Austin had his first basketball game on 12/13. He was a bit apprehensive going in as he hadnt played in an ‘official’ game prior to that. He is playing in Des Moines, WA. Parks and Rec league, where his team consists of 3rd and 4th graders. Austin is one of the two 3rd graders on the team. After his first practice, his coach came up to me and said; “Austin is a quick little guy. I like that!”
In his first game, he performed magnificently! He was dashing all over the court and picking pockets left and right. He ended up getting 10 steals during the course of the game. Add to that 8 points and 3 assists, and he filled the box score pretty well for a rookie. :) Looks like it is definitely in the genes!
February 18
It was a perfect day until that evening when I was driving Austin to basketball practice. This could have just as easily happened on the 12th or 14th, but its more fun to blame it on this ‘unlucky’ day. We had driven to the bottom of 272nd Street, when my Malibu started coughing up its lung. After its short seizure, it gave up the ghost. There was a lot of traffic, so I put on the hazards while I tried to start it again. (Throw in a few prayers in-between turns of the ignition) It started again and chugged about 15 feet. I was trying to pull into an apartment complex driveway, and got halfway out of the main stream of traffic when it died again. So, I prayed HARDER. My prayer was answered after a couple more tries. I was able to pull in to a parking spot at the apartment. I didnt think it was the gas, because I always reset the trip odometer each time I fill up. Our gas gauge is very unreliable, and sometimes will show up on empty after only driving a hundred miles or so. I found that I can usually get about 275 miles to a tank of gas. Looking at the odometer, it showed that we were at about 218—so I ruled that out. I called LeAnn, and we got the gas can – just in case. After putting the two gallons in, it started up after a few tries. LeAnn followed me in the van to the gas station where I filled up. I was still a bit nervous as the ‘check engine’ light was showing up on the dashboard. I was able to drive around a bit with no further problems, and the car has been fine since.
Friday the 13th part II
After that big hullabaloo, LeAnn and I had planned for a pre-Valentines dinner at Black Angus. We got over the hype of going out on the 14th many years ago. We would usually just order Olive Garden to go, and I would walk by the hordes of people waiting for two hours outside, pick up our hot dinner, and take it home, where we would enjoy it on the china by candlelight. This year, LeAnn had made a 7:30 reservation and we found that there were many other people who were having Valentines Day early. There were about 30 people waiting for a table when we got there. They said about an hour and twenty minute wait. With our reservation, we breezed right by them and were seated within minutes. SWEET! LeAnn had the salmon, and I had the New York Steak. It was a great dinner, and even greater to be able to spend the evening with the love of my life. She turned my bad luck into good.
I ran 11 laps around the track today—on the treadmill at the Java Gym at work. I was shooting for four miles, but my knees told me otherwise. I have been working up to running a 12K in June. For now, I am running one lap at 6 mph, then one at 4 mph. I even snuck one in at 7 mph. It feels like I still must be compensating for my reconstructed knee quite a bit since my right knee actually aches worse than the bad knee. I guess the almost 6 years of taking up the slack by my right knee has worn it down a bit. 3.75 miles is the most I have run in a long time. I feel my stamina is increasing a bit, and my overall fitness is much better over these past few weeks.
February 13
I was brushing this teeth this morning while begrudging my sore knees from last nights basketball game. I was wallowing a bit as I still wish I had good knees to play on which would enable some better performances in the games. Last night was a bit rough as we got trounced by a team with a bunch of young guns. Amidst of these reflections, Jaylin came into the bathroom and gave me a big, beautiful, smile. It made me realize that a bad game and sore knees dont matter much. I would much rather get 10 smiles and 10 hugs from my lovely daughter than 10 points and 10 rebounds in a basketball game
February 11
Last month on our daytrip to the peninsula, we had planned to meet up with my cousin, April and her family in Port Townsend. I haven’t seen April for yeaaaaaaaaaars, so it was fun to get reconnected. I tried emailing her on Facebook to see if we could meet them, but didn’t hear back. I tried calling mom and dad, but no one was home. Same deal at Grandma Hellewell’s. I then ended up looking up Mark Hellewell, her brother in the online White Pages, and actually tracked him down. He seemed surprised to get a call from me. He gladly gave me April’s phone number, so I was finally able to get a hold of her the night before. They have a very cool apartment on Water Street, with a beautiful view of the waterfront. We got to chat with April and her husband, Dave for a bit, while the kids went gaga over their newborn baby, Lincoln. After our visit, Dave asked us if we would like to go tour an old fort with them. It was so great that he would take our whole family on an impromptu tour. The fort was called Fort Worden and the kids had a blast running around the compound. We had a great time with them, and will definitely try to get together again.
February 09
This is something that hasnt happened to me since I was about ten years old. Yesterday, during church, LeAnn made me and Austin sit on opposite sides of her. I remember my mom doing that to us all the time when we were kids. I never thought it would happen to me when I was the adult. (Well, at least there is one adult in our relationship, and apparently it is not me! :)) Granted, I have always been easily distracted, and can often be found making faces at any other kids that sit in the rows in front of us. It is quite easy for me to get Austin going, and he giggles a lot. I dont even recall now exactly what we were doing, but we got busted.
