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Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008. Jerry Reed, who was just one of my favorite people in the world, passed away this week. Here is a clip of Jackson and I listening to my favorite Jerry Reed song, Amos Moses, in 2004. I've loved that song since I was a kid and still routinely pop in my Jerry Reed's Greatest Hits CD.
Jackson had his second soccer practice last night and I believe he enjoyed it more than any other practice or game he's played in to date. The league is for six to eight year olds, which means he is one of the oldest kids on the team, if not the oldest. That is a fact that he LOVES. He played great. He played extremely hard and asked to play multiple positions. And he also bonded with the other boys his age, congratulating them on good plays. And he just LOVED getting to tell the "rookies" what to do.
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008. Today's photos are
from a handful of sources and are all from Amy's girl's weekend at Virginia
Beach. I'm so incredibly proud of my beautiful wife for having the guts
and drive to both train for the half marathon and to finish it. Amy said that she would
choose to give birth over running that race again in those conditions. It
was very, very hard, but she did it and did it well. Congratulations also
go out to our friends Timmesa, Christie, Sandy and Mandy, because
everyone finished and everyone ran an awesome race. I was very happy that
Amy's sister Sherri was there to cheer for her, especially since the boys and I
couldn't be there.
This photo was taken at mile two by their friend Thelma. You can
see Amy in the upper right-hand corner and Sherri in the bottom left.
Bands played all along the route and the course was lined with people cheering
the racers on. But it was humid. Very, very humid.
While at the beach, Amy and the girls got to eat out, visit with Sherri, Thelma and other competitors from back home, relax on the beach and see at least one band. The B-52s, Eddie Money, En Vogue, Bel Biv Devoe, Billy Idol, The Motels, Warrant and others were playing over the weekend, but they were only able to catch Morris Day and The Time as the schedule didn't lend itself to a lot of late nights of band watching. We are glad to have Amy back with us, but we are also very glad that she was able to accomplish such a huge feat and in the process, spend time with her friends at the coast.
Congratulations AMY!!!! 2 Hours and 32 Minutes in the Virginia Beach Rock and Roll 1/2 Marathon on an extremely hot and humid course.
Saturday, August 20th, 2008. As you can tell by the photos, Ben and his
cousin Seth probably enjoyed today's water fight more than anyone else.
With Amy and my brother-in-law Eric both out of town, Deana and Martin invited my gang and Melanie's crew to
her house for dinner. We got there early and were in the middle of a full-on water fight when Melanie arrived. The boys ambushed Caleb first, then
all the kids got involved, even spraying Papa when he got there. But Seth and Ben were the last to put down
their weapons. Unfortunately, I pretty much rained on the rest of the
parade by later telling Ben that if didn't stop arguing with me that we would
leave. He stormed off, then spun around to spew out another
mouthful and that was it. I lost my temper (it wasn't our first go-around
today) and told him that we were
leaving. We only have a couple of discipline rules in our house and one of
those is that we %100 of the time back up our threats, even when we don't
want to, that way the kids know that if we say something, we mean it. That
worked early and well with Jackson. I'm not sure if it will ever work with Ben
and his temper. Just like Jackson learned fast, we did too, because we learned a long,
long time ago to think through our threats first, because
we don't want to say something if we don't want to follow through with it. That's where I blew it tonight. I should have never told Ben that we would leave, because then Jackson had to leave too. And Deana had put a lot
of work into dinner. So I felt really bad. But hopefully it will be one of
those things that he will stop and remember the next time he and I are in a
similar situation. Jackson was really sad that we left, but perked up
within minutes, which in turn upset Ben because I think he wanted everyone to stay
grumpy with each other. Jackson spent the entire ride home, as he usually does,
talking. This time it was about the future and hover cars. Ben looked at him
and said "Aren't you still sad! Why aren't you acting sad!"
By the time we got home, Ben had finally calmed down enough to think through what had happened. As a result, he was an angel the rest of the night. He ate a great supper (Deana sent us home with food), took a great b*th, then, after calling Amy to wish her goodnight, went to bed on time and immediately drifted to sleep, holding his mom's stuffed bear Leroy. All in all, even with the big showdown between Ben and I, we had a good day. We played a lot at the house, got haircuts, bought our hermit crab bigger living quarters, went shopping and watched college football. I don't think it's going to be a spectacular year for the Hokie Nation, but maybe we'll have some bright spots to get us through. Today we lost to East Carolina.
Friday, August 29th, 2008.
"104 days of Summer vacation,
then school comes along just to end it.
The annual problem of our generation
Is finding a good way to spend it"
from the theme song to Phineas and Ferb, a cartoon on Disney Channel that I love. Today's photo is from how the boys spent their last day of Summer vacation, playing at the pool. Amy is off and away on her Girls Weekend in Virginia Beach with Timmesa and Christi. They arrived safe and sound this evening and are out to eat right now with her sister Sherri. Papa picked up Ben from pre-school this morning and my sister Melanie picked up Jackson from his school this afternoon on her way to pick up Caleb and Izzy from their school. After leaving the office, I picked the boys up in Claudville and came home to start our three day weekend with a movie night and snacks. It's going to be interesting to see how Ben and Amy handle their separation over the next three days, because those two are almost attached to each other. Ben sometimes reminds me of one a little Koala bear holding onto his mom. He's already asleep tonight though, so it's smooth sailing so far. Papa did say that he threw one of his tantrums with him this afternoon and stayed mad for about an hour.
This site chronicles one family's life in Mayberry, NC Other recent posts are on the August page.
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From Gordon Allport's The Nature of Prejudice : "Prejudgements become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge."
