Here is a quick video of the boys sitting and chatting with Santa. Merry Christmas everyone!
Monthly Archives: December 2013
That Just Happened
Introducing my new mini series of posts, or at least what could be a mini series are some odd/interesting/entertaining things that happen to me…
A. Walking out of the mall yesterday I saw a woman storming in all dressed up for some serious mall walking complete with her sony discman. Yes, that’s correct, it was a sony discman. First on the market in 1984 and apparently still going strong almost 30 years later. Hopefully she has one of the newer models that is a little more shock resistant to avoid the skips.
2. Today, I had to give directions to a mail man. While talking to my neighbor, the mailman pulled up cigarette in hand blazing away and asked us if we lived around here and then asked if we heard of a street a couple of blocks away. I learned two things from this experience…first of all, delivering mail must be one of the few professions where you can still smoke while working. Second, the mail man doesn’t know his away around as well as I thought and he doesn’t have a navigation system in the vehicle. After he left, Mike and I just stared at each other in amazement.
iii. Mason, being the deep thinker that he is, asked me “Dad, what does the fox say?” and when I replied with the song lyrics he interrupted me and said “No, seriously, what does a fox say?” I now understand where the song came from.
This Hurt…A LOT!
So Mason has now made the move in hockey to play goalie full time…despite my preference and my wallet’s preference. However, the move between the pipes isn’t what hurt. It was when the team from our rink that plays in the division above ours asked him to fill in for them at goalie. Now most people would assume that is a good thing being asked to play up a level, but the problem is that he has to play for the Blackhawks. To double the whammy, he did pretty well and was asked to play again and we have now been added to the email distribution where I occasionally get Blackhawk emails in my inbox. Where does a blue bleeding father draw the line?
Breaking my heart, one blocked shot at a time.
Perspective
While I was watching tv tonight Cutler came into the room and asked what I was watching. When I told him it was Survivor, without pause he looked at me and said “I’m a survivor”. No matter how many times I hear him say that, it reminds me how blessed we are and it is good to be reminded.
On that note, I wanted to share this story from abc news in regards to some amazing progress being made in the battle.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/gene-therapy-scores-big-wins-blood-cancers-21134203
Our real survivor.
Observations From The Ice Pack
So Dallas was hit with what now feels like an annual ice storm for the ages effectively shutting down the entire metroplex. School was canceled on Friday, the boys’ indoor soccer and basketball games were canceled on Saturday, today Mason’s ICE hockey game was canceled (irony), and the schools have shut down again already for tomorrow. Since I own a large 4×4 bus I found it not important to stay at home and so I ventured out on Friday to a target store with no power for lights or refrigeration in the dairy or freezer areas, but enough to run the scanners and registers. On Saturday Mason and I ventured to the Stars game that was much below 50% capacity, and today we ventured to the rink only to receive the cancelation notice as we were exiting the highway. While I was out I made several observations that I now feel obliged to share with you listed in no particular order.
- There are more effective ways to remove ice from your car than banging a pot on it
- When you do remove ice from your car, it is usually best to remove more than just the 20% of the windshield that covers your face effectively leaving your windshield 80% covered before hitting the highways
- Driving 60 mph and then locking up your brakes before EACH and EVERY overpass generally isn’t the correct way to avoid wiping out
- It is called four wheel drive, NOT four wheel stop
- As this happens almost annually, it might be time for municipalities to invest in a plow to attach to the front of the sand trucks
- While on the topic of sand trucks, perhaps a higher mixture of salt than sand would be in order
- When driving on the highways and the lanes are clearly marked, perhaps it is best to actually use the lanes
- Sometimes taking your foot off the gas is brake enough
- When you decide to take a “side” road because it would be more interesting you should recall the s-curve about half way down that may push you towards the ditch (full disclosure: I didn’t panic and I managed to avoid the ditch, but I did almost need to change my pants before arriving at the Stars game)
The Dallas metroplex on Friday evening
Four Years Ago Today
Today marks Cutler’s fourth second birthday. This birthday is when we celebrate the date of his cord blood transplant and we celebrated it with a morning spent at the oncologist for his six month check up. Despite his fighting the blood draw, we were able to get fantastic results from his blood tests and is now par for the course we continue to be blessed with a healthy “normal” four year old. We then went on to get an EKG and an echo sonogram of his heart and all things look to be normal. As usual the trip was highlighted with Cutler’s visit with his favorite teddy bear that is located in the waiting area. I am hoping we can take a similar picture each time we go in. It will be great to see him when he is 20 cuddling up to the same bear.
Team Fricke 