JP's Baseball Season

JP's baseball season is underway. He plays for a league here in our town. He plays different positions. His team plays in different baseball fields around town. GO HURRICANES!!!

JP a catcher

A Day in the Gardens

School is out here and summer vacation for JP, JA and EM. I took them and one of EM's friend to the Botanical Garden. We love all the different flowers and plants in the garden. It was so beautiful.

Girls are watching the tadpoles

Box Gardening

This year we are trying box gardening. SD and JP built the box garden. We had to purchase bags of top soil and mixed it with manure. We planted tomatoes, carrots, green beans, yellow squash, green onions, hot peppers and Japanese eggplants. AM also planted sweet basils, cilantros and jalapenos in containers.

BEFORE

AFTER

Ward Memorial Day BBQ

We had a wonderful Memorial Day spending time with friends. We had BBQ pulled pork, hot dogs, hamburgers and all the yummy fixings. The kids had fun swimming and we enjoy some musics from our friends. We had fun relaxing and visiting with friends. The weather cooperated with the event and it is a wonderful day to remember all the people who fought for our FREEDOM.

Birthday Sleepover for JA

Decorated some yummy cupcakes

Sleepover will not be complete without personal pillows decorated and signed by all attendees.

We did glow in the dark bracelets and the girls made some fun movements that we were able to video taped. They did an awesome stuff.

Enjoying our homemade pillowcases.

PROMOTION for JP!!!

We are a PROUD Ma and Pa!!! Our one and only boy JP got some wonderful award for his promotion night. He received a President's Education Awards Program for getting all A's. The one and only from his 8th Graders. The certificate has a stamped signature of the President of the United States. He also got a certificate for the best student in Geometry. He got recognized for the only student that made it to the School of Science and Math.

JP we LOVE YOU and we are lucky to be your parents. You are an amazing son and you have grown so much. CONGRATULATIONS on ALL your accomplishments!!!

a busy week

Just so I don't forget because sometime I want to write more about these and add pictures, I looked at our calendar for the past week and realized why we might be exhausted.

SUNDAY-Mother's Day: burned beef and vegetables.
MONDAY-EM: neurology appt. SD goes out marking bike routes early morning.
TUESDAY-SA goes out marking bike route early morning. AM volunteering for Band Banquet, has gallstone attack, JP was suppose to attend award ceremony for Chicago trip, misses this; attends Band Banquet, receives Most Outstanding Band Member for all of the middle school. His good friends take the other two top awards.
WEDNESDAY-EM preschool graduation. SD finds out bike routes have to be changed, goes out marking again.
THURSDAY-JP wakes up early AM to go out to Kentucky for middle school honors field trip. SD goes out marking. JP finds out he has baseball game 15 minutes before it starts.
FRIDAY-SD national bike to work day, get up early to lead ride.
SATURDAY-SD gets up at 4 am to help set up Le Tour. Pouring rain. JP and SD ride 50 mile, 1 hour in pouring rain, then sunshine. Breakdown in pouring rain. JP and SD go to the symphony on complimentary tickets from JP clarinet tutor.

gall stones?!

Tuesday afternoon I get a call on my cell phone from AM, clearly highly distressed with chest pain, not really able to talk during intermittent waves of pain. Thankfully, our friend TE was able to drive her into the emergency room. A quick ECG ruled out a heart attack, and by then the pain had subsided. An eventual ultrasound showed a gall stone, although not necessarily in a position that would 100% confirm that this was the source of her pain. (Apparently up to 10% of people have gall stones, most without any symptoms.) Nevertheless, given the history of having a similar attack about 9 months ago, the most likely diagnosis is the gall stone with the recommendation to surgically remove the gall bladder.

So AM is going in thursday to schedule her surgery. She is generally feeling okay now, although very nervous about the surgery.

