Long Update

Hey everyone. I had intentions of posting during the week but I got side tracked. We've been pretty busy, which seems to be the usual theme around here. Here's a recap of what we've been up too.

For Memorial Day weekend we had some family over to our house. Christi's parents, Jason, Sappoo and Laverne came and we had a really good time. There was enough time between downpours to cook some hamburgers, hotdogs, and chicken on the grill. We ate a good lunch and hung out for a while. It was a good day.

During the week we had a lot of things going on. Christi has been working hard in her room to get it ready for summer. Basically, she has to move all of her desks, chairs, etc into the hallway so they can wax the floors. She also has to get everything put away because they are using her room for a summer school class and she doesn't want those kids messing with any of her things. I've been busy at work. I had a few projects that I'm working on and I also had to get the details of my trip next week organized.

Wednesday Christi went to the doctor for her 12 week checkup (wow it's already 12 weeks!) Because she has been sick so much, Christi has lost more weight than they want her too and she also was dehydrated; they almost ended up giving her fluids through an IV. We did get to hear the baby's heartbeat. It sounded like an ant playing a drum because it seems so tiny but it's most definitely there and active. The doctor prescribed her Zofran, which helps with her nausea. I actually had a friend of mine recommend getting that for Christi because it worked for his wife. Christi wanted to tough it out, so we didn't get it. However, since the doctor prescribed it she decided it was time to take it. It has worked pretty well so far, until last night. She got sick again after eating Waffle House. I think it was probably because Waffle House is so greasy that baby didn't like it, but I have no idea. One thing that we've learned is that baby doesn't like french fries or anything similar, such as hashbrowns. This is monumentally disappointing to Christi since she loves french fries. Back to the doctor's visit. They scheduled another appointment for Christi on Friday because they wanted to check her fluid levels again to ensure that she was staying hydrated enough. The doctor said to drink some drinks with some calories, such as gatorade, and to increase her water consumption to help stay hydrated until the sickness passes. Christi had been doing pretty good until the afternoons when everything came back up.

After the visit, we picked up the prescription and bought some gatorade. The Zofran worked that night and Christi drank a lot of fluids the next 2 days. She went back to the doctor Friday morning and everything checked out OK, which was great news. My cousin works at the doctor's office where we go and we talk to her a lot while we are there. She was able to sneak Christi into the sonogram room and Christi was able to get a free sonogram done. I was sad that I wasn't there, but I do have some more pictures to post. Wow, the baby has grown really fast. The sonogram lady showed Christi all of the baby's features. She also said that she thinks it's going to be a boy! Of course, it's too early to get a definitely sex (week 20 is the week for that), but my cousin said if she told you she thinks it's a boy it more than likely is a boy. I'm excited, Christi is too, but she wants a girl. I'm still not sure if it's a boy or a girl because I know it's hard to see everything the need to see at this stage. Honestly, although I prefer a boy because boys are way cooler than girls, as long as he or she is a healthy I'll be thrilled and perfectly happy. One cool thing that the sonogram lady did was show that the baby can move around at this stage. When they were doing the sonogram, the baby was asleep, so she pushed on Christi's belly to wake him/her up. Christi said it was awesome. The baby was like "Woah, what's going on out there! Agh!" and his/her little arms and legs were flailing around and it started to move around. Very cool.

