the encouraging. "Good job, Mommy. Keep stacking those logs!"

When we were done, he picked up a couple of sticks, and turned the "logstack" into a drum set. We even got some video, but that has to be processed and then it will be up here, too. He was using one log as a cowbell...1..2..1,2,3,4 and then went on to the others. It was pretty funny. And, he decided he needed fresh air, which is why he's not wearing a shirt. Even though the shirt he had on that day was sleeveless. I don't know how you get much more "fresh" than that.

Pyramid Schemes

2009-07-30T10:43:00.001-07:00

We've been having a great time with Uncle Jon visiting since he finished his canoe trip down the Mississippi river. The other night we learned about cooperation in family home evening, so for the activity we decided to cooperate and build a human pyramid. It's the best kind of pyramid scheme. See everyone's smiling and nobody lost their money when it collapsed. A few more photos of fun with Uncle Jon:
AJ throws the football and...

Uncle Jon gets splashed.

Well we have many more adventures coming up this summer so stay tuned...

Plants in our yard

2009-07-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

I put up a photo of some roses earlier, but I took several shots of a variety of plants last night. Here are a few of them.

Lemons almost ripe.

A flower on the lemon tree, we'll have more in the fall!

Surprise! We also have a pomegranate tree. I'll have to figure out what to do with these.

Tomatoes, bought the seedlings at OSH, but managed to keep them alive even during the move. Ate some tonight in our taco salad. First time I ever ate food that I had grown! I will be doing that again!

Some pretty flowers growing over the back fence.

And a bonus: not plants, but boys in the pool! We love having it to use. And the boys are doing great at swimming. I couldn't breathe out my nose until I was maybe 14, and both of them will go get pool toys on the bottom. A.J. does it on his own, and Levi needs a little help. Of course, we can't leave the balls out of the pool.

Interesting tidbits

2009-07-11T18:02:00.000-07:00

This week Aaron was in San Diego for work. The boys and I went down on Thursday to join him. We spend Thursday evening at the beach at Torrey Pines State Beach. I love this beach. The waves are gentle, and roll for quite a way. They are strong enough for boogie-boarding, but not so strong that they knock Levi down.

The interesting parts, though, started on the way down. We had checked out Mary P0ppins from the library, but hadn't managed to watch it yet. So we put it in when we left town. The best part for the boys was when all the chimney sweeps are dancing on the rooftops. Levi said, "Wow, those guys are good dancers. And the other guy with the kids and the lady (meaning Dick Van Dyke's character Bert) is good, too. Because he's good at singing." Several times, he asked me to hold his hand so he could "chim-chimeree." Meaning, he needed a little stability so he could try to kick his heels together.

He is such a little performer.

He started gymnastics classes a couple of weeks ago at the YMCA. They have several classes going on at the same time, and in one of the others is a girl we knew from our old church. Her name is Tessa, and you might want to keep an eye out for her in national competitions. She's pretty good. Anyway, we were putting on his shoes after class on Wednesday while her group was practicing vaults. She landed on her feet, so he felt he needed to give her a high 5. So he did.

Levi cracks me up.

A simple post in honor of Independence Day

2009-07-03T22:02:00.001-07:00

One of our old friends from college is currently serving in Afghanistan. He wrote a post for their blog, and I thought it was perfect. So I am sharing his post with you. Their family is currently in Alaska, far from family in Missouri. The twins, Gavin and Asher, are just a few months younger than A.J. and Corbin is a little older than Levi. Megan and I started college together, and Jared and Aaron served their missions at the same time, though to very different corners of the world. Please read and enjoy, and think of him and his family when you watch or light fireworks tomorrow.

Levi at the park

2009-07-01T11:46:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was Levi's last day of school. They close for a few days to prepare for the summer program (which we are calling summer camp.) So we made a big deal about him finishing school, and he gets to choose what to do today. He chose to go to the park this morning.

I took some pictures, which by the end turned into a photo shoot, with Levi posing like a model. It was pretty funny. Here are a few of them.

On the jungle gym. Yep, that's your Interstate Batteries hat, Al.

Posing by the steering wheel. This is when he started the silliness.

Looking all serious with the railing.

Aren't I hot? Oh, yeah. I am.

Such a cute face.

Does anyone else see headshots in this kid's future?

