Spring is Winning

Got home at 2 today. It was nice to pock the boys up. Spring is popping up around here.

Heading Home

After 4 days in Denver for our twice yearly national meeting. It was spring like the entire time I was there with highs in the 70's. I'm going home to chillier weather and then off to Central Europe for a while. I'm happy to be on a plane home.

Bragging Rights

I think the teachers win the 6th grade vs. staff every year. I think the staff is significantly taller but this class only lost by 10 points. Sam is teacher height and scored 24 while Dylan is almost teacher height and scored 8 in a 79-69 loss. They had fun.

Basketball Bake Sale

The big 6th grade vs. teachers basketball game and bake sale is on Friday. Nicole has been had at work creating stuff to sell. Sam and Dylan have been talking trash about how they are going to take the teachers to the hoop.

Twin twins

Jack and Zack Everly are buddies from school and a pair of the four twin sets in the boys class at school. They were going thru evaluations for baseball this morning. Dylan and Sam both did well on the fielding and pitching part. They didn't bat all that well in the cage but the pitching machine was set for shorter kids. They had to swing at pitches below at their knees. They should go in a high round of the draft.

Longesh Week

Lots going on at work this week and while the boys were athletic team practice free, we did go to two rec games. We went to our travel coaches 2nd grade teams game on Tuesday and our friends 6th grade rec team championship game on Wednesday. They were both exciting games and the 6th grade team won. It's odd to be between sports but baseball tryouts are tomorrow and the basketball team starts up again soon to prate for some spring tournaments and the summer league.

Fire season is getting short but I'm going to squeeze a few more in this spring, including tonight.

Sent from my iPad

Patriots Party

While basketball season never really ends anymore, we celebrated the end of the winter league games tonight. The boys had a good season and really started gelling as a team. We will play a few tournaments this spring and jump into the Fairfax summer league in June. It's basketball all the time for these boys.

Ready for Action

More hitting and pitching instruction today. They are a little out of baseball shape but it's coming a along.

Warming Boots

The boots needed to dry out after some sledding this afternoon. Warm temps are coming and the fie season only has a few more weeks left.

Snow Fun

The boys finally made it outside.

Toasty Warm

Nicole brought in some firewood and then went at the driveway. I offered to help but she didn't want me touching "her" snow. The boys were too busy playing Minecraft.

Snowy Day

Woke up this morning to school, work and government shutdowns but no snow. It started coming down at about 8am. Good call to close stuff, the less people driving around the better.

Next Sport

With the county basketball season over and just some tournaments left for that sport, it's time to start getting ready for the spring ritual. The boys spent a couple hours hitting and pitching tonight.

14 Years Plus a Day

Nicole and I celebrated our 14th anniversary yesterday by going to work, then leaving the boys by themselves and having dinner in Alexandria. Hard to believe 14 years have gone by but we are still having a good time and partnering to raise some pretty terrific children. At least we think so.

W are waiting for another winter storm tonight and very likely another day of school closing. The boys are getting some hitting and pitching instruction in at Strike Zone. Baseball tryouts are just days away.

Sent from my iPad

In like a Lion

We are starting out March with an ice storm. Winter started out kinda slow but has been delivering something new every few days lately.

Disappointing Loss

We played the 2 seeded Gainesville team this morning and while we hung with them for much of the game, we ended up looking losing by double digits. The little Patriots were not operating on all cylinders today. They had the potential to beat this team but they needed to play better. Both boys are sad that the season is over but the Patriots plan to play some tournaments this spring and of course there is summer ball.

Tall Team

Our gym schedule was messed up tonight and we were double booked with an 8th grade Catholic school team. We decided to have a little scrimmage so that everyone got a workout. They were much taller, probably a foot on average but the boys handled them pretty well. The Pope's team definitely beat us ( we weren't keeping score) but all in all we did well. Sam and Dylan matched up size wise with most of them except that 6-2 guy in the foreground but we had much better ball handling skills and the boys out rebounded them most of the night.

Huge game tomorrow against a big and talented 6th grade team. We need our best game to win but it is definitely a possibility.

Art boys

Playoff Victory

Some Krispy Cream donuts after a sweet overtime playoff win against Chantilly. On to #2 seed Gainsville on Saturday. Go Patriots.

Warriors Win

The last Christmas gift for the boys are as a success. Their favorite player scored 32 points. Time for bed, it's a weeknight.