Thursday we went over to Jody and Jessica's to go swimming. We got good news from them - they're buying a house! We knew they had put an offer in on a house and they got word that they are getting the house. Good times. I was going to swim with MacKenzie. I wore my suit over to there and put my keys and my phone in my pocket. You can probably see where this is going... I laid my shirt on the table and MacKenzie was pulling at my arm to go swimming with her. Without thinking, I walked over to the edge of the pool with her and jumped in. Keys, phone, and all. I realized after a few seconds that my things were still in my pocket. I know, it was a pretty stupid thing to do. Thankfully my car keys still function properly, but the phone is dead. I'm going to try to dry it out, but so far nothing is working. I went to the Sprint store to see about getting a new one. Naturally, since I took the phone insurance off of the account in January, we have to pay full price for a new phone. I was mad because full price is now 2.5 times what we paid for the phone initially, which was right when they launched the Rumor. We can get $75 off of the Rumor 2 (can't buy the Rumor), but we have to extend the contract 2 more years. We don't want to do that because we're not super happy with Sprint. So, now I'm rocking an old school Nokia that Christi's mom had saved. It still has texting and I programmed it so that it works with my phone number, but I have 0 contacts. So everyone, please send me a text with your name in it and I can save that number! Thanks! I'll be slow to respond because it doesn't have a full QWERTY keyboard and I'm not used to pressing the button 3 times for 1 letter; my old phone spoiled me. I'm going to keep trying to dry out my phone this week. If I can't, I'm going to try to buy one on Ebay or somewhere similar. I'll keep you all posted on that development.

That night we went to Mikata's to eat some great Japanese food. Another couple sitting next to us was horribly demanding. The guy kept changing his order after the waitress had taken the orders and given them to the chef. He got an extra piece of chicken to go with his chicken and shrimp and wanted to substitute his salad for something else but had to pay for that, so he changed his mind on that. He also called the waitress over right when the chef was coming out and said that he wanted double egg on his rice (he got double fried rice instead of veggies, too.) Since it wasn't on the ticket, the chef starts doing all of his tricks and making the rice, etc. The guys calls the waitress over again and asks about his double egg. A waiter comes over to ask what is the problem and the guys tells him that he wants double egg. So that waiter goes to the kitchen and comes back with 2 fried eggs. The chef stop him and says, "Hey, this ain't Waffle House, we don't serve eggs like that." It was pretty funny. The chef gets the waitress to explain what the guy wants. He's not happy that it wasn't on the ticket to make rice with double eggs for the complainer, but it isn't the waitresses fault because this guy kept changing his order. The chef claps his hands together really loud twice and another waiter appears out of nowhere. He speaks some Japanese to him and the waiter comes back quickly with 3 more eggs to cook. Impressive. I'm trying to get Christi to learn that, but so far no success. It was a great meal, despite being stuck with the complainer. The chef was really good and had some good jokes. When he put Christi's veggies on her plate, Christi started to eat some and it was hot. So she's holding her mouth open saying "hot, hot, hot" and trying to swallow the food. The chef looks at her and with a straight face says, "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you your food just came off the grill." It was hilarious. Christ was ok despite being the subject of a joke (he also got her with the ketchup bottle trick.)

Last night we were at Christi's parents house moving furniture. They are getting their hardwood floors resurfaced and EVERYTHING has to be out of the house by Monday. They've rented a storage unit and are putting a lot of things in there. Thankfully, some items can be stored in their downstairs basement since it doesn't have hardwood floors and it can be shut off from the rest of the house. They have a lot of really nice, really heavy wood furniture and some antique pieces as well. We spent several hours there last night but didn't get finished. We'll be going back this afternoon to finish moving things out.

I have some errands to run and I want to cut the grass before I have to leave tomorrow on my trip, so I better get going because I'll be at the Grizzard's house the rest of the afternoon. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Honor the Soldiers

I have the privilege of working with several soldiers, most of them officers, at my job. I was talking with one who I consider a friend on Friday. She's a 1st Lt in the Air Force, graduated from the Air Force Academy with a degree in aerospace engineering with a focus in space systems, and we were talking about what this weekend meant to her and the other soldiers. She was upset because she had just gotten news that her friend and chemistry lab partner at the Academy had been killed by a IED on Wednesday in Afghanistan and just found out about it that morning. Here are a couple of articles talking about her friend, 1st Lt Roslyn Schulte Denver Post Article , Hometown article.