Summer fun

2009-06-24T19:15:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in the office with the window open, just listening to Levi and Aaron in the pool. What a great sound.

I promised some pics of Levi, so here you go!

First, Levi at one of A.J.'s ballgames.

Our old ward had a former Bishop who provided candy after church. Here is Levi after climbing into his trunk.

Levi and his beloved teacher, Miss Valerie.

Levi and his friends getting ready for their Webby performance.

And, finally, one of Aaron's co-workers took us to LegoLand. They have lifetime memberships and get lots of guest passes. This is the boys and Jill after going on a pirate ride. They got pretty wet. Thanks, Ngo family!

Last Day of School! (FINALLY!)

2009-06-19T18:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, here in Glendale, we really do go all the way to summer. Everyone else has been out for weeks now, and A.J. has been slogging through more homework. But, now he's out! Today was also Crazy Hair Day, the spirit day theme picked by the student council. So, we made his hair just like Yadier Molina's. He's the catcher for the Cardinals, and he has had great hair lately. We took several pictures, because this was his last day at Verdugo Woodlands Elementary. Since we moved, he'll be changing schools for next fall. So, here you go: the last day of school.

All of them sending off the year, sports-style.

Passing the time with the "Macarena."

A.J. and his teacher, Mrs. Lo.

And then, when we got home, A.J. wrote this little note on their easel. It says, "Levi is.....................(and a bunch more)...awesome." And so he is!

Finally, some pictures

2009-06-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

We moved to a house with a pool, and it has been 60 degrees (at best) and drizzly since then. Not kidding. Today, it was finally sunny and I could get some decent pictures. So here you go.

First, to prove that it has actually been raining, a picture Aaron and Levi took yesterday of the raindrops on a spiderweb.

The view from our front door. Nice, isn't it? You'd never know we live 20 minutes from downtown Los Angeles!

The view of our house from across the street (notice that there are mountains behind us, too!)

The living room (a little of it) and into the dining room. Please don't mind the mess, we're still unpacking.

The boys' bedroom. They picked out new comforters yesterday, and were quite happy to go to bed last night. Too bad we can't get new blankets every day! A.J. picked a sports theme, and Levi got a Cars blanket.

The backyard, viewed from behind the pool. A.J. has already spent a few hours throwing a tennis ball against the fence. And had to go get it from the neighbor's yard, too.

And, finally, one of the many flowers growing in our yard. This rose is in the backyard, next to the steps up to the pool.

I have tons (well over 100) of pictures of A.J. playing baseball, and some good ones of Levi lately, too. I'll post those throughout the week. Now that we have reliable internet again, the blog won't be so neglected.

We Are The Champions!

2009-06-08T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hello more peoples.

My team is the hardest team to beat and do you know what that means? We are the champions! My team has 10 wins and 1 I say 1 loss. After that all of my team except for Amanda and Matt (Matthew) went to the park. My coach (Coach John) gave out our Pirate trophies. This was my 3rd trophy. This league ended May 30. I went home with Marty because my mom had to buy groceries. This was my best year ever!

A.J.

We're home!

2009-06-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

In our new house, even! Whew. It was nuts. We didn't even go that far, only about 5 miles. But, moving during the school year, with Aaron out of town for two weeks leading up to the move, turned out to be insane. But, it's done, and all our stuff (who knew we had so much?) is in our new place. Or the garage. There's still a lot in the garage.

All the beds are put together, and the TV is set up. We know where to place our priorities, don't we? But, the boys spent at least an hour in the back yard before church yesterday chasing/watching the squirrels run through our trees. We have several fruit trees: lemon, fig, and I think about 5 cumquat trees. Dad, you'll like cumquats, they taste like nectarines. My tomatoes are putting out fruit, but they're still totally green. And, we haven't had to turn on the AC once. Not even while working really hard and getting all hot and sweaty. It was awesome.

So, I'll get around to taking pictures, once I can reach my camera again. I know where it is, I just can't get to it until I put more stuff away.

Another exciting day at our house!

2009-05-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

This morning was nice and low-key. Since we don't have church until 1 pm, we get to lounge around a bit beforehand. Which is nice.

No, the excitement didn't start until after church. Here in mountainous southern California, most everything is built on a hill. So is the church. We have a patio area with a short wall that the kids like to jump off of. It's about 3 feet off the ground, with grass below. Usually this is no big deal. Today, it kind of was.