Birthday In Laws

Handsome Boys

We were able to get out to dinner in old town despite the snowy, sleeting and freezing rain business. We celebrated Linda and Gil's big 5-0 birthdays.

Happy Shoveler

Nicole finally got some snow to shovel. She missed Monday storm but made sure to get out early and shovel today.

Blues Man

Dylan's area band concert was tonight. This is a band made up of a bunch of the elementary schools in our area and required extra practices over the past couple months. Sam did a similar thing with strings. I'm happy they like music enough to apply themselves to participate in higher level music programs. They sounded great.

Wood Pile

We have been chewing through this at a pretty good clip lately. Cold, snow and fire go together well. We got about 6 inches last night and that closed schools and my office today. It's been cold so the streets were in bad shape so it was probably best. The roads are perfectly clean now, so we should be back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

Not Boston, but...

It's already snowing so it is almost guaranteed that school will be cancelled tomorrow making this a 4 day weekend. We were all off for Presidents Day today. Nicole is off to Dallas in a bit so it will be just me and the boys hunkering down. Not sure who's going to shovel since that's Nicole's passion but I'm sure we will figure it out. I kinda hope her flight is cancelled.

On the medical front. While I didn't ski this weekend with the rest of the family, I did take a wicked fall on the tubing track. I was walking the boys over to get tubes and hit a slick spot forcing my bad knee to bend behind me more than any of the PT's thought possible. I landed on my right shoulder and somehow jammed two finger on my left hand. I laid there for a bit and thought I really screwed my knee up but as it turns out, the knee is sore but the shoulder and fingers are causing some good pain. I either dodge a bullet with the knee or they did a really good job putting it back together again. I really hope the shoulder gets better, I hear PT on shoulders can be even more painful than knees.

Beautiful Bryce

Bryce is a super small mountain resort in the Virginia Blue Ridge mountains. It's only a two hour drive from DC and sports two chair lifts, two carpets and 5 trails. Our friends the Lorengers have a nice house about midway up the hill, right on the green run. These are their chairs that I spent some time in yesterday watching Nicole, the boys and everyone else swish by. It was tough to watch people ski but I will get back to it next year. We all had a great time with the Lorengers, another couple and 10 kids in the house.

A storm blew in around 6pm and dropped the temp by about 30 degrees and came with snow and winds gusting to 60mph. Wind chills were -20 this morning so nobody skied but we did do some tubing. We are back home know and waiting for the next storm coming tomorrow night.

Valentine

We men organized some Valentine's Day gifts. We intended to send the kids down the slopes with the stash of stuff but a storm blew in and cancelled tat plan. They were still surprised.

Bryce

Getting some skiing in for Presidents Day weekend. Nate is all the way to the left.

Sam Selfie @ 12

Complete Game

The team played really well and while they lost, it was a complete game. Dylan got a lot of playing time and scored 4 points. He hit one of two free throws and a three pointer that brought he patriots within 6, late in the second half. He was also passing extremely well and was playing mad defense. Sam started slow but turned it up to 11 in the second half. He was up against a guy his size and completely owned him in the paint. Sam had 13 points, 11 rebounds and 5 blocks. People were bouncing off him in the lane and were slow to get up. Dylan drew a very pretty charging call as well, standing his ground and getting the call. We ended up losing by 8 points but they were close to taking the game from a really good team.

Mop Head

They had not had a cut since December and Patrick hadn't seen them since the Fall. They really needed a good grooming.

Jackson

We got haircuts this morning, then stopped by Lucky's to wish Jackson luck on his move to Omaha. We will see him at the basketball game tomorrow but then he's off to Nebraska. Good kid, listens more than he talks and that's a good trait at any age.

Here Comes Trouble

Dylan was looking for his college car at the Auto Show.

National Wheel

A shot from our visit to National Harbor on Saturday. This thing is not as big as the London wheel but it's pretty good size.

Dinner Out

We took the short drive over to National Harbor for dinner tonight. It's only a few miles away, over the Potomac in Maryland but we don't get there often. Lots of new restaurants that we will need to try. The Italian place we tried tonight was pretty good but maybe not Alice to visit often.

A Little Mousy

Hanging with the Kia Gal at the Washington Auto Show. Grandpa and Nicole are looking for new rides and the boys liked the classics. It was a good three hour outing.

Team Outing

The little Patriots caught the West Potomac high school game this evening after practice. They were being boys.

