Well, another week has flown past us as we enjoyed a little warm up, temperature wise…but paid the price for it with constant rain showers and severe thunderstorms. The grass, flowers & trees are now in full bloom, but so are the allergens…meaning we’ve gone through a couple boxes of Kleenex this week as well. L It’s been a busier week than normal, due to Ann taking off to Florida. She called each night, which the kids really looked forward to and poor Lola was so sweet…she would lie in the window for hours each night this week, watching and waiting for Ann to return…
On Monday, we came home early as Ann did Abby’s hair and makeup for dance pictures. She went to softball made up, which looked quite humorous to us coaches (we had a couple good chuckles watching “Barbie??? get sweaty and dirty). Ann picked her up early from practice to get to dance class. Luke and I finished up practice without her and went to pick up Matt from Grandma & Gigi’s house. He had just finished up track practice when we arrived and had to rush home to get dinner and head out to his baseball practice. Instead of staying, Luke and I came home and mowed and trimmed the front lawn until Matt called wanting to be picked up.
On Tuesday, we came home early again. This time, Ann and Abby went out to Matt’s track meet vs. Shelbyville. The Pirates shellacked the Bears, as the final score for the boys attested: 78-31. Ann forgot to grab a camera, but was kind enough to snap off a few on her cell phone. Unfortunately, she had it set on a very low save setting and when we tried to open them up, they were teeny tiny. L Abby completed her practice 5K run at Girls on the Run this night with a time of 42 min. I took Lukey over to baseball practice where we got pretty sweaty due to the high humidity.
On Wednesday, Ann left with her gals from work for their annual staff retreat at the docs’ condo in Panama City Beach. Matt had track and baseball practice again as Luke & I cleaned out the pool and balanced the chemicals. It drizzled on and off all day and was just yucky outside. We received Luke’s replacement rear wheels for his Power Wheels 4-wheeler. He has worn them completely out. They are both bald, but one even has two holes in it! It reminds me of when I was a kid and wore out the front wheel of my Big Wheel and mom had to get a replacement wheel! J
On Thursday, it was absolutely nutty! Matt had a track meet in Batesville where they won. Abby had Girls on the Run but had to miss softball practice again, due to dance. I had to get her over to Mom’s house early, where Dee was kind enough to do her hair and makeup for more dance pictures. At the dance studio, Laurie gave me a flash drive containing videos of the judges’ feedback from all the girls’ routines at the Showstopper competition last week. I was very disappointed to find how poor the quality was of the audio and video. However, I was able to convert the highly compressed .wma files to DVD – compliant files and burn to disc using a cool program made by VSO, called “ConvertXtoDVD.??? In addition, I had a couple people ask me what software I use to create the .avi files that I have been uploading to YouTube. I use a very powerfully cool program created by AVS media, called AVS Video Converter 4. You can convert nearly any video file to nearly any other type of file.
Here is the judge’s video for hip-hop dance (Rock & Roll All Nite medley by KISS): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScqBMuK836Y.
Here is the link to the judge’s video for tap dance (Too Cool from the Camp Rock soundtrack): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6NGcRon2Ls.
In addition, here is the link to the long-lost professional video from last year’s Showstopper (2008) competition at Roncalli High School, also in Indy (Chubby Checker’s Let’s Twist Again): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VOwZlXFRrM. That video came out really, really nice…
As for Lukey, he had baseball practice, where he was very excited to get his uniform (#2). Even though it had rained for several hours that morning, it had been fairly sunny & breezy that afternoon, so the fields were in pretty good shape. We no longer finished up practice; when we had to run and pick up Abby from dance practice and headed out to Family Fun Night at the elementary school. This was designed to let next year’s incoming children (and parents) meet and greet the kindergarten teachers. We had fun chatting with the teachers, doing a scavenger hunt, winning prizes and eating snacks. We didn’t get to eat dinner until 8 and were up kind of late that night. It stormed really hard during the overnight hours, filling the pool to overflow level and littering it with leaves, seeds, and thousands of maple tree helicopters. Not sure where they came from, but I just want to say thanks… I enjoyed watching an incredible basketball game that went triple overtime between the Bulls and the Celtics…what a heck of a game!