I was talking with some friends (because that's what you do after church, right?) when I heard my name. Another friend said that Levi had fallen off the wall. Apparently, he stepped off, unprepared to jump, and hit the back of his thigh on the brick wall. He'll have a nasty bruise there for a while, and scraped it up pretty good. He'll be fine.

Then, just after the boys went to bed at 8:30, we had a mild earthquake. It wasn't much, really, but it scared the boys pretty well. We talked about what an earthquake is and why it happens. I finished off with the idea that it's like the earth getting tickled, and then they felt better. They eventually went to sleep with no problem. Whew. I think May might just be trying to compete with April for Crazy Month of the Year. I hope May loses.

A fabulous day...

2009-05-10T21:32:00.000-07:00

at the beach! And, with my cousin Carrie! We haven't seen each other since we were 6 and 7 years old. That is a long time ago. We got to hang out with her great husband Jake and her adorable daughter Lila. She has curls like you wouldn't believe. They definitely came from Jake's side, since there are no such curls on the Sudholt side. None.

The boys loved the beach. Levi played in the surf for nearly two solid hours before he was so cold he couldn't keep going. He would run down the water's edge, and then run back being chased by the waves. Sometimes, he wasn't fast enough and got knocked down. But, he always popped right back up and kept going. A.J. also enjoyed the water, but he also spent some time working on a sand castle.

For dinner, we found a great little restaurant/cafe/bakery place. And, true to Orange County's reputation, we found a Ferrari parked outside. So we took a picture in front of it.

A thought for Mother's Day

2009-05-06T20:37:00.000-07:00

I got an email from a friend of mine this afternoon. She has joined a website called the Power of Moms, and is the essay coordinator and contributor. She wrote this essay in honor of Mother's Day and how some of us feel about it sometimes. So, this is a little pick-me-up for anyone having a not-so-great day. Which could be any of us. And, she's also my visiting teacher (sort of an assigned friend, that always becomes a real friend, for those of you unfamiliar with the inner workings of the LDS church), so I get to hear her pearls of wisdom every month! Aren't I lucky?

As if April hasn't already been crazy enough...

2009-04-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

Levi scratched his eye on Monday, probably with some sand from the playground. I picked him up and noticed that his eye was very red, but not goopy, and it didn't seem to be bothering him at all. I figured it probably wasn't pinkeye (thankfully) and took him home. Tuesday morning, it still wasn't goopy (this is a good sign) and the redness had mellowed to a pink color. I took him to school and made an appointment with the pediatrician for today.

She looked at it, and decided to look very closely, since there seemed to be some bumps or something right next to his iris. She used an orange dye to color his eye, and then shone a blue light on it. Sure enough, those bumps showed up better, indicating that they were scratches in the white of his eye (or the sclera, for those who care for technical terms.) His cornea is smooth and scratch-free (hurray!), and the sclera will probably be fine. She prescribed some antibiotic ointment (the same stuff they put in newborns' eyes) and said for him to come back on Friday. At least it's nothing major.

I just hope this doesn't let May think it can start this way and then try to compete with April for the Crazy Month of the Year Award. Remember, I have to start packing soon.

We won 6 games straight!

2009-04-27T16:11:00.000-07:00

Hi, guys, this is A.J.

My team, the Pirates, won 6 games straight! And we have one loss. We lost our second game against the A's. This is all the teams in the order we played them:
Cubs, A's, Padres, Angels, Dodgers. Then we have a little break.
These are my teammates:
Me, Amanda, Luke, Davis, Antonio, Jason, Matt, Johnny, Reese, Robin, Ryan, Demetrios, and Marty.
Two of my best friends is on the Angels. Two of my friends are on the Cubs. Christian and Caide are Cubs. Jaedon is an Angel, and so is Miles. One of my friends is on the A's. Oliver is on the A's. One of my friends is on the Dodgers, Xavier. Two of my friends are on the Padres, Chris and Chris.
We won the 6 games straight from the Cubs to the second Cubs. We lost our second game against the A's.
That's all. Bye, everybody.

Love,

A.J.

Levi's just so funny!