We talked a little about the sacrifices they have to make in order to do their jobs. I've learned a lot about their lives from talking to them and working with them. At the end of the day, they are just like me. We have a lot of the same interests, quote the same movie lines, listen to the same music, etc. One thing that stands out to me is that they all are dedicated to serving this country. A lot of them I have talked to feel like they could be doing more to help the soldiers overseas and want to go over there to help.

It's crazy to think there are thousand of soldiers - enlisted and officers - who are my age serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the world to keep our country safe and our freedoms intact. It's very humbling. I know sometimes I complain about a lot of things, but when I put it into perspective and consider what our country could be like and how so many families are sacrificing so their fathers, mothers, and children can serve and protect our country - I don't have anything to complain about. I've been blessed with a wonderful, loving, beautiful wife, a baby on the way, a supporting and loving family, and awesome friends who are always there for you when you need them. So, on this Memorial Day, just take a moment to remember those who have served, past and present, and thank them for what we have and what they do.

I'll leave you with this quote that was given to me by my friend.


"It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us the freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the Soldier, who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protestor to burn the flag."


-Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

The Week That Was

There was a lot going on this week. I'm trying to be more concise and less verbose since it makes for easier reading. I'm going to try to list with a few quick points about each thing I was going to mention.

This was Christi's last week of school and she is very excited to be done with the school year, although she has 3 post-planning days to go to next week.

I helped Sappoo (my grandfather) put together his new entertainment center, connect his new HDTV, and set up his HD cable. He bought a really nice TV. It looks really good and I think he's very pleased with his purchases.

We went to Annie's graduation Monday, which you already knew about. However, you didn't know that we went to Logan's after for a graduation dinner (her choice) and it was even worse that it was the last few times we went. I'm not sure how they are still in business.

A lot of progress has been made on Christi's parent's house. They're painted the room that had new sheet rock installed, the deck has been built, the new french doors leading to the deck have been installed, and they've been getting light fixtures and other finishing items to install once the workers get finished. I think the floors are coming next along with the new kitchen counter tops.

No basketball this week. A lot of people had to work or were busy doing other things. I think we'll be playing next week.

Christi did not get sick Monday or Tuesday. We thought maybe she was getting past the sick phase, but Wednesday through last night has been a return to normal operating procedures.

Work has been busy for me. I'm working on an important project as well as trying to get some travel plans in order. I'm going to a city right outside of Cincinnati, Ohio the first week in June and then to Chicago, Illinois in July. I'm excited because it's my first work trip, but I don't want to leave Christi, especially since she's been sick

Christi has come down with a cold. She has a fever, runny nose, headache, and sore throat. I bought her some medicine that was on the approved list the doctor gave to us. She didn't want to take it, but I think it got to the point where she was so miserable she had too.

We went over to Jody and Jessica's place last night for the first time in almost 2 weeks. We normally hangout after work, but since Christi has been getting sick we've been staying home most of the time. We got over there around 4:45 and were going to try to stay all night and eat dinner, but Christi wasn't feeling good, so we left about 7:30. Even though we didn't get to stay as long as we wanted, we had a good time hanging out with all of them. Kaden is getting very big and McKenzie is growing up fast as well. Jody's brother Jesse and his finacee Jaymie were there as well. That's a lot of J's in one room.

As for the rest of the week, I'm not sure what we are going to be doing. I'm very happy it is a holiday weekend and I'm going to be enjoying my extra day off. I'd like to grill out on Memorial Day, but the weather has been rainy lately and it doesn't appear to be clearing up anytime soon. Jody mentioned that his parents were going to the lake to grill out if the weather clears up, so I think that's what they'll be doing. We might just end up chillin around the house, depending on how Christi is feeling. I don't want to keep her out too long or take her anywhere she doesn't feel like going because I want her to get well. She was a trooper last night staying as long as she did, but I realized when we got back home that she was drained and was feeling miserable.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Don't forget the reason we celebrate it. Take care

I feel old

Last night my sister graduated from high school. My brother graduated last year. I graduated a whopping 6 years ago. I remember all of their friends growing up. They were all so young. Now they're all in or about to be in college. I just got out of college not that long ago. They don't seem old enough to be where I just came from. What is happening in this world?!?!?! I have to remind myself that I'm only 23, but it really feels like time if flying by. I feel like it wasn't that long ago that I started my job. Next month will be 1 year - 1 YEAR! Wow.


