"Meet The Blue Rockets!"

This afternoon was picture day for Ben's baseball team. Their name is "The Blue Rockets." That's Joey sitting next to him in the team picture (holding the bat). Joey and Ben are in the same kindergarten class, so Ben has some friends he knows on the team. Anyway, Ben was pretty psyched to put on his uniform today.

The Strikers - Game 1

Yesterday was our first soccer game for the spring season. The first game is always the hardest because the kids aren't used to each other, and everyone's trying to get reacquainted with soccer and what to do. But surprisingly all of my kids played really well. In fact, Ben had his best soccer game ever I thought. Everyone was pretty focused and engaged. We're still in the age group where there isn't a winner or loser, and there are no official scores or standings. Yet somehow the kids always know who won and who lost. After the game all the kids told me we won 4 - 2. So I guess it was a good game for us.

"Meet The Strikers!"

Monday night was our first soccer practice for our new spring team. The kids chose "The Strikers" as the team name...which warmed my heart because when I was a kid my soccer team was also called "The Strikers."
This will be my third season coaching, and my friend Sean Norman (Parker's dad) is going to assist me. He and I coached together in our first season (The Fireballs) and it worked out great. We both have the same attitude and mindset about coaching, and we both like to make the practices fun for the kids.
This season should be pretty fun for Ben I think. For the first time he has 3 of his close friends all on the same team...Miles, Parker, and Kelvyn. The funny thing is sometimes my biggest challenge as coach is keeping my daughter off the field. She insists on getting in on the action sometimes.
Anyway...it should be a fun season. Our first game is this Saturday.

Game Night!

One thing I've been forgetting to mention here on the blog is that we've recently gotten a Nintendo "Wii" game console. The kids got to play it down in Austin a few weeks ago and they've been talking about it ever since. Jenny and I were already on the look out for one but recently every place around here was sold out. Then finally I came upon one and quickly grabbed it. Anyway, the kids have been enjoying all the games, and Ben especially has gotten quite skilled at bowling and tennis. And as an added bonus for me the "Wii" allows me to download movies from my Netflix account. Sweet!
Anyway, last night we invited my Aunt and Uncle over to the house for dinner and games. They love to play dominoes, so we played a couple of games of that. It was fun because we taught Ben how to play as well. He did great and picked the game up very quickly. Then after that we turned on the "Wii" and introduced it to my Aunt and Uncle. They thought it was a lot of fun.

Little League

Recently we signed Ben up for Little League. He kept telling us he wanted to try baseball, so we signed him up in the neighborhood league. Last night was our first practice. He seemed to enjoy himself, but he's still very new to the whole concept of the game...so there's a learning curve going on as well. The people seem to be nice, but the league itself isn't nearly as organized as the soccer club. We have no idea when our games start, when the practices are going to be, etc. The whole thing seems to be very confusing so far.
Anyway, to make things even more confusing we signed Ben up for soccer as well. I'll be coaching the team again and our first practice will be Monday. So for a few weeks we'll be juggling two sports. We didn't really intend to do that, but Ben kept saying he wanted to try baseball, and we had already committed to soccer. So we'll see how this little league thing goes. Like I always tell my kids - "try everything at least once."

Butterflies In Bloom

A few days ago the kids and I made our first visit of the year to Dow Gardens for the "Butterflies In Bloom" exhibit. Every year the center releases hundreds of butterflies in the greenhouse. Then people can come by and touch the butterflies and watch them fly around. The kids love it. I can remember years ago when Ben was 2 or 3 he would always freak out when the butterflies would land on him. Now he's a pro at picking them up and holding them. Megan likes watching them but she gets a little skiddish when they get too close.

Movies They Should Make

One of my favorite blogs of late is "Movies They Should Make." It's basically a site where a guy creates ficticious movie posters for made up movies. The premise is basically "movies that would be ridiculous if they were ever made," OR "movies that would be cool and interesting." Some are meant to be humorous, and some are more serious.
Anyway, as a movie lover I think it's a great site. There's not a lot of content there so far, but what is there is very good.

Life At Random

Here's some random pictures of what the kids are up to. Lots of bike riding going on lately with the nice weather and all. We even had a visitor recently in the backyard. I looked out one day and saw a red-tailed hawk sitting on our fence. That was pretty cool.