Softball

On Monday Grace had an orthodontist appointment. We just learned last week that our orthodontist is suddenly retiring. Some of you know that I had braces as an adult and in fact had them when Grace was born and for a few years after that. Anyway, I used this orthodontist off a recommendation from someone...I can't remember who anymore. He is an excellent orthodontist and has specialty brackets made for him that are smaller than typical brackets. He also has a different philosophy in regards to how fast you move teeth and expand palates.

We just started Grace's treatment about 6 months ago and I think most of the hard work is done already and her teeth are looking really good. The teeth that didn't have room to come in have started to break through now too. So anyway here we are in the middle of her obviously early treatment as she will have to have more treatment when she's older just like everyone else, as that is the normal age to get braces. Our biggest concern is that we get an orthodontist with a different philosophy than his that likes to just shove teeth around with little regard for pain or the future structural integrity of the palate. He's recommended an orthodontist that is in the complex we go to now and she also has a similar philosophy and uses the same brackets, but does to a few things differently. So I'm not sure what to do. We meet the orthodontist he's suggesting we use on Wednesday but I'd like to also talk to him about someone a little more similar to him that might also be closer. It's a real bummer and it also sucks that it's so suddenly. I'd really like to find out why he's doing this so quickly.

I usually go to bible study at my Dad's house on Monday nights and this week Grace came with me. I honestly thought she'd get bored at some point, but she really hung in there. I'm not sure how much she really understood, but was mostly paying attention and appeared to enjoy being there. It was cute as she brought her study bible with her and was reading along as we read through the scriptures we were discussing (2 Samuel Chaps 5, 6.) I think she especially liked our snack this week which was ice cream.

Tuesday was kind of crazy. We had plans to go swimming at my Aunt's friends house also with my Sister and her kids. The night before, Grace's friend from across the street asked her to go to Great America with her as it was the last day to use their bring a friend for free coupon. We decided to let her go with her friend and reschedule the swimming (sorry Nancey.) My Sister-in-law also called and wondered if we could go swimming on Tuesday. So she asked when we could swim at her house later in the week. I said either Thursday or Friday and they said Thursday sounded great. But not long after that my Aunt called and wanted to reschedule our swimming with my Sister and Thursday was the day as my Sister was busy on Friday. So now we have to reschedule with my Sister-in-law. It's hard to be popular...ha ha ha. I know it's the girls, not me, that are popular.

Yesterday we only had plans to take Grace to the library for a meet the author event. This local author was coming to read her book to the kids and then sign copies for them to take home. We couldn't do much during the day because the weather was still not cooperating. We've had a lot of severe weather here lately. In fact I'm concerned that the only large tree on our property which is in our back yard might have to be cut down. I think there is a crack in the middle of it now which would mean it's too weak to be left up. It probably wouldn't hit our house if it fell, but it would still affect us. It is actually over three properties, but the trunk is in our yard. I'd really hate to lose it as it provides a lot of shade for us. Speaking of storms and my Aunt, they did get their power turned back on Monday morning - close to Noon. Then when we had the severe weather today it went out again but came back on within a few hours. We're really lucky that it never went out for us.

So Julie wasn't home before we went to the library so we brought Riley with us and she acted about exactly as I expected...she was all over the place. She hadn't had much of a nap and so was tired and just didn't want to sit and listen or anything like that. I tried to let her explore in the back of the room, but of course she wanted to go up by the kids. That would have been fine, but she wasn't quiet so we just couldn't stay in there and keep disturbing everyone trying to listen. That's why they were there. So I didn't hear really any of the story because Riley and I were walking all over the library. Then Julie got there and picked up Riley and took her home. I forgot to ask her if she had any cash on her so we could buy the book so after it was over Grace and I ran to the ATM and got some money and hurried back to have the author sign it before she left.

Today we had our rescheduled swimming with my Sister and her kids. Also my step-Mother came and of course my Aunt was there. We all had fun I think but it was just a lot of work and I was tired afterwards. Because of road construction it took us about twice the normal time to get home so we didn't have much time between swimming and softball practice. But we got there and we both made it through. I was really feeling it during the stretching let me tell you. I was worn out.