It was great to see Annie graduate last night. I was very proud of her and I'm curious to see what she decides to do and how she is going to grow up. Well, she already is grown up, I suppose. I was looking at all of her friends and classmates and noticed how excited they were. I remember being there. It's an exciting time. Looking back, I remember thinking I had made it when I graduated high school. Boy was I wrong. There's so much more to life and so many more challenges, opportunities, and big decisions in your lifetime. You have a lot of growing up to do. In college, no one really cares what you did in high school. You have to prove yourself all over again. It's a tough road, but it was a lot of fun. Of course I wanted to tell her all of that and give all kinds of wise brotherly advice, but I didn't. I think part of learning and growing up is experiencing it on your own. If I tell her what she should and shouldn't do, how I think the world works, all of my findings and how I made it through college, etc - then she really wouldn't get to find it out herself. Besides, if I was that age and someone had told me this is what you do, I probably would have done the exact opposite. If for whatever reason she decided to listen to me, she wouldn't get the experience herself and because we're 2 completely different people, it could really hurt her instead of help her. All in all, I'll be hear if she ever needs someone to talk to or advice about something, but I'm not going to just tell it to her because it's not my place. She's going to make her own choices and learn what to do. And I'll be proud of her no matter what.

Put your finger in a table saw?

Saw this on TV in Time Warp (no pun intended) and I had to share it. Would you put your finger in this table saw?


Time Warp Saw Stop Experiment


Brilliant invention

Basketball, Training, and a Baby Update

Then end of the week came faster than I thought it would. The last two days of my training class went well. We had to take tests to pass the class on Wednesday and Thursday. I got all of them right on Wednesday and only missed one on Thursday. I'll take that all day. Just in case you were wondering, a cumulative score of 80% was required for passing. Most people passed, but a guy on my team from Marietta didn't pass. This class was all about acquisition strategy and you were required to work in teams with people from various career fields and services (Army, Navy, Air Force, contractors). Overall our team was very good, except for that one guy. Each lesson you were presented with a scenario, had to weigh a bunch of choices, make a decision, brief it to the class and defend your choice. According to the instructors we the correct choice every time, which was rewarding. It was also challenging, because there were times where we were the only group (out of 6) that made that choice and having to defend it against their questions was difficult, especially when they all think are right. Overall, I enjoyed the experience and actually learned a lot, which is much better than some of the previous training classes I have been too.

Thursday night I played basketball again. It's becoming an every week thing and I'm really enjoying it. I played the best this week that I have so far. I led the team in scoring all 3 games and we won all 3 games. We played with a new ball and it was very slick, so I wasn't handling the ball as well as normal because it was tough to keep it on your fingertips when dribbling. The 1st game was my worst game. It took a minute to get my legs under me, mainly due to the fact that I ate Waffle House 10 minutes before playing, which was a bad mistake on many levels because that grease was bothering me the whole 1st game and half of the 2nd game. Still, I felt I played OK and was shooting really well despite tasting my hash browns the entire time. The third game was epic. We won the first two by decent margins, but the third game was close. A guy on our team sat out the last game and his nephew, who is probably 13 or 14, played the last game with us. He had to guard a guy that was a foot taller and 60lbs heavier. Of course it was a huge mismatch, but everyone else was bigger, faster, or quicker so it was the only choice. We had to play a lot help defense and it caused our guys to get open shots. Despite that, we hung in there throughout the game.

