Another week has zoomed by already. We had a huge drop in temperatures, bringing in lows we haven’t seen in this region in many, many years. I know that Lafayette was hit with -23 wind chill temps and we weren’t that far from that number, here in G’burg. Several schools were closed or were on delays throughout the week. Columbus schools were late on Thursday and closed on Friday, but somehow G’burg managed to stay on schedule the entire week… Thursday night, we ended up keeping water running in a couple faucets, for fear of freezing pipes. We got as low as -10°. While we escaped water issues, MaryAnn & Sandy didn’t fare as well. They had both a frozen pipe and drain in their downstairs shower stall. Luckily, they got it taken care of before any pipes burst. But you know the damnedest thing is we still have zero of that white stuff. I’ll say it again, if its going to be this flippin’ cold, we may as well have some snow to go out and play in! But, since we’re stuck inside, at least we’re glad that our favorite TV shows are back on with new episodes. We’ve especially enjoyed American Idol (its become tradition to watch with a bowl of popcorn and a bar of chocolate!), 24, Bones (beginning this week) and Battlestar Galactica (at least for a few more episodes). Matt & I are sad to see Stargate Atlantis go off the air, but look forward to the new Stargate series and future Atlantis movies. Personally, I’m most looking forward to seeing new episodes of The Simpson’s and Family Guy, but they won’t come until after the Super Bowl.
Things continue to be well for both Ann & I at our respective employers. In the wake of Cummins announcing another 800 job cuts (on top of the 500 they cut last month already!), we are thankful that our businesses continue to be successful. I taught a CPI class, a CPR class and worked the annual competency fair (in at 7 and out at 5:30) this week. Ann met up with Amy and her girlfriends on Wednesday night for dinner and scrap booking. Luke continues to do very well in his classes (his teachers rave about how well he is doing) and still takes swimming lessons. Abby is still the teacher’s pet and the junior-teacher in-training. She still practices both of her competition dance classes each week. She got hurt during Thursday’s class, although we’re still not sure exactly what happened. She doesn’t give the same story twice; so I imagine she was most likely horse playing with her BFF Baili! J She’s fine now. Matt is also doing well with his grades as well as sports. He continues to attend either practices or games each night after school. He had a game Thursday night against St. Louis. Ann and I met Grandma, Gigi and the two little kids at the game. This was scheduled to be the last game for Matt’s team; however we did have a cancellation last week, so we’ll have to see if they have one more yet…
Matt didn’t get to start at center this week (as he did last week)…however, he did play a lot more – over 20 minutes (nearly the entire game)! I’m not sure why Coach Green pulled the starters so early (could be their lack of execution and hustle?), but whatever the reason it played out well for Matt. The Pirates didn’t look good again this game. They were down 20 by the time the 2nd quarter was under way. Matt had already played a few minutes during the 1st quarter, but he didn’t come out at all during the middle two quarters and didn’t hit the bench until only a couple minutes remained in the game! He played well again, hustling and staying within his game (setting picks, passing and getting rebounds). His role helped the team, although he did have two turnovers. He added to his season stats by pulling down four more rebounds, getting another assist, one block and holding his man to only a handful of points (nearly fouling out in the process!). He also scored his second basket of the year…and by some curious stroke of karma; Ann missed it again! Yes, she hadn’t been gone to get Abby from dance practice even 2 minutes when Matt pulled down an offensive rebound and put it back in for his fourth point of the season (1 of 1 from the field for the game). The Cardinals put a hurting on the Pirates, 42-20. To their credit, the second unit held their own and most of the St. Louis’ points were scored against the starters. Matt has also decided to go out for wrestling once basketball is over. His social studies teacher (also coached him in football and is the wrestling coach) and I have been working on him to at least go out. We both feel he would be good at it. On Friday night, Matt finally gave in and went to both basketball and wrestling practices. Obviously, he was pretty worn out by night’s end, but he said he enjoyed it. So, he’ll do wrestling until track season in a couple months. J
On Saturday morning, we called Grandma Scheumann to wish her a happy birthday before finally taking down the Christmas tree. I’m certain the neighbors were beginning talk! J Ann finally got tired of it and allowed me to get it out of here. I had been ready since New Year’s Eve… It was an all-day affair, as it took over four hours alone to get all the ornaments off the tree and packaged away for the year. The house across the street finally sold, so we’ve been watching to see what the new neighbors look like (the kids and Ann are hoping that they are our age!). We still don’t think we’ve seen them, although there have been dozens of people in and out of the house as they do improvements all over the domicile. Ann Googled my name and strangely found the obit for Aunt Judy’s husband on the Indy Star site. MaryAnn just called and said that Ann’s Great-Uncle Jimmy passed away yesterday. They say deaths come in threes, so it makes us wonder who will be the next… Have you tried Facebook yet? I have been getting on a couple times during the week. If you haven’t experienced this yet, it is a cross between My Space and Classmates.Com. It is a networking site that allows you to stay in contact with folks from your past (i.e., high school / college friends / fraternity brothers you haven’t seen in a quarter century). I got on it through F?T, who had a previous networking tool but recently upgraded to this site. It is funny to see / talk / read about folks you haven’t even thought about in decades. It is a free service and is very easy to set up. You can guard your information and share as much or as little as you want. Mom, you would enjoy this. I have been in touch with several folks you would remember, who you were friends with their parents (like Lange, Boardman, etc).
Let’s take a look at this week’s Waybac feature. I culled these pictures from our original (now defunct) website that was through Insight. I accidentally stumbled across this batch of pix while looking for a back-up file on an old CD. When Insight was bought-out by ComCrap, our webpage went bye-bye. I wasn’t able to save the sight as a whole, but I did get most of the pix off of it (although they are of horrible quality). These pictures are mostly from the era of 2003 / 2004. Let’s get to it:
First up, we have a bunch of Abby pictures. First with Bubby in our living room on the first day of school:
Next, at Granny’s house on 9th St:
Here she is showing off her new jammies around Christmastime:
Out in the living room before we put down the new flooring:
With Papaw Bryan at their house in Rossville:
With Papa Scheu at Chris & Erica’s wedding in Indy:
With Dad & Bub on the 4th of July:
With Bub & Duke in a sweet one:
And finally with Bubby and Aunt Norma (only a few months before she passed away) at the annual Morgan reunion outside Lafayette:
Here’s Mamaw Bryan with Dukey:
Next are a few with Matt. First, with Granny and then his 1st grade school picture…and the final one was used as our Christmas card in 2006:
…and a couple with his good friend Mallory… The first one is at Marengo Cave in ’07 and the other a few years earlier at Christy’s on the first day of school:
We end with several team pictures of the sports teams from that same era (I think I was either the head or assistant coach in all of these):
I apologize for the quality (and size) of these pictures, but its too late in the day to get different ones on here now. I will have to look for better quality pictures to post here in the future. Until next time, have a good one and thanks again for keeping up with our family…