we had a fun and yummy dinner at the mother ship tonight. small crowd this year, but still fun. matt and celeste are in vegas and ryan and stacey were out of town. those of us who were there enjoyed a delicious dinner of pork roast and it was fun to show off a few costumes.
here's a good group shot:
today isaac and sam's teams played east, our last home game of the season. playing at home is the best! it's so convenient and we can sit on a big hill and look down on the field, which makes it so easy to see the whole field. sam's team was expected to win and did, making us the second place team going into the play-offs next week. isaac was playing an undefeated east team. it was an intense, hard-fought, close game. we fought hard and almost pulled off a win, but ended up losing by a touchdown. that means isaac's team is also heading into the play-offs as the second place team. the play-offs should be exciting.
busy day.
went to the gym. same old depressing thing.
helped with isaac's halloween party. fun, but depressing that we're practically the only school in town that can't have a costume parade.
took jete to the vet expecting the worst, but got better news than i expected. jeter hurt his back and that's why he was feeling so crappy last night. he's on muscle relaxers and pain meds for a few weeks and we're supposed to try and keep him from jumping up on the bed or going up and down stairs. good luck with that.
bountiful hosting timpanogos high school today in the first round of the state play-offs. i would go, but game 7 is game 7 and besides jake is injured. bountiful won by a lot. so fun for those who went i guess.
i stayed home to watch the last game of the baseball season. no more games after game seven. tonight's game not quite as good as last night's game. especially if you were cheering for the rangers which i was. cardinals won. so, fun game for cardinals fans i suppose.
tonight was game six of the world series. sometimes you're just lucky enough to witness amazing baseball like we were tonight. the cardinals and the rangers apparently decided to make this series close. twice tonight the cardinals were down to their last strike before climbing back into the game. in the ninth inning, they tied the game up with one strike left. then in the tenth, josh hamilton (rangers) hit a two-run home run and i thought it was over. i don't think i was the only one though. unfortunately (if you were cheering for the rangers like i was) the cardinals again tied the game up in the tenth with only one strike remaining. then in the eleventh, the cardinals hit a walk-off home run. it really was an exciting game. all the boys were piled on my bed and nobody could do anything productive until the last out was recorded. it will be a fun family memory. this happens to be one of the best postseasons i've ever watched.
as the day went on today, it became apparent to me that jeter was very sick. he hardly moved. i was concerned he had addison's disease after all. during the game we tried to get him to drink some water and interact with us, but he was struggling. i slept on the couch with him in case he had a problem. off to the vet tomorrow...
tonight is supposed to be game six of the world series. baseball days are numbered. the rangers are leading the series 3-2. i planned my whole week around this game, after i got cheated out of monday's game. that's why i went to the choir concert last night. anyhoo, by early afternoon the game had been canceled due to rain. pretty disappointing when you're looking forward to something so much.
oh, and even though i realize it's not very christian and that's the whole idea, i officially don't like sharing the bountiful temple with those homeless ogden temple-goers. it's always so stinkin' crowded in bountiful now. i went at 10 a.m. today--not a seat in the house. and sooooo s-l-o-w.
sam and isaac had a day of football so they spent the evening watching football. this is a big disappointment to me since the world series was on. also a big disappointment, i bought hale center tickets for tonight. i bought my tickets months ago. i really wanted to stay home and watch the game. i told caroline to remind me next year when i bought tickets not to get them in october. we had fun together though. the play was my fair lady. between checking my phone for game updates, i enjoyed the play, except for the last 15 minutes when i was snoozing. but the rangers won!
i came home hoping to find that jake had knocked out several pages of the 20-page portfolio he has to finish for a scholarship--due next tuesday. it appears that the focus was a bit lacking. some progress was made, but not enough for me, especially considering he has two nights of choir concerts, a debate class and a football game the rest of the nights this week.
...you can't imagine how happy i am that this day is over. i had to teach relief society. i've never taught in this ward, i guess they only trust me to teach primary age children. i was nervous. i think it went well because i got a lot of compliments, but i'll never be able to teach again because i told all the personal stories i've ever had, so i'm out of material.
sam gave the most awesome talk in sacrament meeting. good thing we have the best talk-writer-helper in the world at our house. most of the ideas were sam's, but he had a little help from craig. he talked about missions. it really was a good talk.
craig had to teach my primary lesson for me and he said the kids were good. that's a rip off because they aren't usually good for me. i have the two rowdiest boys in the primary, one of them is named parry.