We play to 24 by 2's and 3's and you have to win by 2 baskets. I don't know why 24, that's just what they play to. We were down 22-20 and they had the ball. We made a good stop and I scored on a lay-up to tie it. After that point we went back and forth for what felt like hours. We probably had 12 times where we tied the score both ways. Noone could get ahead by 2 baskets. Finally, with the score tied, I make a good drive and score in traffic. On defense we make a good read and a teammate makes the steal. 3 on 2 break, I'm on the right wing. The ball gets passed to me. I pump fake my defender, dribble left, pull up and shoot right as a trailing defender tried to block my shot. Swish. Ball game. Love that shot. Love that feeling. Even though it's just a pick-up basketball game it's a great feeling to nail the game-winning shot. Especially in someone's face. Of course next game someone will do that to me - that's how it goes.

We've been over to the Grizzard's house a few times to check out the progress. The den (I called it the living room earlier - I was mistaken because that's the other room, apparently) looks completely different, but in a good way. The sheetrock is up on the walls and has been mudded and sanded to fit properly. I think this weekend they will be painting the walls and I believe the upcoming week will result in the demolition of their current back porch and a new deck will be built in it's place. New french doors have already replaced the previous sliding glass doors that led fro the den to the porch. It's going to look awesome when they get finished with it.


Christi has still been very sick. We thought Wednesday night we she was going to make it all day and not get sick, but right as she was going to bed it hit her - bad. We've tried everything people have told us to do. The strange thing is that it's a night sickness and everyone else has had morning sickness, so it's just not working for whatever reason. I'm still working on getting Christi to post. I know she can provide insight, humor, and details into the things she is going through that I honestly just can't convey. All I can give you is my viewpoint, which right now seems helpless because I can't do anything to help her not be sick and it's a horrible feeling, to be honest.

The baby now has graduated from blueberry size and is up to a large raspberry. We have both of those berries in the fridge right now and it's crazy to look at them and know that is the size of the baby. Incredible. Christi has actually lost weight, but a baby bump is starting to show. She's tired and only wants to go to sleep or relax on the couch. At first she was having cravings for Asian food, but now that she's been sick she doesn't want to eat anything because she knows it's coming back up. Still, she tries to eat foods that are supposed to be easy on your stomach, but nothing is staying down. Any ideas are much appreciated because we're running out of foods.

That's all for today. I'm not sure what we are going to do today, but it's 12 on a beautiful Saturday and I want to go outside and do something. Have a great weekend!

It's a Wednesday

It's hump day. I'm in an off-site training class all week this week so I can't really complain. The class has actually been fairly interesting so far and I can say that I actually learned some things this week.


We just got back from eating at Ingelside Village Pizza with Jody, Jessica, McKenzie, and Kaden. It was great pizza - best in town (at least until the Mellow Mushroom gets finished later this year.) Because of our schedules, this was the first time since last we were able to sit down and hang out with them. It was great fun with great friends. Hopefully it won't have to wait until next week until we hang out again.


As I mentioned in my brief post last night, we've been pretty busy lately. I won't go into tons of detail like I normally do since that makes for a long and boring post. We've been busy working in the yard, getting things done at work, taking care of Christi, and just doing a lot of little things that end up taking all day. Last night we went over to Christi's parents' house to help move furniture. They're in the process of redoing virtually every room in their house. Today work started on their living room and kitchen. They're doing a complete renovation in those rooms and they needed to get a lot of their things out of that area so the workers could come in today. Every other room they had done themselves, but since this is such a big undertaking they decided to let the professionals do it. I think it was a good move. It's going to look really good when they get done.