February 03
Last month, on Martin Luther King Day, the family and I had an outing to the Olympic Peninsula. We drove down through Tacoma, and across the Narrows Bridge. It was thickly foggy as we came over onto the Peninsula, but soon it was clear as could be. It turned out to be a beautiful day over there even as the Seattle area was blanketed with fog. Initially, I was hoping to check out a couple of waterfalls in the Olympic range, but we missed the turn-off somewhere and didnt make it out there. The main destination of our day trip was to go to the
’Olympic Game Farm’, which is a ‘Farm’ with free-roaming animals like Elk, Zebra, Llamas, Bison, Yaks, etc. It is located in Sequim, WA., which is on the NE tip of the Peninsula. Once there, you get a couple of loaves of bread and start driving through the park. First up, we encountered the herd of Yaks. They are all conditioned to start drooling as soon as they see a car driving up. They gather around your vehicle and come right up to the windows. You then, depending on your level of braveness can stick some bread out the window for them, or fling it out (LeAnn’s method) to try to get them away from the car. They start slobbering and dripping snot all over your car window. LeAnn was screaming so loud half the time, and I was laughing so hard, it was pretty hard to drive. We each had a child on our lap in the front seat so they could participate as well. (We were in the van where the back windows dont roll down, so they had to come up front to interact with the animals. As we moved along the road, we then came to a pack of Llamas and Zebras. They seemed to have a strategy for slowing the cars down. One of them would walk right into the path the car was driving so you were almost forced to stop. The llamas were very bold and stuck their heads all of the way in the car to get at the bread. We started rolling up the windows half way so that they couldnt intrude that far. Again, much screaming and shrieking and laughing going on. Around the next bend, there are a bunch of grizzly bears.
They arent too animated, but sure are ‘cute’ as LeAnn said. (Until they wrap their massive jaws around your neck, that is.) They have a tiny little electric fence around their enclosures which dont seem like they could stop a grizzly, but apparently do.
There are other animals there that are in actual enclosures—Wolves, Tigers, Rhinos, and so on. It was pretty fun to see. After our first loop around, we decided to take a break and go to the on site petting zoo. Inside, there were a bunch of goats, and one llama. This is where the fun
really began. Austin went right up to the llama. He started to pet it, and the llama was being patient with him… for about 3 seconds. The llama started craning his neck around to get a good look at who was bothering him. This didnt seem to dissuade Austin from continuing to pet the llama. After a few more seconds, the llama got direct eye contact, cleared his throat, and hawked one right in Austin’s face! Austin was shocked and ran away screaming and wiping the loogie off of his face. LeAnn and I were incredulous, but started laughing our heads off just the same. We were totally regretting that we hadnt got it on video. After thinking about that for a minute, and after Austin calmed down a bit, I gave him a new ‘challenge’ or bribe, if thats what you want to call it. I told him that if he went back and petted the llama again, that I would give him a dollar. (yep, thats what you call cheap entertainment!) Surprisingly, he quickly agreed. However, Jaylin also heard my challenge and figured that she ‘wanted some of that action’ and they both approached the surly llama hesitantly. This time, we had the camera rolling! Austin was a bit more cautious this time, and each time the llama turned to look at him, Austin would back away a bit. Jaylin was petting it on the other side. The llama had had enough of the irritation, so it quickly walked away from the both of them. Austin came over to me to see if that was enough to get paid. I told him I hadnt got my money’s worth yet, so they both tracked the llama down again. This time, it was concentrating more on Jaylin. It looked at her leerily for a few seconds and then hawked one up and spit it right in her hair. She screamed like crazy and started crying. (OK, I felt a bit bad after that one) We did capture it on video though and you can see her hair shoot up from the velocity when it hit her. We helped her clean up a bit, and then got out of there—the llama eyeing us warily as we moved out of his pen. Now, THATS entertainment!
, me or him! Austin had seen some Globtrotters on TV and was stoked to see them in person. I remember going when I was a boy, so I wanted to help him to have a similar experience. We actually had some decent seats. We got there about 10 minutes before it started, and went down to the souvenir stand where Austin chose the jersey that you can see him wearing in the picture. We got some popcorn and licorice and sat down for the show. As always, the Globetrotter’s are a blast to watch. Many of the old gags have never died.—Taking a ladies purse and trying to sell it, having a bunch of kids come out and try to steal the ball from one of their amazing ball handlers, incredible dunks. Full court shots, and seeing the poor Generals try to keep up. The Generals coach put out a crazy ball that was supposedly controlled by a remote. It was wobbling crazily for the Globetrotters, but worked perfectly for the Generals. Once, the coach got a hold of the scoreboard and added 15 points to the General’s total score—putting them down by only 2. The main funny man, Big Easy, was a riot. He was the instigator, pulling down guys pants, kissing the ladies, singing and dancing. One of the funniest parts was when they played Globetrotter’s football. The players lined up like a football team, and then ran through all of their previous actions in reverse. At the end of the game (which the Globies won, by the way ;)), Austin wanted to go down for autographs. We ended up stuck in a line for about 20 minutes, but it turned out that we were in a photography line. The Trotter that we got our picture with is called ‘Flight Time’, as he has some good hang time. He kindly signed the back of Austin’s jersey, and we got the picture. 