2009-04-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

Most kids play "house." Levi plays "Uncle Jon." He has convinced his friends to let him be Uncle Jon, and the others are dads or grandpas or big brothers. They walk around holding babies (Levi, as Uncle Jon, was holding baby Levi, until it was clean-up time, when baby Levi became all grown up and was put back in the house.) Apparently, it's pretty funny.

All week, Levi has been saying, "I love moving, Mommy." He hasn't even seen the house yet, but he knows that it has a pool. It was 100+ degrees on Monday and Tuesday of this week, and both of the boys were begging to go swim in the pool. Only, we don't live in the house yet, and someone else still does. They didn't like that so much.

Levi has a new girlfriend. Her name is Ellie (you like this Tami?) and she's adorable. They have their napping mats next to each other, and one day each put their hand out touching during nap time. They're pretty cute. Only, now Levi is saying he has to go to Ellie's house because she told him she has some surprises there. I don't even know where she lives, or who her mother is. I keep hoping he'll forget about it, but with Levi, that's not really likely. Oh, well.

From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere. Levi is certainly one of them.

We do...

2009-04-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

have a new address! AAAAAAAGH! I'm very excited. Pictures won't be available for a while, since it's currently still occupied. But, I can tell you about it! And, you might even be a bit jealous. :D Can I just say how excited I am about this? I am ridiculously excited about this.

Description:
It's a house (yeah!) with three bedrooms and three baths (yeah!).
It has lots of storage, with TWO walls of cabinets in the garage.
It has a covered porch which has become a sunroom. (Why is it that several places we've lived, plus my parents' house, have sliding doors in the house? Are we magnetically attracted to these things, or something?)
It has a nice patio in the back, with space to play basketball or maybe even ride bikes.
There's grass. And...a pool.
Yep, we'll have a pool, and just in time for Memorial Day!
And, one of the best parts, it's quiet. Right now, we live on a very busy thoroughfare, and with cheap, crappy, and old windows, we hear every rev of every engine. We live with bus fumes, and extra smog (I know, it really is possible to have extra smog in L.A.) And after May, we won't have to anymore. We will be able to leave the windows open on lovely nights and not hear a motorcycle or bus engine, or perhaps even fewer police cars. Wouldn't that be nice?

So, we'll send out "new address" announcements, sort of like birth announcements, once we actually move to those on our Christmas card list. If you'd like to be on it, send me an email at divingcardinal at gmail dot com (without all the spaces and such.) Then, you can look us up on google maps, and ooh and aah at the pool that's visible from aerial photos. Won't that be fun!

We are very grateful to all of you who sent up some extra prayers for us. This house suits our needs very well. It is even something we would possibly be interested in buying, but we'll see about that in a year or so.

We might...

2009-04-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

have news about the prayer request! But, I won't say for sure until it's finalized! I'm pretty excited! Yay!

News...

2009-04-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

Since A.J. fainted last week, we went to the pediatrician yesterday. I described the latest incident, which I thought was terrifying, but she just nodded and said "yeah, yeah." She said it sounds like he has been having vaso-vagal fainting spells, just like his Grandma does. Only, he's a bit more active (like crazy active) and so he is more likely to have incidents than she was as a child. Therefore, this is relatively good news. He is just a sensitive kid, and faints when his body doesn't like what has just happened to it. We will have to live with it, but he has been given no restrictions, though I'm guessing football might not be the sport for him. Thankfully, he loves baseball, which is a great sport for him to keep playing. In the future, when (because I have no doubt it will) it happens again, we have a set protocol to follow, and everything should be fine.

1. Lay him down. This we didn't do on time on Saturday, which prolonged the duration of the ashenness and poor mental state.
2. Monitor his pulse, and do not allow him to sit up until it has reached at least 70 beats per minute.
3. Keep him seated for another 10 minutes or so, and then he may stand and walk.

Only call paramedics if he's completely unconscious for at least a minute, or his vital signs don't improve. So, hopefully, we won't be having crazy big medical bills all the time. We just have to get everyone else to not call 911 every time he hits the ground.

