December 23
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!
December 17
Despite just a light dusting of snow this morning at 5:50, my bus pulled into the park and ride with snow chains on. Yes, they are very precautious in Seattle when it snows. I moved toward the back of the bus as that seemed where most of the open seats were. I soon found out why. As we pulled onto the freeway, the noise from the chains on the back tires was quite deafening. People in the back started moving toward the front to get away from the noise. The freeways were clear for the most part, so there wasnt really a buffer of snow between the chains and the asphalt. I had worn ear-muffs, so I just kept those on and tried to ignore it. About 5 minutes outside of Seattle, the noise abruptly stopped. The chains had broken right off! It was such a relief to my poor ears.
December 15
A couple of months ago I talked with the family about running a 5K in December. They all seemed OK with it, and we started ‘training’ about once a week. When it was warmer, in October, we went down to Redondo beach and walked the boardwalk. Then in November, we started going down to the mall and taking a few laps there. It has been a fun, healthy activity and good to be together with the family. So, on December 13th, we ran (jogged, walked, etc.) our first 5K together. It was called the “Christmas Rush” and was held on the Green River trail. It was quite cold that morning, so we had all bundled up a bit. We got there at about 9:20 and there were people all over the place. We got our bib numbers for myself, LeAnn, Autumn, Austin and Jaylin. They gave us our t-shirts (Which the kids were quite excited about) and then after taking a few pictures and dropping some items back at the car, we headed to the starting line. When the buzzer went off, we tried to stay together, but it was pretty difficult with the crowds. About five minutes in, Austin got antsy and started running ahead of all of us. When Jaylin saw that, she wanted to catch up with him—so we were all bouncing around a bit. Then Jaylin got tired, so LeAnn slowed down with her for a little bit, while Autumn and I started trying to catch Austin. It ended up that his competitive drive took over and he just bolted ahead in the pack. He is pretty fit from playing soccer, so it was hard to hold him back. Then about a mile in, LeAnn and Jaylin caught up to Autumn and I and we decided that LeAnn and Autumn would head on ahead and I would stick with Jaylin. Now it was pretty amazing to see the tenacity of this young six-year-old girl. She is so strong and determined. A few times, she would just take off running and I would have to hustle to keep up. We started doing intervals where I would tell her that we would walk up to a certain landmark, and as soon as we passed that, we would run to another landmark. I was so proud of her for pushing so hard to get through this. About 15 minutes in, we saw Austin running past us the other direction. He was cruising, so I just told him to wait at the finish line. Jaylin and I then made it around the halfway point and started chugging the other way. A bit further on, she saw LeAnn and Autumn up ahead of us. This gave her her second wind and she really wanted to catch up to them. We started getting closer, but then they started running again and we never quite caught up with them. When we finally saw the finish line in our sights, I kept coaching Jaylin to finish strong and that we should run through the finish line. It was fun to see her reaction as we got closer and many people were cheering her on. I was running behind her saying “Oh no! You are going to beat me to the finish line!” She picked it up a bit and we finished at about the 45 minute mark. Austin, LeAnn and Autumn were waiting for us and cheering us on as well. There were some volunteers there handing out teddy bears to the kids, so they kids loved that.
It turned out great and it was LeAnn’s first 5K run as well. Such a great accomplishment for our family and so fun to do it together. I told Autumn, Austin and Jaylin how proud of them we were and told them how they can achieve anything they set their minds to.
With my new position at Starbucks, I have the option of taking a ‘flex day’ on every other Friday. This worked out perfectly this past Friday as Austin’s class was scheduled to go see the Nutcracker for a field trip. (Sheesh, when I was in elementary school, we were lucky to see the ‘nutcracker’ only if someone brought one for ‘show and tell’!) LeAnn signed me up as a chaperone, and we all ended up going together. Austin looked very sharp as he had dressed up in his suit and tie. I had a great ride on the bus with Austin, even though my knees were jammed up against the seat in front of me. We had a great visit on the way. Before the ballet, we stopped at the Sheraton to see the annual
Gingerbread Village display. Very cool stuff. While there, I was made to feel quite Lilliputian as Sam Donaldson, a Sonics player from the 80’s strolled through the lobby. He is 7’2”, and a mass of humanity. After that, we got back on the bus and headed up to the Seattle Center. We went into the center where we ate our sack lunches. Up on the second floor, they have a large chess set with the two foot tall pieces you slide on a board on the floor. Austin challenged me to a match. We have been playing against each other for a few years as I have taught him some of the intricacies of the game. Im not the greatest player, but Im not too shabby either. I remember playing with my dad quite often growing up. I did not beat him for the first time until I was about 15. That was one of the highlights of my young life! That said, Austin beat my record by about 6 years. I dont know what happened, as I had no intention of ‘letting’ him win, but somehow he put me in check about 6 moves into the game, and I had to give up my queen to get my king out of check… it was all downhill from there. I was able to make it a bit closer at the end, but he ended up whipping me good. He was so excited, he was literally dancing around! Good for him.