oh, and evan is still doing great. he even says his japanese is coming along. he sent a picture of the nagoya-jo today. jo means castle. he took the picture from the top of the marriott where someone took them for dinner. he hasn't actually been able to visit the jo though because it's not in his area. i hope he goes somewhere next where there is lots of sight-seeing.
today sam and isaac's teams played west. west is scary. and dirty. sam thought someone was going to pull a knife out during his game. isaac's game wasn't bad, but the team sam played was horrible. the west coaches were yelling from the sideline for their players to do unsportsmanlike things. lots of swearing, lots of cheap shots. the best way to counteract this, i guess, is to win, which we did. both sam and isaac had their way with the panthers.
uea is fall recess. it's fun unless you have football and can't leave town. like we do. so instead of heading to disneyland or st. george or moab like the rest of the non-football-playing world, we hung around home. this can be good and it can be bad. it's good to recharge and relax but it can be a little boring.
we had a glimmer of hope yesterday when jake texted and said his foot was feeling so much better, could he tape it and finish the football season? because the "specialist" was so squirmy about being 100 percent sure that jake had a broken bone, i decided i should get one more opinion. just to prove that i'm a good mom and all. plus, if someone is going to end their high school football career on an injury, it's best to make sure the doctor is right. i called my trusty podiatrist who has seen us through snake bites, numerous ingrown toenails, warts, tendinitis, and plantar fascitis. dr. anderson to the rescue. after a description of the events of the last few days, he told us to come in this morning and he'd take a look, but he admitted being skeptical about the "break".
so you can see, i got my hopes all up that we might get to see jake play football again. it took dr. anderson all of 10 seconds to look at the x-ray and notify us that indeed the foot is very fractured, cannot be walked on, let alone played football on. furthermore, being noncompliant about the boot will result in surgery. boo. and not cause it's halloween. so bad news is bad the first time, but it's worse the second time.
let's just say that when i finally got home today around 2:30, i got in my bed, pulled the covers up and fell asleep. silly? i know. but i packed so much into the hours between 8:00 and 2:30 that i found myself exhausted.
isaac threw a wrench in things by having breathing problems to start the day off. i went to the gym for 90 minutes. while there, got a phone call from sick-boy asking for a keva juice. left the gym, got a keva juice, delivered it at home. had 20 minutes to shower and dress before leaving for the doctor. spent a depressing 45 minutes there hoping to solve my metabolism problems. didn't happen. ran to dick's to get isaac some heavy-hitting meds to get him breathing again, delivered said meds at home. stopped at five stores for various purchases and returns. picked up dogs at the vet. stopped at one more store. then the crash.
after recovery, i was able to cook dinner while watching the presidential debate (which was very interesting, especially with mitt in the thick of things). never even saw jake and caroline until after 8:00 when their debate tournament ended. and isaac had a football scrimmage (which in a bad parenting move, i allowed him to attend even though he had skipped school). craig provided parental support at the scrimmage.
whew. i guess i wouldn't trade days like this, but i don't wanna have one every day!
so, jake played the best game of his football life on friday against woods cross. i can't count the number of people who told me how well he did. such a great game and a great win. when we were watching his amazing performance, we didn't know that it would be the last time we watched jake play football.
now he looks like this:
we love sundays when we get to hear from evan. his letters are always so positive and upbeat. i can't imagine him loving his mission any more than he does. how cool is it to get positive and happy letters from a missionary? i'm grateful. evan is still serving in kasugai with elder hollister. he wishes he understood japanese a little better and that the japanese people didn't sit on the floor, but other than that, it's pretty rosy.
sam lost his football game today against granger. they had to have been cheating though. i'm sure they had at least five guys over the weight limit. boo for cheating. sam never came out of the game and came home exhausted.
isaac's team got back on track, beating granger today.
in the afternoon, we squeezed in some yard work, a little house work, shopping for sunday groceries and some lesson preparation went on in there somewhere.
then it was time for the halloween dance. caroline's group went as 80s aerobic dancers:
tonight we played wx. it was jake's last game against them. wx hates bountiful and they haven't beaten us for 24 straight years. every year we hear a lot about how this is going to be the year for wx. this year the newspapers were picking them to finally beat us. well, jake had an a-mazing game. really amazing. he played defensive end and d-tackle. he even had a sack of the wx qb in the endzone, caused a fumble and we recovered for a touchdown. it was an honor to watch him and bountiful prevailed. again. maybe next year.
jake is #33:
our last day in new york city. we decided to walk around central park, something i have never done in all my visits there. i loved it. the park is beautiful and obviously fully of landmarks.