Now on to Levi. Surprise! He went to the pediatrician yesterday, too. When I went to pick him up from school (daycare) on Tuesday, his teacher Miss Valerie says, "This weird thing happened today."
"Oh, no," I thought.
She goes on to explain that while they were at Webby (the dance company they have come do "P.E." for the kids once a week) she noticed he was staring off into space. His friends tried to get him to come with them, even touching him. His face was completely expressionless and did not react to anything. For an entire minute. Now, he loves to pretend, but he always has that sly little grin when he's pretending. There was none of that on Tuesday.
She finishes the story with, "it made me think of the seizures that I've seen in videos." Although, by her description, I knew what she was talking about long before she said the word seizure. When we visited the neurologist for A.J. last year, he asked us about this very behavior.
So, now we get to go back to the neurologist, not exactly my favorite guy, but there aren't a lot of choices. Only, it's not for A.J. like I expected. It's for Levi. What a week. I'll update again after we have some more information on him, but that will likely be a few months. (Ridiculous, I know.) Until then, we have to keep a calendar of "spells," as the pediatrician called it, and take a picture of him when he does it. Thankfully, at least everyone we know out here has a camera phone with them basically all the time. I love my new camera, but this isn't really a reason I had planned on dragging it around all the time. I'll keep you posted on any other new, exciting, or unexpected happenings around here.
It sure hasn't been boring around our house lately.

WHERE TEMPLES ARE

2009-04-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

Hi peoples.This is A.J.

Temples are everywhere! I know that there are more than 120 temples in the world!They can be in any country.Like the U.S.A.or Canada and even Australia!they can be in many places.

love,
A.J.

First Experience with...

2009-04-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

the ambulance.

Sigh.

Today was quite the day. The Pirates were playing a great game against the Dodgers. A.J. got the assist in all three outs in the first inning (he was playing pitcher, and just gobbles up every ball he can reach. See the video from a few weeks ago.) He hit pretty well, and was having a great day. Except when he got doubled off second because the ball was caught while the boy stood on second, which means the infield fly rule should have been in effect, and therefore, he wasn't really out. Oh, well.

He got back up the next inning, ready to go again. He had made it to second, was on his way to third, and decided to slide because he saw the third baseman racing him to the bag. His slide was perfect, until he ran out of room, and hit the base hard enough to knock the helmet off his head. He arched back, grabbed his back, and collapsed to the ground. His coach, who was standing at third base and is a doctor, thought he had knocked the wind out of himself, by jarring his back when he hit the side of the base.

We made it back to the dugout, and since he had dirt all over his face and in his mouth, I was trying to get him to wash his mouth out with some water. I couldn't get him to talk to me, or hold himself up. Coach John and another dad who is also a doctor decided he looked awful and called 911.

Thankfully the firemen were just up from the ball fields having a training day. They took him and Aaron to Children's Hospital. I met them there after picking up all our stuff, with a lot of help from the dads. The team gave A.J. the game ball today, and all of the boys and coaches signed it. He knew that injured athletes are supposed to wave from the stretcher, so he waved with his game ball. Since the EMT's were worried about his back, they had completely immobilized him, cervical brace and all.

Fortunately, a friend of A.J.'s had a game immediately after ours. His mom was so thoughtful, and took Levi for us. Levi also likes this family a lot, and was completely willing to go with them, especially once they mentioned Burger King.

Once at the hospital, A.J. underwent a CT scan and an EKG, but once again, it all came back normal. We'll be calling the pediatrician once again, and see if we can start investigating again. Maybe we'll get some answers eventually, and maybe we won't. But, I'd sure like to know what's going on.

A.J. is fine now. He came home and played the Wii for a while, so he's feeling pretty good.

What a day.

Is It Real or Is It Monty Python?

2009-04-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

A 549 day with nothing to do but wait for baseball season to start. Darn this extra long spring training. Well I thought many of you loyal readers would enjoy a little bit of truth that's stranger than fiction. Here, first read this article about a student in Britain arrested for turning in a lost cell phone to the police station.

Then read this expertly crafted reddit comment by user acegibson:

I think it's all a Monty Python sketch.

"I'd like to return this cell phone."

"Markenson's, two doors down, thank you."

"No, no. I didn't buy it, I found it."

"Best of luck getting a refund then, thank you. Good day."

"No, you don't seem to understand. I'm turning it in to you."

"If Markenson's won't give you a refund, why should we?"

"No! You're the police! I found this cell phone and I want to return it to its original owner."

"Oh, I see. Harry, have any of the boys reported a lost cell phone?"

"Don't think so, Grimm."