Then we walked over to the Pacific Northwest Ballet theater and watched the show. I was quite excited for it as it has been a number of years since I saw it last. I am pleased to report that I only fell asleep two times during the ballet! ;)
December 08
This month began with the ending of Austin and Jaylin’s soccer seasons. Austin’s team, the Pirates, had a fabulous year and only lost one game. Austin was a superstar and the leading goal scorer by far on his team. This was the same team I coached in the Fall of ‘07, but was coached this season by their original coach from 2006. I had a few differences in coaching style as he would often put the kids who were used to playing fullback up front and put kids who hadnt played goalie before in the goal—often when the game was on the line. It almost drove me crazy! Overall, it was a great season though, and it is such fun to see Austin progress so well in the sport I loved so much growing up.
Jaylin’s team was so cute and fun to watch. With the four girls that are in our ward playing on the team, it was almost like having church on the sidelines with all of the other parents there every Saturday. Jaylin is so speedy, and would chase down the ball with intensity. Once she gets her aim down a bit more on her shots on goal, she will be a force to be reckoned with. (Or once the goals get a bit wider than 3 feet across!) Both Jaylin and Austin had their Pizza/Trophy parties on the same day, so we had lunch and dinner at Round Table on that particular Saturday. It was nice to have a brief respite from 2 soccer games on each Saturday upon the completion of their seasons.
On January 18th, LeAnn had her annual Jewelry Show. She did a fantastic job and sold many pieces of her jewelry. With some of the proceeds it looks like she will be taking a ‘business trip’ down to Utah to put on some shows at family members homes down there sometime this spring. She also is doing a show at a friends house up in Millcreek, WA on December 9th, so she is keeping very busy working to keep her inventory up at a good level. Everyone loves her works of art and many people have requested special orders from her. We are working on updating her website and should have a nice new layout and design ready hopefully before Christmas.
Autumn is getting close to starting in the Young Women’s program. She had camp kickoff in November and seemed very excited to learn about the fun activities they will be involved in at camp next summer. It is scary to think that Autumn will be 12 in a couple of months. She is maturing by leaps and bounds and now calls Austin and Jaylin “The Kids” when she refers to them. Autumn is also doing a fabulous job at her Tech Academy. She comes home often and teaches this computer nerd many new things that she has learned with the programs they are working on at school. She made an incredible PowerPoint presentation about North Africa that lets you click on the country name on the map out of three possible answers and then tells you if you are wrong or right.
We had a blast over the Thanksgiving holiday driving to Spokane and then on to C’ouer D'Alene, ID to stay at a condo there with the Thornes. Matt and Anna and family had recently moved to Spokane, so we hooked up C’ouer D'Alene for Thanksgiving. The drive was much nicer than I expected. The mountain passes were perfect, and the kids were surprisingly quiet most of the way over. I guess with all of the technology available these days, boredom is harder to come by. They have their Nintendo DS, personal DVD players, MP3 players, etc. When they got tired of that, they even had some good old fashioned books to keep them company. I didnt end up having to pay them too much at all for the ‘Animal Search game’ which is where I will pay them a penny for each cow they see, 5cents for a horse, one dollar for a deer and so on. They were so busy with their heads down in their electronics that it saved me a bunch of money!