Laws of Life Essay Contest

In this past school year I entered in an essay contest created by the local Rotary Club. The essays had to be about a law of life. The story had to be fictional and show the law of life. My essay won second place in my school. I got a neat little certificate and a nice check for $50. Here's a copy of my essay:

Law of Life Essay
(This story is fictional)
As a volunteer in a humanities mission group at my church I got the chance to travel around the world helping others. Through my travels I discovered a law of life; always help others in need, and you shall be blessed. I discovered this law of life during my first group mission. Our group was sent to several rural islands in Indonesia to help the survivors of a recent tsunami in the area. I will never forget my experiences there.
As we flew towards and over a few islands I could see wreckage everywhere. I could see people walking aimlessly, not knowing where to begin rebuilding their lives. There were still people crying, people still looking for lost loved ones. These rural islands were in utter despair. It was a twisted paradise with sandy beaches but bodies were floating in the water. I cringed at the sight of all these atrocities. I could see we had our work cut out for us. So, for the next few weeks, we spent every hour helping the locals in any way we could.
One particular experience really stood out in my mind. We were helping a large family whose house, or more accurately hut, had been completely demolished and blown hundreds of yards away. The family was made up of a grandmother, a mother, and five children. The mother told us that her husband and oldest son were missing. Apparently the two had been working somewhere on the beach when the tsunami hit. She said that she still had not told her children that their father and older brother would never come back. Without their father and older brother, it would be very difficult for them to rebuild a suitable shelter, so that became our main focus helping the family. During breaks from building a shelter the mother told us about all that the family had been through. She told us that they had once lived in decent, clean, and sturdy house. But when her husband lost his job because of an injury, they were forced to move into the lowdown, small shack that now lay in bits some distance away. She said that each day was a struggle to survive. There was not enough food for her children, and they were constantly fighting off sickness and disease because of a lack of medical care. Not to mention they were all crammed in that small and unsanitary hut. I could see they had been through so many trials and tribulations, and yet they had survived it all. Such a strong family bond that existed there! After we learned of all the trials they had gone through we worked twice as hard building and shortly finished a sturdy shelter.
That family was not the only people we got to help. We traveled around the islands helping many people with similar stories as the first family. Most were poor and did not have sufficient living conditions even before the tsunami hit. Each day we helped people with heart-wrenching stories. We did not just build shelters; we also helped pass out food, hygiene kits, and other supplies.
The food that we passed out was neither extremely fancy nor that tasty. In fact the only food we passed out were just loaves of bread, fruit, rice, and jugs of water. The people that I saw were so grateful for the meager supplies. Even though most could not speak English, their faces spoke their feelings plainly enough. What we took for granted in the States was gold on these rural islands. I was just amazed.
On the plane flight back home I reflected on my experiences. I realized what a major difference I had made in the lives of those with whom I had come in contact. I had such a warm, glowing feeling inside I thought I was going to explode with joy. I felt so humbled. Seeing and helping those who were less fortunate than I made me see how blessed I was. It made me even more grateful for everything in my life. I would go on many more humanity missions, but I will always remember that Indonesian trip.

JP receiving the award

Laws of Life Essay Winners

Prairie Home Companion

PROLOGUE

A long time ago, when I was a young boy, I was a lifeguard at the local pool which was not much bigger than most backyard pools. During the mornings I taught swimming lessons and during the afternoon lifeguarded an extremely crowded pool filled with little kids and their mothers. Mostly lifeguarding was kind of boring and an exercise in trying to stay awake in the hot sun for the two 20 minute rotations in the chair per hour while scanning utter chaos for signs of trouble.

But there was one part of lifeguarding I really liked. That was guarding the late evening reservations. Groups would rent the pool for a couple of hours in the evening. The groups were usually relatively small, less than 50 people, often only 20-30, which meant that there was much less chaos and the guarding duty more to facilitate the groups enjoyment. So we only had 2 guards, and we could stand together near the office window, chat, and listen to the radio softly playing in the office while the sun slowly set over pool at the end of a hectic day. It was here that Lon Haskell, a guard who was the older brother of one of my high school friends, introduced me to the radio show Prairie Home Companion. The center piece of the show is the monologue about the events in the lives of the townspeople in a fictional place called Lake Woebegon out on the edge of the Minnesota prairie.