I named this post softball because of what I found out at practice tonight. Remember my last post where I mentioned that I wasn't so happy with my pitching at Grace's game on Saturday? Well, apparently I wasn't the only one as another coach on our team said that the coach from the opposing team asked her during the game if we wanted them to pitch to our team. Wow! Maybe I should end my pitching career now.

Remember Me?

Alright, so it may have been nine months since I last blogged, but believe it or not, we're all still here. Things are going well. Grace is finished with first grade which actually makes her sad. She just loves school and is not so happy that she's not going now. Hopefully that won't change too much as she gets older.

Julie and I have decided to give her a little "summer-school" over the summer by having her do some work that we give her each week so that she has something to do and to keep her up on her school skills. We don't want to teach her everything that she'll learn in second grade before she starts, just keep her skills up and help her be more ready for school when it starts up again at the end of August.

Oh, speaking of school, why do we have to pay a "registration" fee for our child's "public" education that we pay a LOT of taxes for? And why does this fee go up so much each year? I find it ridiculous. It's hard to plan how much money to save up each year if it goes up so much.

We're trying to plan a vacation for later in the summer before school starts again. We don't want to spend a lot of money which probably will also translate to not travelling very far. Unfortunately we haven't decided what to do exactly yet. We have ideas, but nothing is written in stone yet.

Grace is playing softball this spring and I am her coach. We just had our third game yesterday. Since they're so young and most of them are playing for the first time we don't keep score. They really are just playing to learn and have fun. So far it's been a lot of fun. I pitch to the girls and I have to tell you...I need to improve. Grace had vacation bible school this last week and so we were super busy all week and I never had a chance to practice pitching and it really showed during the game yesterday. Obviously I will need to keep up my practicing so as to maintain some type of consistency for the girls.

We had some big storms here on Friday and my Aunt and Uncle still have no power at their house. Unfortunately they really need electricity as they both use c-pap machines to help them breath at night and my Grandfather uses oxygen at night and those machines don't work without electricity. My Grandfather stayed with us last night so he'd be cool and so he could breath. But he was ready to go home today even though they are saying the electricity won't be back on until sometime Monday.

While Grandpa was with us we took him and my Dad and step-Mom out for dinner last night for Father's Day. We went to Outback Steakhouse. We don't go there very often and they've really changed the menu. I have to say I wasn't so impressed. The bloomin' onion was good and the sample I had of the cheese fries was really good, but the food just wasn't the same. I'm not sure why that is, but I'd say we won't be going back anytime soon.

Is it the weekend yet?

Another day is done. Riley and I took it even easier today; we didn't go anywhere.

Grace woke up on her own again today. I had to convince her to eat something for breakfast though as she's just not hungry when she just gets up. She got to the bus in plenty of time and when I got back in the house Riley was still sleeping but not for too long. I got her up and she ate and really didn't play for too long and she got tired again. Then she proceeded to take a 3 1/2 hour nap. This was time for me to finish mowing the grass by mowing the back yard and other yard stuff. Then a sealcoating guy came by and so I got the driveway sealed.

By this time Grace was home with her friend and Riley was waking up. So she was really tired by the time Julie got home which was actually a little early today. I never decided what to make for dinner; well that's not entirely true as I had intended to go to the grocery store but since Riley took an early and long nap I didn't have time since I couldn't go once Grace got home. So we just basically had breakfast stuff.

Speaking of Grace...she's so funny. She played with her friend for like 3 hours after school. Then when she went home Grace saw the next-door neighbor outside and told him she would find out if she could play with him after dinner. So she comes in asking if she can play with him after dinner. Since it was 6pm and her bedtime was fast approaching we said no. You would think she hadn't been allowed to play with any friend for a week and she had this great opportunity to play with him and we said no. Oh the drama. "It's not fair," "he's going out of town for the WHOLE ENTIRE weekend." There were more, but you get the idea. Julie was able to squash it by letting her play right then for 10 minutes until we had dinner ready. Crisis averted; Mom's are good at that.