"Sorry, it's not ours. Perhaps someone at Markenson's lost it. Good day."

"Damn it all! I know who the owner is! I called them on this very phone! They're coming here

to collect it as we speak!"

"Why would they be coming here? We don't have it."

"Of course you don't, you git! I have it! It's right bleedin' here!"

(shows the officer the phone)

"So the owner of that phone..."

"Yes."

"is coming here..."

"Yes."

"to pick it up."

"Exactly!"

"And what, pray tell, are you doing with it?"

"I found it!!"

"Oh, did you?"

"Yes, I did."

"And how did you find it?"

"It was just laying there."

"Was it?"

"Yes."

"Alright, you're going to have to come with me, Mr. Findy Fingers."

"What for???"

"Are you or are you not the owner of that phone there in your hand?"

"I'm not!"

"So you admit it!"

"This is insane! I found it! It was just laying there!"

"That's what they all say. Come now, let's have a DNA sample."

"Oh, bollocks!"

"No, sir, we just swab your cheek. That's a good chap. Come along."

"This is ridiculous! I merely found this phone and turned it in out of a sense of civic duty! I

didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition!

(looks at door)

"I said, 'I didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition!'"

"Yes, we heard you, sir, didn't we, Harry?"

"Loud and clear, Grimm."

"But I thought..."

"Obviously."

"Then this isn't...?"

"Afraid not."

"I see."

"Quite."

"So you'll be wanting my DNA then?"

"There's a good chap. Has anyone ever told you you look like Michael Palin?"

"I get that a lot."

(The door opens. An Eric-Idle-looking fellow comes in.)

"Can I help you, sir?"

"Ah, yes, I'm here for a phone?"

"Markenson's, two doors down, thank you."

Wow, when I read that I was totally picturing Graham, Michael, Eric, John, Terrys J. and G. performing this in my television set. It would have been a classic sketch, but it's hard to compete with reality, and they didn't have cell phones in the 70's.

Here's a random St. Patty's day photo for you before I get back to goofing off.

She's a Pro

2009-04-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

So I do have this habit of buying things and using the nearest available holiday as an excuse, but in this case the Nikon D200 sale that Best Buy is running was just too good to pass up. I just didn't have a conveniently located holiday to blame the purchase on until Mother's day...or Easter I suppose. Didn't know when the sale was gonna end and I hadn't seen anything close to BB's price anywhere online, so I jumped at it. And I'm not cruel enough to hide it from her for three months, so as a result you will all be rewarded with much nicer photos.

We don't actually own any lenses for the thing yet, but Bethany's professor has sundry and vintage Nikkor lenses for lab use that she borrows freely. She took these great shots with it on Saturday:

We could never capture those kind of expressions with our lesser cameras. Professional looking, huh. Well that thought reminded me of our dinner conversation the other night. We have begun to structure our dinner conversations recently in order to keep the boys at the table longer and so that they recognize that it's a family time and a time to communicate and share our days with each other. The way it goes is that Bethany asks "who had a good day today," whereupon everybody raises their hands, A.J. and Levi usually most emphatically. Levi will then say "ask me about my day first," so we ask "what made your day good." And he tells us everything that he did or did not do that day. Yes the days can get repetitive, but those of you who know Levi will know that that fact won't prevent some pretty interesting zingers on a routine basis.

The other night he was giving us the rundown on his day and noticed mommy take a big drink of milk. "Wow, mommy, you're a great drinker. You're the best. You're a better drinker than even me or A.J or daddy. You're a pro of drinking." Now we haven't had regular tournaments in the house in quite a while but back when we did, A.J. was pretty tough to compete with:

But Levi was most impressed with mommy.

Would you mind?

2009-03-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

Would you mind sending up a little prayer for us this weekend? Nothing's wrong, in fact, it's kind of exciting, but we could use some help with a decision we hope to be making soon. For those of you that will be visiting in September, you will appreciate the effort we're putting in now, trust me. :) Many, many thanks!

Proud owner of a...

2009-03-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

new camera!

Aaron got me a Nikon D200 (kinda fancy!) for Mother's Day. I know, it's early, but whatever. :) It came last night, so the first chance I had to use it was at A.J.'s game this morning. Here are some of the shots I got.

Click on the photo to enlarge it and look at his facial expression. It's concentration at its best.