I played basketball again last Thursday. It was a lot of fun and I played better than I did last week. I scored a decent amount of points, was 50% from behind the arc (much better than last week), and overall played really well. I forced some passes early in the 1st game but settled down and had 0 turnovers the 2nd and 3rd games. We won the 1st and 3rd game by large margins and lost the 2nd by 2 pts. Jody and I were on the same team all 3 games along with some of our other friends - Cody and Josh - and we all played really well together. Jody and my styles of play compliment each other very well and it worked to our advantage several times with beating our guy to the basket and kicking it back out when the other defenders collapse on us, leaving each other wide open for a nice 3. Beautiful. I'm not sure if I will be playing tomorrow night, but hopefully over the summer we'll be able to keep playing about once a week. It's a lot of fun.


Pregnancy update: Christi is just over 10 weeks pregnant this week. We go back to the doctor on May 27th to hear the heartbeat and do whatever else they have to do during that visit. Christi has been incredibly sick the past 3 weeks. Ever since the nausea started, she has thrown up every single day, except for 1 night in which she miraculously didn't get sick. Hopefully it won't last much longer. I'm going to start a new entry each week detailed what's happening with the baby and what she's going through. I was trying to get her to write it because she obviously knows more about it than I do, but she's too tired to do it (besides, I don't want her puking on the keyboard so maybe it's a good thing she can't.) Maybe down the road I can get her to write some entries.


Enough writing for today. Time to go fold some clothes and watch the tube with the wifey and baby.

Still Around

Drive by posting. Apologies for extreme lack of posting. I haven't been online much, if any, since the last post. Things have been really busy around here. I will post details later; just wanted to let everyone know I'm still here. Good night.

Very Busy Weekend

We did a lot of things in a short period of time this weekend - and we had a lot of fun doing it.


Friday night we met up with Jody, Jessica, and Kaden at Carrabba's. We enjoyed a great dinner and had a chance to hang out with our good friends. All of us have been pretty busy lately and we enjoyed the chance to sit down and share a great meal with them. The waiter we had was an old "boyfriend" of Christi's way back when they were in daycare in elementary school. After dinner we wanted to hang out at our house, but Christi wasn't feeling well so we decided we'd go home and relax. Good thing we did because Christi became really sick shortly after we arrived home. She's been very sick the past several weeks and has thrown up a lot. I wish there was something I could do to help, but I can only keep her hair out of her face...


Saturday was an extremely busy day. I went that morning to play golf with Blake and Sappoo. Jody was going to come as well, but his ankle was still bothering him a lot. Making matters worse was it is his pivot foot when he swings, so he decided to stay at home - a wise choice, I thought, since golfing would only make it hurt worse. We had a lot of fun playing. Blake made a hole-in-one on the par 3 6th hole. It was amazing! I've never seen that before, much less made one of my own. Naturally, he was on could 9 the rest of the round and played really well the rest of the way through. He ended up with an 85, which beat my 89. I played poorly on the back 9, specifically on holes 12-16. Just a mental lapse and frustration. Overall it was a lot of fun. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Sappoo probably ended up with around an 82. He always beats us. He's so good. It is a lot of fun playing with him and being able to spend time with him. It was a great start to the day.


While I was playing, Christi went to Lowe's to get some flowers for our plant area in front of the house. She was feeling well enough to pick out a bird bath and several types of flowers for the planters on the back porch and the plant area out front. We've been talking about doing this since we moved in, but we finally did. When I got back from golfing, we planted them with a lot of help from her mom, who came over to give us a hand. I think it looks great now. I'll post pictures of it soon.


Annie's senior prom was Saturday night. We went over to my mom's place during planting flowers to see her before her date picked her up. She looked pretty in her dress. We weren't able to go to her lea-out, though, because of what we were doing that night.


Saturday night we went a wedding. My cousin, Wade, and his wife to be, Brooke, were getting married. They had the ceremony at a really cool hunting lodge called Beaux Eden Plantation. It was an outside wedding that started later in the evening, just before sundown. The reception was also outside and under a tent. This was important because about an hour into the reception it started to rain! That wasn't good at all. Thankfully the tent was huge and everyone could crowd under it or inside the great-house, but their presents did get wet; we ran and got them before it was too late, though. The reception was a lot of fun, despite the rain. I got to see a lot of my family members that I only see once or twice a year. Everyone was talking about the baby; even the bride and groom congratulated us, which was a little weird because you normally congratulate them (which we did). It was a fun evening with some dancing, enjoying time with family, and celebrating a new union in our family.