Anyone else following this whole issue regarding the alleged "torturing" of al-qaeda detainees after 9-11? I don't feel waterboarding is torture because no permanent physical harm is done. What the Japanese did to American POW's in WWII was torture. Waterboarding isn't torture. But that's just my opinion which I'm entitled to in our country. This has spawned a criminal investigation into the Bush administration whether any laws were broken and if any punishments should be handed out because of enhanced interrogation techniques following 9-11. My feeling is they should thank their lucky stars that this was done because it could possibly be the reason they are alive today.

I'm SO SICK of hearing that Obama has "inherited" all of these issues from the "previous" administration and that everything bad about our country is because of the previous administration as well. When Obama took office and even to this day he continues to state he only wants to look forward. Yet how many times has this whole issue of what the Bush administration left them been brought up? And now Atty. Gen. Eric Holder had been allowed to pursue this investigation and the rest of the administration is basically saying that it's Holder that's doing this and anything that comes of it is entirely on him. They had nothing to do with it.

There were three...yes, THREE detainees that were waterboarded. Thats all. No more. I hate to be the one to break it to people but war is hell. This is a war whether Obama wants to change the name or not, plain and simple it is a war. Things done in a time of war are quite honestly horrible; war is about killing people after all. Understand that not everything done on a battlefield would be acceptable to the common citizen. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded something like 185 times and after this he gave in and starting teaching his interrogators how to fight a terror war. He didn't just provide information about other plots that were to follow, he gave them a glimpse into how it all works and what they are ultimately trying to accomplish. I don't know about you, but to me that was worth the price of admission, legal or not. Of course I've already stated that I believe it was legal to begin with.

I'm officially off my soap-box now.

Have you also been following the case against David Earls in Oklahoma? He raped a 4-year old girl and received one...yes, ONE year in county jail (not even prison) for this. He is scheduled to be released on September 24th but now they are bringing about new charges for other child crimes he's committed in hopes of keeping him in jail. Thank goodness.

And did you see that the Netherlands have told Laura Dekker that she can't sail around the world yet? I think if the Dekkers had approached this differently by stating that she'd have a support crew following her in case anything bad happens they wouldn't be going through this legal proceeding right now. That's what the kid that just finished sailing around the world did. I think this would help ease a lot of concerns. Just my 2 cents.

I don't miss summer

Everyone here is complaining it's not hot this summer but personally I don't miss the heat at all. I had enough of that when I lived in Oklahoma. Why would I want to sweat all day or stay in the house in the air-conditioning? Why not just have it be nice outside like it has been? Ever been to San Diego?

I do have to admit it really hasn't been warm enough to swim very many days this summer so for that, I can understand someone missing the warmer weather. But otherwise, I don't miss it. I think the high today was 74 and right now it's already down to 58.

Here's a fun article (and short) for you to read about pink flamingos. This just happens to be in the town we'll be going to in a few weeks for our football game. I just ordered the tickets a few minutes ago. Yea!

Well I did a little research on the whole student-to-teacher ratio thing and I've found this study: Project STAR which pretty much clearly states that smaller class sizes equal better students in the long run. So I guess I don't have anything to complain about. I guess we should just go with the flow. Not sure if Julie will agree though.

As far as today was concerned Riley and I took it easy. Grace woke up on her own today and ate breakfast again. She was excited that I had gotten Captain Crunch cereal. So she was off to school and Riley still wasn't up yet. She finally started to wake up around 8:30 today. I had another chiropractor appointment today (I'm going three times a week for another month until things straighten out.) After that we just came home and hung out. She got tired and I put her down for a nap which unfortunately wasn't at the best time. I probably should have kept her up a little longer and fed her lunch and then put her down for a nap. I say this because she slept until Grace and her friend came home from school. So I got her up and fed her and we played for a while again and then only about a half an hour before Julie was going to be home she started to get sleepy again. But I put her down and she fell asleep for about 30-45 minutes so actually it all worked out just fine.

We just had left-overs for dinner so that was easy. Then after I did the dishes I ran outside and mowed the front yard and pulled a few weeds. Now I just need to get outside tomorrow and mow the back yard.

Now for tomorrow I still need to figure out what we'll eat for dinner. I'm still not liking this new "diet" thing. It's really hard to cut dairy and garlic. It sounds silly but pretty much EVERYTHING has either milk or garlic in it. Try and find a salad dressing that doesn't have one or the other. I think I'll just have to start having oil and vinegar for my salad dressing.

