my all time favorite female vocalist...

Ladies and gentlemen, Leigh Nash.

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44...

Danny and I caught 44 bream today! 44! Wow! What a difference two days, a moon phase change, and a slight change in water clarity makes.

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11 years old...

Today is my son Logan's 11th birthday. He was born 11 years ago at 12:56 in the a.m. Happy Birthday buddy. I love you.

I'm getting old.

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a busy week/weekend comes to a close...

It all started Thursday and concluded yesterday. Both of Kim's parents were in town. It began with Elyse's end of the year school program Thursday night, then her three hour dance recital Friday night (yeah you read that right 3 hrs), Logan's choir performance, getting ready for Logan's birthday party, having said party, and cleaning up after said party on Saturday, topped off with getting the kids up and ready for church Sunday morning while also trying to get myself ready. That might have been the toughest task to have to complete.

Kim had to be at church early to cover for Michelle who normally opens and works the church cafe. That's why I was solo in getting the kids ready this morning. I don't know how she does it.

Every thing went good through all the events. E did a great job at both her program and her dance program. That Friday night was just flat out long. Sitting through 3 solid hours of dancing, Elyse was only in three of them, is just too much. There were 55 total routines to have to go through. Yes 55! There was a 10 minute intermission, but that was just barely enough time to run to the restroom and get back to your seat before it started again. We made it through it though.

The kids had fun on the slip-n-slide at Logan's party Saturday and it was nice having everyone over at the house. There were several times though where the noise inside just became too much to bare. So I went outside to clean up and get away from it. I'm discovering that the older I get the less noise I care to tolerate.

Logan had his last choir performance early Saturday morning before the party festivities began. There was a big city festival going on in the town his school is located so they sang at that.

I can't believe that school lets out for summer next week. It seems like we just finished Christmas up a couple of weeks ago. Time certainly it flying by these days.

Sunday, Mother's Day, rolled around and it was truly a day of rest, after we got home from church that is. After all the events of the previous three days, it was time for a break. We all took full advantage of it. Well maybe with the exception of Logan. He was the only one who didn't take a nap. He got a new video game for the Wii, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, so he spent most of the day playing that.

mother's day...

Just wanted to take a second and say Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there. But I want to say a special Happy Mother's Day to my wife, my mom, and my mother in-law. The kids and I all love you and thank you for all that you do, including keeping us all in line.

The above picture is just one of the many talents Kim's blessed with. Not just the photography, but she really has a knack for growing beautiful flowers and other plant life. She really has a green thumb. Go here to look at some more of her roses from this spring. They're gorgeous.

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my little girl...

Elyse had her end of the year program at school tonight. She won't be at the same school next year because she'll be in Kindergarten. So this was it for her being at this one.

All went well. Well, about as good as an event can go when you have numerous children between the ages of 3 and 5 on stage singing and such, then they're sent to sit with their parents for another 30 minutes or so while the current Kindergartners have their graduation stuff. Not to mention all the wee little ones already sitting out in the audience.

The surprise of the night though came after everything was over. You see while Elyse's and the other kids in her grade, K4, were singing their songs, they did a lot of hand motions and other movements during the songs. I mentioned to Kim several times through these songs that Elyse was on the ball because everything was so fluid from her and she was basically leading the entire K4 group with her motions. I was impressed.

Well, come to find out after all was said and done, while we were talking to first her music teacher and then her teacher at the reception afterwords, we found out that Elyse came up with all the hand motions for every song they performed on her own! How awesome is that!? I'm sorry buy I'm floored by it. They said that when they started practicing the songs, Elyse just naturally began doing hand motions that went right along with each song. They liked them and thought it went right along with the songs, so they put them in. Amazing!

Look Kindergarten here she comes!

Way to go Sweet!

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things I'd like to do...

You know there are a lot of things out there that I'd like to either learn how to do, or pick back up doing. Just name a few, I'd like to get back into playing tennis and pick back up on learning German.

I picked tennis up in the 7th grade and played it all through high school and a short time after in college. It's hands down been the funnest sport I've ever played. The problem is since college I've not been able to find anyone else who plays. I taught some kids at one of the apartment complexes we lived at down in Mobile how to play. That was fun, but I wanna get out there and just slug it out on the court with someone for a couple of hours from time to time. Logan has expressed interest in learning, perhaps that can be a project in the very near future. Before I do anything though, I'm either going to have to get my racket restrung because I broke a string last time I played, or just flat out get a new racket.

I took German as my foreign language back in college and really enjoyed it. My teacher made it interesting to learn also. She wasn't a professor yet, but she was from New Zealand and was working on her graduate stuff. I can recall a good bit of it now despite having been out of it for some 8-9 years. I never recall how much I remember until I hear it.

Now to something I'd like to learn. I want to learn to play an instrument, preferably drums, piano, or violin. I don't know why I haven't tried any of them yet. If I'd make a choice, I have the time to make for learning it, not a whole lot though but I could make use. I just haven't yet. The drums and violin would be a little difficult to learn, just because of the lack of access to a set. I'd have better access to a piano. We've got two guitars here at the house that I could pick up and give a whirl. I learned a little way back when, but nothing to write home about.

Perhaps one day I'll get around to some of these things and eventually all of them.

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