Family Addition

No no no, we're not pregnant. On Mother's day 2009, I lost my mind and bought my wife a pomeranian puppy. She is really cute though and besides the 0330 wake up calls to go outside, she's a pretty good pup.

I had been helping a coworker move some furniture to an apartment and on the way back I took a different route to run some errands. Well, at the end of one of the streets was a lady with a kennel in the back of her truck and a sign on the side that said pomeranians....no price, just pomeranians. So, I continued on to drop my coworker off at his house and pick Anna back up. She wanted to stay there and play with his kids. I drove home and dropped by the puppy truck. The lady had 4 pups. 3 females and a male. The male was pure chocolate in color and the other two females were a gun metal gray. One of those was the runt and half the size as Zoey. So, I talked to Cathy and long story short, picked the one Anna liked. I had never received a hug so big as when Anna heard me tell the lady we'd take the black and white one. She even said, "you're the best daddy ever." Of course, I already knew this, LOL just kidding. Well, here are some pictures of the rat. Enjoy.

Quick Update

It has come to my attention that I did not post any pictures of the t-ball team I'm coaching....thanks Ruth. :) So, I'll post them here. They are from practices and the first game. We're supposed to be having official pictures taken in a week or two.

So we (Cathy and I and Anna) went to this parenting seminar that was held on base last Saturday. It was ran by a guy named Kevin McMahon. He's invented this game called "That's the ticket." The basic idea is that you list 5 general areas your children need to work on. Once you've identified the 5 general areas, you pick 5 or 6 specific tasks for them to do, or not do. If they do them, they "win" tickets. If they do not, they "pay" you the tickets. If they want something from the prize board, they must pay for it. For example, 1 hour of tv is worth 10 tickets. A sleepover at a friends house is 100 and one at our house is 200. Why did we go? Well, for ideas mainly, I think we have good kids but no one is perfect. The first 2 days of playing this game, Anna was cleaning her room, Claudia's room, the living rooms, feeding the pets and doing the dishes without being told. When they do it without prompting, it's worth more tickets. After the 1st two days, we impose the consequences of not doing something. The first two days are for the kids to build up a ticket bank. After the 2 days, we start taking the tickets. So far, so good. There are setbacks, but eventually Anna will realize that the things she really likes to do take tickets and the more the better.

Ok, so I said Quick update, so what...get over it. :)

Hobbies

Since no one will probably be reading this, this will mainly be more for my own personal timeline.

Today, Anna had a T-ball game, she's really doing well. One of the better ones on the team and I'm not just being biased. I am biased, but it's the truth. It's hard for me, being as competitive as I am, to not put the best players in the key spots. (Pitcher, Catcher, 1st Base) Our games only last 3 innings so I try to get one inning in with the three best players in the three best spots. I have to "eat" the other innings and do the right thing and let everyone have a chance at those busy positions. I have help from a few parents, they all would help if I asked, but I have some regulars. And, a girl I work with helped me out when Cathy was in Montgomery for her reserve duty. She even came out today to help Cathy in the dugout.

I didn't set out with the intent to be the coach. The original coach is also an instructor here at Keesler and he was placed on nights. The second to last practice he told us that he couldn't coach so I told him I'd do it. It's fun, frustrating at times as people don't raise their kids like we do, not that we're the best, but we're used to our way and when kids don't act like ours, it's frustrating. Another plus is being able to do this with Anna.

So, anyway, back to the reason for the post....after the game, we came back, ate, then I had to harvest some herbs from the garden as they were beginning to overrun their confines. I've planted Basil, Oregano, Thyme, Rosemary, and Dill. This is my third attempt at gardening in South Mississippi. My first attempt failed miserably due to a torrential downpour the day after I planted everything. Then, over the winter, I grew Collard greens and attempted to grow cabbage. We ate the greens, but no chance at the cabbage. So far this year, I've gotten sweet peas and some green beans out of the garden along with the herbs tonight. I need to pick some more beans and peas tomorrow before it's too late. The girls like to visit the garden to look at all the leaves and vegetables. I have cucumbers, tomatoes, jalepenos growing right now and will soon have bell peppers and green onions, yellow onions, red onions, raddishes, squash and strawberries. Hopefully they'll all turn out worth the time I've put into it. I'm going to try and post some pictures with this, if I can figure out how to do it. To anyone unlucky enough to stumble onto this, you'll never get the 10 minutes back.