Cruising along

Can you hardly believe that Grace finally took her school supplies out of her backpack on Monday?!?!!! I'm so glad that's over with. She even got a few papers back yesterday too and one said "great" and one said "wow." I think school is on track for Grace this year. I made it to my Chiropractor's appointment yesterday morning with little Riley. She was so cute; I had to wait a few minutes and so I took her out of her car seat and was playing with her. Then when it was my turn I put her back in but didn't strap her in. About half-way through the treatment she fell asleep. She was just so cute; she had turned on her side and fallen asleep almost cuddled up. I wish I had my camera so I could show you how cute she was.

After stopping at Target on the way home to buy some food and Riley taking a good nap I made BBQ Chicken and corn on the cob on the grill for dinner. After dinner was bible study at my Dad's house where we finished up studying Joshua (chaps 20-24.)

So yesterday wasn't so eventful but at least Grace finally left her school supplies at school. Today was a pretty good day too. I had to wake Grace up again today (yesterday too) but she had breakfast and was out the door in plenty of time to catch the bus. Then I came back in the house and was expecting Riley to be waiting to get up but she had fallen back asleep; possibly a remnant from not enough sleep the day before. So I read the paper and did some other stuff while I waited. After she finally got up I got her fed and then like clockwork my sister shows up only 2 minutes after the time she says was the approximate time she might be over. She's funny!

She was just dropping off some clothes and stuff that doesn't fit April anymore for us to use for Riley. After that Riley and I played for a while but she was ready for a nap pretty quickly so she went down for a nap around 11am and while she was sleeping I started cooking some sweet potatoes for her and while they were cooking I did some research on the places we are wanting to go. We have decided to take Grace to her first Badger football game (yeah!) So I was researching tickets and I did find some but I need to check with the person that usually watches Riley when we leave to see if they can actually do that on the day we are planning to go. If so then I think we'll be able to get some pretty good seats for a pretty reasonable price. I can't wait!

After that Julie and I want to get away for a night. We haven't had a "date" night in a while, but also our anniversary is coming up. Since we didn't really do anything for our anniversary last year (our 10th) we've decided to do something nice this year. It is a little pricey, but it will be SO worth it! The biggest problem with going away is obviously the person that usually watches Grace and Riley but also hotel availability and our busy schedule. We haven't worked out an actual date yet, but we ARE going. We deserve it.

In Grace's folder today was a note from her principal and no she isn't in trouble (how could you think that?) Apparently there has been a significant increase in the number of kids enrolled in first grade this year which they didn't expect. Personally I thought that's why you enroll so early in the year so that this isn't a problem but maybe people wait until the last minute. What they want to do is add an additional teacher and spread the kids out among the four teachers instead of three. Right now in her class there are 27 kids and there are two other first grade classes. So it sounds like there is approximately 80 kids or so and they want to get the teacher-to-student ratio down. Honestly for both Julie and I when we went to school we usually had this many kids in our class every year. So I don't see what the problem is unless the classroom just isn't build to hold that many students. What the letter that was sent home was asking was if we wanted them to do this. The options were a) no preference b) keep it the way it is c) add an additional class. I guess ultimately the lower your teacher-to-student ratio is the better their education would be, but I don't know if that's necessarily a proven fact; especially with kids this age. We'll see what happens.

The rest of the day was pretty normal today. I made dinner early (egg salad) since Tuesday is my night out. I had dinner ready for Julie so she didn't have to "find" something around the house or make anything. Plus then we'll both have lunch for tomorrow as well. Then I headed to a new place in the area that felt like home. In a town about 14 miles from our house they just opened up a new SONIC! You read that right, a Sonic! Unfortunately if you read my post a few days ago you know that I can't have limes so no limeade for me :-( But the burger was good.

Now I'm at the library which is where I usually end up each Tuesday night. It's quiet and I can read or surf the internet or whatever. Did I mention it was quiet? :-)

Fridays and Hard Drives

Grace has officially made it through her first week (although only a partial week) of first grade. I think she likes it just as much as she liked kindergarten last year except she did say tonight when I was putting her to bed that she hopes she isn't so tired at the end of the school day next week. I told her she'd get used to it pretty quickly. It is a big difference as kindergarten was only about 3 hours and now she's in school for about 7.