Oral story telling was a central core of my growing up years. We didn't watch that much television, if I remember we had a 30 minute limit per day. Instead of TV, the most important ritual in our home was the reading of a chapter a day by my mother from books like Little Britches, Cheaper by the Dozen, and The Jungle Book. The tradition of story telling surely come from maternal grandfather, who when he came to visit us would regale us with stories from his days as a boy growing up in Moab, Utah. The power of oral storytelling is the license it gives to your own imagination create the images and fills in the details that TV and movies give without effort. Perhaps this why I still rarely watch the news of TV, yet devour the news and programs for hours on National Public Radio. So listening to Lake Woebegon monologues has become an important Saturday evening ritual for us.

A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION COMES HOME


This Saturday, Prairie Home Companion came to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN. As Garrison Keillor has stated more than once, PHC was conceived while he was a young man sitting in the balcony of the Ryman Auditorium when it was home of the Grand Ole Opry. We had never been the Ryman, the tabernacle of country music and the birthplace of bluegrass. So we spent the big bucks and bought tickets to the off-air show. (OK, the first show that goes on air was sold out long before, so we were only able to get tickets to the second, later show that doesn't go on the air.)


The Ryman


At the back of the auditorium were display cases of some of the Grand Ole Opry stars who performed regularly at the Ryman during the 31 years it hosted the Opry. Stars such as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Little Jimmy Dickens, Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, and more. So we gave ourselves a self-guided tour prior to finding our seats.

We settled in to the pews. (Yes, this really is the tabernacle of country music.) The lights went down and the show began. From the beginning it was obvious that being at the second show was going to mean a more spontaneous and fun show. Much more bantering and playfulness, and extended sets and feedback from the audience. So in many ways it had the same intimate feel of the Bluebird or of the late night gig of our friends. Simply put, live music performance is transformational in a way that I can hardly describe.

Some highlights of the show:

Little Jimmy Dickens
In some of reminescences, Garrison talked about not being able to get tickets to the Opry, and standing outside at the window trying to hear the music and catch a glimpse of the performers. He said the one performer he could see all of was Little Jimmy Dickens (being 4' 11"). He then brought the man himself to the stage, dressed in his full rhinestone outfit. The oldest living veteran of the Grand Old Opry, now 88, didn't sign but told a series of jokes before retiring to a standing ovation. Sorry the picture is blurry beyond recognition.


Sam Bush
The leading figure in New Grass, a new movement in bluegrass, Sam Bush and his band, were simply amazing. Sam plays the mandolin with inspiring intensity, joy, and youthfulness. I have since listened to the replay on the on-air performance. Without question, the live performance we listened was simply far better in so many ways. The song choices were different, the interplay between the players was more evident, the banter between Garrison and Sam was not possible on the taped show.


Brad Paisley
Although I am not a country music fan, I have heard of Brad Paisley because my brother-in-law, TK, has some of his albums. It was an interesting performance for someone who is one of the biggest current stars of country music. Brad came off as vulnerable and tentative as any other young aspiring songwriter in Nashville. After starting one of his songs, he stopped and admitted he couldn't remember the words for the moment because the La Bomba song from the skit before was still running through his head. He also admitted that he was rusty because he hadn't been touring while working on the new album and his wife had just had a baby. This eventually led him to play a song which might be titled "Anything Like Me" imagining what the life of his son might be like. He bantered back and forth with some of the audience members and with Garrison and he turns out to be really quite funny and personable. He played several of the songs that he had been working on for his new album and who knows, I might even buy the CD when it comes out. (TK must be falling from his chair about now.)


The Radio Company

One of the great things about the later show was that there was much of the banter between the regular casts was more back and forth, spontaneous with a lot of running commentary. We taped a few clips, if I can figure out how to make them into a postable clips I will do it.

In the end, our show lasted 3 hours, while the normal show only last 2 hours, so we got our lot more fun and performance than the folks who watched the taped show (and we could take pictures!).