Sunday I went to the airshow on base. There were a ton of awesome aircraft there. I took a lot of pictures and will post them later. The Golden Knights were there along with the Thunderbirds and several other big attractions. It was very entertaining. I walked around in a lot of static displays, several of which ended up flying later, which was surprising since so many people were touching them and who knows what some little kid had pulled off. I watched the show with my friend, Jason, and his finance, Meg, as well as his parents who drove down from Kennesaw. My only regret is not triple-layering my sunscreen. I got really sunburnt and I'm paying for it now. It's getting better, thankfully, but I'm going to be peeling soon I think. A lot of my co-workers have been giving me a much deserved hard time. A friend of mine has been the worst. My favorite thing so far that he said to me was "Man, looking at you is like looking at a heat lamp. I'm getting roasted just looked at you." Unfortunately I have no comeback because it's true. Christi was going to come but ended up sleeping in and working on her lesson plans for this week. A wise decision on her part.


Overall, very busy weekend with a lot going on, as you can tell from this mammoth post. I have several other things I will post this week. Enjoy your week.

Busy

This week has gone by pretty quickly. I'm trying to think back on what we have done this week. Monday I had to stay late at work to help with a conference we were hosting. There were some distinguished visitors there (equivalent to 1-star general or higher) so we had a bunch of things to do for that. After that Jessica and Jody came over with Kaden and we ate supper. It's amazing how fast he is growing. I'll have to take a picture and post it to show how big he's gotten in just over a month.


Tuesday Christi had PTA and Math and Science night. I went to school after work to help her setup for Math and Science night and ended up staying for the whole thing. We didn't leave her school until 9pm. It was a lot of fun, though. I really enjoyed working with the kids and trying to teach them a little bit about science. We did a booth with magnets and showed how they were able to attract a paper clip through paper. The we took it one step further and put paint on the paper, the paper clip in the paint, and the magnets underneath the paper and got them to paint a picture using a paper clip and magnet. It was pretty cool and the kids seemed to enjoy it. Christi's principal talked with me about possibly speaking to the kids on career day and what an engineer does. I think that would be fun, but I have no idea how to explain what I or other engineers to elementary students. Any ideas? I was thinking about trying to relate something they are familiar with (video games, tv, cars) and what an engineer does with those and then transition to what I do (fix airplanes). I'm not sure how to do that, though.


Wednesday we both got home at a decent time. Christi's grandmother went to a local farm and picked us some fresh strawberries. I was very excited about that because I love strawberries, especially ones that are fresh off the farm. Christi went by her parents house, which is where Nana left the strawberries, to pick them up and we ended up going out to eat with her parents and brother. When we got home we crashed on the couch.


Last night Jody called and asked if I wanted to play some basketball at the church. Went went and played for about 2 hours. I haven't played in a long, long time so I was expecting to be horrible. My shot was way off, but I think I did ok handling the ball and made some good passes. I led in scoring for my team in a few games but that was mainly on layups because I couldn't hit the ocean from outside. One play Jody went up for a rebound and came down on my foot. He ended up with a really bad twisted ankle and had to sit out the rest of the games. I felt bad because it was my foot, but it was an accident for sure. He said he was weak ankles and rolls them a lot. It was a lot of fun and I definitely want to play again. We were supposed to play on a church softball team but they didn't have enough people sign up. Playing basketball would make up for it. I'm looking to get back active playing some sports. It's something I really enjoy doing.


I think we are about to go meet Jessica, Jody, and Kaden for dinner so I need to wrap this up. Have a great weekend everyone!