Here he is rounding second on his way to third.

The last inning he got to play catcher.

Sport snack time

2009-03-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

My friend Miss L is just venturing into "big kid parenting" and the various activities of said big kids. She wondered about game snack assignments: what works, what doesn't. So, I'll share what we have seen (since we are on our third season of Little League, we must be experts) and then I'll ask for your suggestions in the comments.

What has worked:
juice boxes
water
gatorade
(more of all those on hotter days)
granola/cereal bars
fruit roll-ups
muffins (especially for earlier game times)
crackers (goldfish, etc.)
chips/pretzels

Hit or miss:
fruit (though grapes or orange slices are usually winners)

Not so much:
cornuts (yuck. not many people's favorite, especially kids)
frozen pbj sandwich things (really?)

I'm not remembering much else at the moment. Anybody have other ideas?

Update: No, it doesn't have to be healthy. I've seen doughnuts, though, and that seems a little much. Run a bunch and then a blast of sugar and fat. Ugh. That's a tummyache waiting to happen.

The Game Ball

2009-03-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

Be sure to listen for Levi's comment at about 1:10.

A fine play-(A.J. playing pitcher)

2009-03-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

A Levi update...

2009-03-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

Remember a couple of months ago, Levi had just turned four. Now, he has exploded, linguistically speaking. For the last couple of weeks, he has asked about what words mean and what "that" word is. Then, on Monday after pre-school, we were driving home when he says, "Mommy, what does 'on way' mean?"
me: On way? On way? "Oh, 'one way?'"
Levi: "yeah."

He had just read a "One Way" sign. Oh, dear. He's reading. And he's four. A full year and a half before he even starts kindergarten. We are in so much trouble. And so are his teachers.

We knew for a while that he could read his classmates' names. A few weeks ago, his teachers established a sticker chart, and when a child earns seven stickers, they get to choose a prize from the treasure chest. He likes to look at the chart and tell me how many stickers his friends have. And, he is always right.

But now, he's reading new and unfamiliar words. He's not reading lots or words, that I know of yet. But I'm guessing that by the end of the school year, he'll be reading full books (Dr. Seuss and others) without much trouble.

And by the way, we didn't ever work on this with him. We have never done any kind of flash cards, quizzed him on letters, or any other common method. In fact, when he was about two years old, he looked at the letter "G" that was sitting on the fridge and said, "G, guh." Not "G, juh." He already had figured out that G makes the "guh" (like in "gull") sound.

Let me just say it one more time.

Oh. No.

Basketball is awesome

2009-03-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

Hi, this is A.J.

I played basketball at first and second recess today. At first recess, it was a tie, 8-8. At second recess, it was 10-2. My team won. My team was called the Lakers. The other team was called the Celtics. My team had Darwin, Nathan, me, Sedrik, and Alex. The other team had two very good players. Their names were Jacob and Trent. Jacob was a third grader. Trent was a second grader. All of my team were second graders. Darwin was a good player on my team. The first one is the best, all the way down to the fifth. Darwin, Nathan, Sedrik, me, and Alex. The other team was Jacob, Trent.

Love,
A.J.

A little note...

2009-03-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

The latest comment on my pictures post was from Sister Heydt. So here's a little note to her.

Sister Heydt,

You're right, I don't think I remember you. Our paths didn't cross long enough, since we moved days after I turned 6. However, I do remember the little house behind the church that we used for Primary. I remember having sharing time in the living room, and classes (which were combined, because of so few kids!) in the little bedrooms and the kitchen. And, you're probably right about the behavior, too. I'm sure Drew and Patrick weren't the best listeners. :) Yes, we knew Sabra and Bryan when we all were in the Bear Creek Ward. Aaron was their home teacher, and Sabra and I were in Primary together. We knew Bruce when he was little, he's about a year younger than our A.J. I'm really glad you commented, and please feel free to do it again!

Bethany Sudholt Pabst

Some of my black and white photography

2009-02-25T21:38:00.000-08:00

Some of you know that I'm taking a photography class this quarter. I thought I would post a few of the photos I've gotten so far.

A photogram (exposing the paper without using a camera and film) of my high school band shirt.

The boys on our front steps.

The boys after church one Sunday.

And, one of my favorites (though this isn't the best print, that one got turned in today.) This is the boys after bath one night.