Wrong Day

The school snow day turned out to be today and not Monday. I didn't get to hang with the boys while I was home Monday but got home a little early to hang with them today. Not much snow really. Another miss in the storm department.

Sent from my iPad

A Little Something

I'm in Dallas until tomorrow but I'm hopeful we get this little storm on Sunday night so that I get a day with the boys. I'm taking a day off Monday because I'm working this weekend so school being cancelled on Monday would give me a day hanging with the boys. 1-3 inches of snow coming overnight and into the morning causes schools to cancel in these parts.

Better Result

Shooting is contagious. The little patriots had a much better shooting day and beat Vienna 49-41. They led the game the from the first few minutes of the game and while Vienna got within 2 a couple times, we came back and made shots on our end. Sam got into foul trouble early so Dylan got a lot of minutes at center and while he didn't score, he went for every ball, took some good shots and hustled up and down the court. He had 2 rebounds and 1 steal. Sam played well and came up with 7 points, 6 rebounds and a steal.

Maddening

Again, the little Patriots couldn't buy a basket in the first half of their game and ended up losing 48-44. The team they played could shoot but our guys could not get a roll in the first 14 minutes. It drives me crazy. This has happened before where everyone goes cold at the same time. We were down 25-11 at half and worked our way back too late. It didn't help that one of the refs was horrible and the parent from the other team keeping the book was observed erasing a foul for one of their players to avoid having him fouling out. Nicole tracks them for us and our assistant coach watched him erase the a foul. Not that the bad calls and cheating would have fixed our shooting but it didn't help. We have another game tomorrow. Let's hope thing go better.

Plain Talk: We're in sad state compared to Minnesota

I thought this was interesting and provided a good comparison of economic theory.  Now investing that surplus into something that will pay dividends when the economy goes south again is the trick that most states fail.  They always seem to spend the rainy day fund before it's actually a rainy day.

Plain Talk: We're in sad state compared to Minnesota 

Side View

Old and New

Saw the doctor today and I don't need to see him again for another year. Just have to monitor that space in the picture on the right. That's filled by some plastic that may have to be replaced someday. I'm still only bending it to about a 120 degrees but I can do most everything I need to do and I'll keep working at it.

Triangle

Jonathan passed this ball to Dylan and Dylan found Sam heading to the hoop for 2 points. Just like it's supposed to work. The little Patriots won again today, 59-34. They have a bonafide winning streak going on here and an entire weekend without a loss. Dylan got a lot more minutes today, scoring 4 points, snagging 3 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal. Sam played well with 10 points, 8 rebounds and a steal.

The Patriots are starting to gel as a team and I think could go on a run the rest of the season.

Complete Game

The boys got their first non tournament win today agains Chantilly. They have four tournament wins this year but we're 0-6 in regular season play until today. The went up by 10 points early in the game but lost that lead and trailed by 4 early in the second half. The thing that changed today was that the boys dug deep and went on a run to win 57-44. They have been in all the games this year but their shooting was weak and they had too many turnovers. They decided that wasn't going to happen today and as a team, pulled together a complete game.

Sam had 11 rebounds, 6 points and 2 steals. Dylan started and had some good minutes in the first half pulling in a couple rebounds and a steal but didn't get a lot of playing time in he second half. Coach found a line up that was scoring and stuck with them for a good portion of the second half. I was responsible for the book today. It's more fun to do it when they win.

Cold

Temp around 10 degrees, a little snow and negative wind chills make schools close around here. Winter has finally arrived in DC.

Snow Porn

I made my first trip back to the gym downtown today since my knee surgery in October. I typically get there at lunch time 3-4 days a week and it felt good to be back. It also gave me an opportunity to take snow pictures, which is nice.

First Snow

Maybe two inches but it sure snarled up traffic. DC drivers, not so good in snow.

Arlington

We lost a winnable game today against Arlington. The little Patriots shot somewhere in the 25% area from the field and only lost by 8. When one goes cold, they all go cold. Here's Dylan getting the inbound pass and Sam heading to the hoop. Good team with bad luck.

Oldest Friend

When I say oldest, I mean the boys only 40 plus year old buddy. Mike came over to play on the two new game machines today. They love playing video games with him and he can give them competition, unlike me.

Ducks

Dylan's favorite football team crushed the Florida State Poor Sports. It was fun to watch and we will see them again in the national championship game. A majority of the Florida State team ran off the field at the end of the game and didn't shake the Oregon players hands. That's kinda pathetic.