On Friday, we were pretty tired from the previous day. It rained all day again. But I still came home late and mowed at Mom & Gigi’s as well as Dee’s home in a steady drizzle. The lawns were so incredibly long that I had to get over and do it. We had dinner from Papa Johns again (a favorite lately) and the two little kids watched Pocahontas while the big boys watched Die Hard 3. Mom & Gigi played security guards out at the fair grounds overnight. Sandy and WTRE are hosting their annual Lawn & Garden Show out there and they did not get anyone secured in time, so they loaded up the RV and parked it outside the pavilion to watch over all the stuff. J I’m sure they were pretty intimidating! LOL!
On Saturday, we were up early to get Abby out to dance class practice. She is doing a third, all-star-type of tap dance with the best dancers of all ages combining for the grand finale at the Dixon Dance Revue. We dropped her off about 20 minutes (it was just her and Laurie) and rushed over to the ball diamonds where Luke had his first official baseball game against the Brewers. It was supposed to rain all day, but it stopped very early in the morning. It turned out to be a beautiful day! The fields were still pretty water-logged, but the league volunteers did a great job of getting it dried out and lined quickly. We only started about ten minutes late, which is great considering how much rain we had this week, especially the previous 36 hours. Luke did very well at the plate. However, he did have to hit off the tee both at-bats (as did all thirteen kids except for five at-bats the entire day, as his coach continued pitching again this week). He ripped the ball both times; hitting one to the outfield grass and smoking the other one so hard that when it hit the third baseman, it ricocheted almost all the way back to the catcher! He ended up with two doubles. Defensively, he again was the anchor. He played the pitcher position and recorded numerous put outs at home, and made a couple nice throws to first as well. He still made a few mistakes…as did all the kids. What a fun league! Thankfully, both his head coach and I do much more laughing while teaching than we do yelling. J After the game, we picked up Bu and came home and worked outside. Matt helped me with the yard work which made it go much quicker. Luke and Abby were enthralled with the bird nest built in the fence between us and the Walters’. There are three little blue robin eggs and they just think it’s the coolest thing! After lunch, we all took a nap…except Abby who kept waking me up, as she was playing around the house with her neighborhood buddy Carlie. We went out to eat dinner at Acapulco (or whatever it’s called now) and then played putt-putt out at the park. It was a beautiful day.
On Sunday, we welcomed home Ann and enjoyed getting caught up on all the week’s happenings. It turns out that it was Biker Week down there, so she had several stories to tell! J We did some housework in the morning and then headed over to play Batesville (Phillies) at lunch time for Matthew’s (Brewers) first baseball game of the year. Since their field was still water-logged, the game was moved to Greensburg. In fact, they ended up playing a double header for five hours today. In the first game, Matt started in right field and moved to left for the final 4 innings. In the field, he didn’t get much work, recording only one putout with zero errors in four chances. At bat, he was officially 0-2 with a deep fly out and a line drive out. His on-base percentage was .333, as he received 1 walk. He also had 2 stolen bases and scored a run. The Brewers dropped the game in the bottom of the last (6th) inning, 6-7. In the second half of the twin-bill, Matt started in left field and moved to 3rd base for the final three innings. Defensively, he recorded 3 errors, as he misjudged one ball in left. Then, at third base, he booted a sharply-hit ball and then compounded the mishap by throwing it in to right field while trying to make a spectacular play at second. At the plate, the experience of the previous at-bats began to pay off. He hit the ball well in all three plate appearances. One ball was a line drive that was caught by the Phillies. He hit one sharply at the shortstop who knocked it down and then threw wide at first and then Matt ripped a shot down the left field line in his final at-bat. He had three stolen bases and scored both times. As a team, we struggled with pitching all game and dropped the second game as well, 8-11. All in all; not a bad day…although the boys still have plenty of room for improvement…it’s going to be fun year…
Well, that’s it for this installment. Thanks for catching up with us this week and we’ll see ya next time. Until then, have a good one…
Later, Scheu