Now tomorrow she has gymnastics at 8am so she'll be getting up at the same time as all week for school. But that's for 3 hours, not 7.

Hold on, watching the shuttle launch...

Discovery (STS-128) made it up tonight. Looks cool at night.

Anyway, back to blogging. So you might be wondering what Grace may have brought home with her in her backpack. You would be right if you thought that she still has pretty much everything in her backpack. She took out her 3-ring binder today, but she still has 22 glue sticks, markers, pencils, all kinds of stuff in there. She says she just forgets to take it out and that she doesn't want to take it home with her every day even though she has been doing that. Hopefully Monday we will see better results with this.

She had what they call "Buddies" today. I'm still not really certain what it is but it has to do with 3rd graders and them getting together and it just so happens that the 3rd graders they are teamed up with include our next-door neighbor. So she says she'll get to be teamed up with him. That's pretty cool. She also had art today and I can tell she enjoyed that because she has some marker on her forehead and all over her hands. She's not the neatest kid, but she enjoys what she does. I do really think she enjoys art because when she came home she started on some art project of her own with a bookmark we picked up at the library the other day that you're supposed to color yourself.

Riley keeps waking up each morning as Grace isn't the quietest kid either. I don't want us to have to tip-toe around the baby when she's sleeping so honestly I don't mind her making noise but for some reason she keeps waking up pretty early. And that would be alright too as she doesn't need to sleep until some set time each morning but if she gets up too early then her nap schedule won't really work. Honestly she hasn't really been on a wonderful nap schedule yet as she is usually just taking one long nap. Today since she got up fairly early I put her down for her nap early and she almost slept until Grace got home. So this would be alright too but she can't stay up from 1:30 until bedtime. That's just entirely too long. She was acting sleepy around 4:30 so I put her down again and she got a little nap it before Julie got home, but it wasn't a normal nap. Maybe I'll have to start getting her up from the first nap if she sleeps too long so we can split them up better.

But then we run into problems if we aren't home. It's always give and take like this. If we aren't home she pretty much just doesn't take a nap although she will sleep in the car typically. So if we aren't home then she would generally only get one nap anyway and it would be good for her if that were as long as possible. Oh who knows, we'll get that all figured out as time goes on.

So if you looked at the subject of this post you'll notice more computer related stuff. Can I just say before I start this part that Western Digital drives from my personal experience fail and pretty much always before you would expect.

When I bought my HP desktop last year I had a 400 GB Western Digital hard drive that I just transferred over to use as my main drive and used the larger drive that came with the computer for storage. It started to act funny so I took it out and put in a 500 GB Western Digital hard drive I had to preempt any problems that may have happened. Several months later the 500 GB drive dies so I buy a brand new 640 GB Western Digital hard drive to use for my main drive. In less than a month I think it failed. So now I have 3 drives (all in warranty) that have failed. Thank goodness they are under warranty, but honestly how does a person go through 3 hard drives in one and a half years? I'm starting to think this darned HP is cursed. I'd just like to burn this thing.

So anyway I go on the Western Digital website and find out that the 500 GB hard drive's warranty is expired unless I can prove when I purchased it. They go by manufacture date unless you have your receipt to show when it was actually purchased. Well I do have the receipt so when I put that information in, I only had a few weeks of warrantly left. So I sent that one out on August 17 and they received it on the 21st of August. They mailed the replacement drive on the 25th and I received it today. The only problem is I have to do this two more times but at least I'll get 3 new drives. All I can say is to ensure you backup your system regularly. Luckily I have been except when I lost the 500 GB hard drive I did lose 2 months worth of emails. But it could be much worse.

Does this mean you shouldn't buy Western Digital hard drives? I don't think so. Just keep your data backed up and pray it doesn't die after the warranty period is over.

Just a couple of photos

I wanted to get these pictures online before I forget.

Here is Grace from her first day of school.


Here is Riley from last week where she's only almost 7 months.