this morning we walked around the broolyn botanical gardens, which i very much enjoyed. i'm sure it's much prettier in the spring and early summer, but i loved the japanese gardens.
we hustled up to midtown so craig could attend the conference we were in town for and i went to phantom. i first saw phantom years ago with my mom, and it was fun to see it again.
craig took me to dinner at one of his favorite restaurants. they have one in tokyo and now this one in new york. it was fun to watch them cook our food and then hand it over to our seats on long paddles. plus it was amazing and the kobe beef was like nothing else i've ever tasted--which it should be at $30 for six bite-sized pieces of beef.
today we woke up late again (i'm loving that) then bought tickets for a few more plays. we enjoyed an early lunch at lombardi's, a pizza joint in little italy that evan took me to in may. afterwards we went to the folk art museum up by lincoln center. i love folk art and the current display was quilts, including a patchwork quilt with a square for every single person who was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. it was massive and it was very cool. the folk art musem is right next to the manhattan lds temple, so we ducked in there for a minute.
we were so lucky to get tickets to the new 9/11 memorial that only just opened a few weeks ago. it was stunning. and moving.
today the kids were home hopefully being good in school. the dogs had the run of the place at home. craig and i got up late and walked two blocks to the fabric store mood made famous by project runway, which caroline and i watch religiously. on the show, tim gunn always says "thank you mood" when they leave the fabric store. we even got to see swatch the dog.
today i left the kids at home in their beds and flew off to new york city to meet craig. hopefully they will get up for church and remember that it's fast sunday. i sorta just walked away from it all.
i met craig at our hotel near times square, after i used my iphone to get walking directions from penn station. we wandered down the street through an outdoor market where i bought some sunglasses and a beautiful necklace and then ended up at one of our favorite restaurants, la relais de venise. we ate at this restaurant in paris. it's really yummy. now they have one in new york. we had steak and fries (that's all they have on the menu).
today was full of football games...as usual. we played viewmont this week. sam's team took care of business. isaac's team never loses, but they did this week. by one crappy point. it was a tight, hard-fought game, but we came out on the bottom this time. this is only our second loss in two years. it was a heartbreaker for the kids, but i think it's okay to lose sometimes--it will make us stronger when we play viewmont in the play-offs.
isaac, sam, and i went down to the byu game in the evening. the game started at a very late 8:30 and since i had to get up at 6:00 to catch a plane, we cheered them on for three quarters and then left. byu was able to hold on and win without us.
i have so many strong opinions about what happened at the bountiful/east game tonight.
juicy, controversial & (did i already say this) strong opinions?
but i'm not going to share any of them. my good friend, steve brown, once told me that if you have an opinion, no matter what it is, people won't like you.
not that many people like me anyway, but i'm still not sharing.
we lost 27-0.
and we have to play wx next week.
ahhhh, it's the postseason. my favorite time of year. although i'm totally bugged that the football people think it's football season. i guess it is, but it's still baseball season and it's the most important part.
i love it so much that yesterday i hurried through my work-out and all my errands so i could be home by noon when the first game started. there were four games on yesterday. so pretty much a solid ten hours of baseball. love it!
if the yankees keep winning, craig and i will get to go to a game in new york this weekend.
and the tv theme song for the tv coverage is so cool. although i looked up the lyrics and there's really only two cool lines...the lines they play over and over again. in fact, some of the lines are not repeatable, but i do like...
oh, written in the stars, a million miles away...
seasons come and go, but i will never change
and I'm on my way.
go yanks.
all the kids at my house are complaining about mondays today. that bangles song manic monday has been hummed and sung several times today. it's hard to switch gears back to school sometimes.
today i started a new fitness choice. i'm going to a new gym and working with a personal trainer three times a week. i have to whip this butt back into shape. i just have to. things are getting ugly and i'm down to just a couple pair of pants that fit. woe is me. it's interesting to me the hope i felt when i made a decision and went for it today. i lifted for an hour and then took jeter for a 45 minute walk.
conference is a beautiful thing. my favorite talk was given by a japanese seventy who talked about a boy and his father who both served in the same mission in japan. the son baptized this japanese general authority. yep, missing me some evan. but news out of japan continues to be so great. even though i want to, i really can't complain.
yep, we played the woodchucks today. big game for the little guys in ute conference. big game for the high school too, but that's in two weeks. sam's team has a real rivalry with wood cross. it's bigger because a lot of these kids played baseball together. the woods cross kids definitely bring their worst language and their worst sportsmanship. it was a beautiful thing though, as sam's final score was 39-13. and i wished we had scored more points against them. some of them are straight-up punks.
