Category Archives: A Year In The Life

Bullies Beware

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On Saturday night I took the boys to see the Harlem Globetrotters and on the way down somehow the discussion of bullies came into play and Mason started to explain to Cutler that if a bully was to bother him he should take three steps back and tell the teacher and to never confront the bully.  After Mason gave him the standard rules, Cutler made up, or at least I hope he is making it up, a story of a bully at school named Shark.  Mason told him that if the teacher doesn’t take care of him, he will have a word with him the next time he comes to pick up Cutler with me.  These are moments that I dream of happening where Mason shows how much he cares about his brother and is willing to look out for him.  It made me think of one of my favorite pictures and given it is Turn Back Thursday or whatever TBT stands for, I thought I would share.  This was the boys running through the sprinklers at Nana and Papa Herman’s house in July of 2010.  When the boys are at each other’s throats, I try to think back to moments like this to remind me that they do actually love each other.  🙂

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And here are a few more of my favorite pictures from that day.

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It’s A Boys World

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Melanie had to fly to Australia for what she claims is work this past Friday night and now the boys and are living the college life for the next two weeks.  This includes eating nothing but dip and burgers for the super bowl, ordering pizza, running from sporting event one after the other, and turning our underwear inside out in order to use them just one more time before having to do the laundry.  Ok, that last part is a joke…we just go commando.

At first I was a bit stressed at the thought of dealing with these two monkeys by myself for two weeks, but it is actually turning into a pretty good time…aside from missing Melanie terribly that is.  It started a bit rocky on Saturday, but after having several discussion with the boys that involved pleading for peace between the two of them, things have started to go really well.  That being said, it is still very early in the trip and we can not wait for Melanie’s return.

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At the airport hiding our apprehension as we said good bye to Melanie.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Last week while I was writing about our experience visiting a mosque, our much more intelligent and highly over educated former nanny and current cousin, Kobi, was writing about her trip to a French town that was wiped out due to the hands of the Nazis.  I have been meaning to share and so my apologies for not sharing until now.  Within the post Kobi, rather modestly, seemingly buries the lead.  She officially received her Master’s in something from London and even more impressive has taken her first step towards a career on the Holocaust lecture tour.  Very proud to call Kobi our family, friend, and a contributor to our boys’ early early days.  Not to mention, she is a pretty dang good writer.  It’s just a shame she hid these talents when I requested her nanny diaries series when living with us.  Congratulations Kobi!

International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Mason’s Turn

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Yesterday was Cutler’s beast mode day with two goals and this afternoon, before Seattle made a mockery of the Super Bowl, it was Mason’s turn as his hockey team won 36-1 or something along those lines.  We quit keeping score around 20, but apparently one of the other parents was running the full tally.  No goals for Mason though as he was playing goalie.  I’d love to say it was a difficult effort to steer away so many shots to keep them to one, but I think he had maybe seven saves.  I would place his beast mode in the ability to remember to watch for the puck if the other team happened to work their way down towards him, which in this case was very seldom thanks to a stellar effort from the entire team.  Below are a couple of videos, the first one of Mason’s total concentration taking a slight lapse enabling him a split second to wave at me while the kids were going after the puck in the corner and the other is the celebration that followed this victory.  I love watching these kids mob each other as if they just won the cup.

http://youtu.be/Nf20felW1Ts

http://youtu.be/r-jjrrPZcB8

 

 

Turning On The Switch

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Cutler is now 7 games into his indoor soccer season and despite playing somewhat aggressively he has not scored a goal…until today. Something happened and that somewhat aggressive went to full aggressive mode and he put in not one but two goals today and almost finished off with a hat trick but his buddy finished off his work when he got the ball to the goal mouth. Of course he waited untold Melanie was out of town, but at least he got it done. Hopefully he saves a few for when she returns.

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God Bless Merica

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For today’s post I ran across a buddy’s post on Facebook listing observations from a monster truck rally and was left with no choice but to share. Thank you Ben Burr.

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Our Little Boy Is All Growns Up

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A lot of people on The Facebook like to use Thursdays to “turn back the clock” or something along those lines as an opportunity to post pictures from the past, so perhaps I will start doing the same on here.  Today I will turn the clock back all the way to November 28, 2013.  While celebrating Thanksgiving back home, O’Fallon, for the first time in many years everyone migrated outside to play in the leaves and get their family pictures taken.  In fact, this is where we got the boys’ pictures for the New Year’s card that we sent out.  (side note: it was new year’s as we procrastinated too much to get them out as Christmas.  At least this way it stood out and probably got more attention)  So back to the story, Cody (the oldest grandson) seldom shows emotion other than a total lack of interest and this is why I was so shocked to find him willing to play along for the camera.

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Another Mosque

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While gazing from the hallway windows walking back to our hotel room in Dubai, I noticed this mosque a few blocks away that had the tower lit up and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a walk and get in a few photographs.  As luck would have it, the call for prayer went out while we were snapping away.  I’ll be honest, when the call starts it’s a bit shocking and because this was pre education, I got a bit startled and we quickly walked back to our hotel.  Fortunately Melanie and I both thought to hit record on our phones and were able to capture the call.

http://youtu.be/HOwKsmKkCVs

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