Matt and Anna and Mom/Dad Thorne made up a fabulous dinner at the condo. I definitely love the tradition of kicking back with family, enjoying the sites and smells of the dinner, and then rounding it off with a bunch of great football games. (It was funny when Lisa called and bragged about their “Thanksgiving Buffet” at a restaurant that they went to. Matt went on about how it was "’Un-American” :)) It was so nice to be there on the beautiful lake and we took the kids on a few nature walks down on the lake. The day after Thanksgiving, LeAnn kidnapped me and we went out to brave the crazed crowds of Black Friday in Spokane. LeAnn had gotten online and prepared our route beforehand. We got to Kohl’s at about 4:20 and managed to get out of there without a scratch by 4:45. Then came the scariest place of all—Walmart. We got there about five minutes before it opened at 5:00 and saw the raging barbarians at the gate. There were literally thousands of people lined up. We decided to stand back and let the maniacs surge through before attempting to get in ourselves. It was not too hard to see how that tragedy played out in New York where a Walmart employee was trampled to death. We made it in OK and tried to keep our distance from the crazy people who were grabbing at stuff. We got the few things that we were after then moved on to Toys’R Us. This was the last time that I will go there on Black Friday. We found some good deals, but the line was awful by that time. We stood in it for a hour and a half before checking out. Next time, I will hire a line stander to go to Toys’R Us. We finished up at Target without injury and then headed back to the condo. Mom and Dad Thorne left around noon and then we gathered up the kids and went back into Spokane. We dropped LeAnn off at Ship Wreck Beads, a wholesale bead retailer, where she shopped for some more inventory. While she was there, I took the kids to see ‘Bolt’ at a nearby mall. It was a fun movie. When we came out, we saw that it was snowing pretty good. The kids were quite excited, but it made me more apprehensive for the ride back home that we were planning on Saturday. It turned out that it didnt stick on the roads though, which was nice. On the way back, we stopped in C’ouer D’Alene again and went to a Christmas parade downtown. We met Matt and Anna and Jack and Savannah there and had a a fun time watching the parade. After that, they had a fireworks show on the lake, but it was a bit hard to see the fireworks as it was overcast.
The next morning, we packed up and took a side trip to Leavenworth, WA. It was a bit out of the way and added a couple of hours to our return trip, but it is always fun to go to the Bavarian themed town. It was in full Christmas swing and we had a good time looking through all of the shops. It had been a few years since we had been there, and the town has grown quite a bit. It was totally packed and hard to move in a number of the shops. It was fun driving a different route back through the Cascades and seeing some different scenery along the way.
Todd accepted a full time position to work at Starbucks. After interviewing before Thanksgiving, they offered me the job as a ‘Quality Assurance Analyst Sr.’ I will continue working on automation and test development on a myriad of different Web Applications. It was exciting to get a full time position in these uncertain economic times. It will be nice to get back to having actual benefits after having been a consultant for the past 20 months. It has been a great place to work, and I really enjoy the people I work with and the atmosphere there.
December 02
Here is a little gem from our Thanksgiving holiday which we spent over in Coeur d’Alene, ID. We were staying at a condo on the beautiful lake, and a little bit after our arrival, I looked up at the TV and saw a live turkey that was being shown on the news. A moment after I saw it, I got Austin’s attention by saying; “Hey Austin, Look at that turkey on TV!” As soon as we both looked back at the TV, the image that was showing was that of President Bush. Austin looked at me strangely with questioning eyes. He seemed quite surprised that his dad would call the President a ‘turkey’ (Although I know he has been called much worse) The timing of the comment was quite ironic though considering the state of our nation right now. It was quite humorous as I tried to explain to Austin how the images on the screen had changed at the just the perfect time.
Of the mess that is the Seattle sports scene, the one thing I am looking forward to most is the upcoming expansion of MLS with the Seattle Sounders FC. I also have high hopes for the UW basketball team. Hopefully, these two teams can help wash out the bad taste of this past year. At least the writer from MSNBC below identifies some of the pain this city is going through.
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/27911855/
Do you root for teams from the Emerald City? Then congratulations, you have the least to be thankful for this year.
Your baseball team had high hopes, but finished with the worst record in the American League, and in the process became the first club to spend $100 million and still lose 100 games.
Your NFL team, who had won the division for four consecutive years, is 2-9 and will be without its longtime coach heading into next season.
The two college teams from your state in the Football Bowl Subdivision are a laughing stock (combined record: 2-21, including the only winless team in the country), and needed double-overtime just to determine which one was less bad Saturday (it was Washington State, the team that has lost their games by an average of nearly 40 points).
Then the real dagger: The NBA team that you had supported for years, the only Seattle team to ever win a league title, was hijacked, and taken to Oklahoma City.
And — just to top it off — it's cloudy in Seattle an average of 226 days a year.
We’ll save the drumstick for you.
