Start of High School Baseball

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This past week, high school baseball games started.  Evan played 5 games this week.  He played up near Killen, TX (near Ft. Hood) in a place called Copperas Cove.  The game was in the high school baseball stadium. It was pretty nice with a working scoreboard and nice dugouts.  Evan caught most of the game and was in centerfield in the last inning.  He walked in both of his at-bats.

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, he played in Hutto.  On Thursday night, it was cold and misty so it wasn't the best baseball night.  Evan caught the whole game.  He walked two more times and tried to bunt for a single.  He would have been successful but he slipped running to first base.  Even still, he almost was safe even with the slip.  

Rachel and Noah attended Friday's game.  Evan pitched the first inning, ending the inning by freezing the batter for a called third strike on a sinker. He played shortstop for two innings and left field for the final inning.  He walked, struck out and popped out in the game.  After the game, we picked up Mod Pizza.

On Saturday, Evan played two games.  I watched his first game.  He caught all but the last inning where he played centerfield.  His first at bat was great.  The coach was really happy with him.  After falling behind, 0-2, he fouled off 5 pitches while working the count to 3-2.  On the eleventh pitch, he crushed a ground ball down the third base line.  The third baseman made a great play just to catch it but he had no throw and Evan wound up at first with a single.  In his next at bat, he hit a line drive past the second baseman for a single as well. 

Rachel, Grandma and Papa came for the second game on Saturday.  Evan started the game pitching and pitched 3 innings.  He really looked good pitching.  His stats were not great as his defense made several mistakes.  Evan's coach told Evan that he counted 12 either actual errors or mental errors while Evan was pitching.  Even still, he really looked good.  He pounded the strike zone and kept the team in the game as best as he could.  He singled in his only at bat and took second on a throwing error.  He caught the final two innings.

While the team isn't great, the experience has been great for Evan.  He's getting to play a big part on the team and he's getting great high school experience.  I like his coach.

When we got home yesterday, Evan and Noah played wiffleball outside.  Then there was a block party for our street.  Evan came out with us but Noah stayed in.

This morning, Rachel went for a walk with her friend, Leslie.  She stopped at Black Rock and got drinks for us on the way home.  Evan and Noah played wiffleball outside again.

In the afternoon, after putting a bunch of stuff back in the attic, Noah and I watched a movie.

Rachel and I went to HEB before dinner and then picked up Torchy's for dinner.

Until next time...

Exciting Night

 This morning I met Leslie, a baseball mom, to hike at the greenbelt.

I was supposed to tutor at 4:30 this afternoon, but the student did show up on Zoom. The mom called to tell me their internet was down, so I ended up not tutoring.

After that, Morry and I went to Randall's to pick up some things for Thanksgiving.

We ate dinner and then Morry and Evan went to his baseball lesson.

On their way home, they found a lost dog in the neighborhood and brought it back to our house.  Morry posted on Facebook, but no one responded.  Morry brought the crate downstairs thinking we were going to have to hold on to her overnight.  So, I did some digging around and found someone post about a lost Husky back in April, on NextDoor, with a similar description.  So I reached out to the lady on Facebook.   It turned out to be her dog and she didn't even know it was gone.  So, she just came and got it and thanked us.  Chewie had a fun time playing with the dog in our backyard until the owner got here.

Here are a few pictures from today and yesterday.

Fun Day

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning I got up before everyone and did some work.  Rachel got up shortly thereafter as she had a conference call.  I then left to go to HomeAway.

Rachel and the boys met Uncle Billy, Leslie and Aunt Susan for brunch at Magnolia Cafe.  They seemed to have a good time.

From there, Rachel and the boys walked around Lady Bird Lake.

After that, they met up with Lorena and Owen and went bowling.  They were able to get two games of bowling in.  And then the boys used gift certificates they had gotten for their birthday to get ice cream at Amy's Ice Cream.

When I got home, I took the boys to HEB to get some stuff.  Rachel stayed at home.

We had some leftovers for dinner and then took a walk.  We went by Grandma and Papa's new house.

Until next time...

Exciting Day

Today was an eventful day.  Grandma and Papa went to check out the house this morning.   They were gone about two hours.  When they got back they told us they had put in an offer.  They loved the house.  Now, they just needed to wait.

For lunch we went to the Steeping Room.  There, Papa got a call that their offer was accepted.   Very exciting!  The next step is an inspection on Tuesday.

Grandma and Papa went back home to Dallas after lunch.

After lunch we went to a mattress store to pick out a new mattress for Morry and me.    We picked one out and it will be delivered on Friday.  When we get our new mattress, we'll put our old one in Evan's room to replace his bunk bed.

Uncle Billy and Leslie came in town today.  They are staying at Aunt Susan's house for a few days. For dinner, we met them and Aaron's family at Matt's El Rancho.  We had a good time there.  It was fun to see everyone.

Now, we are home.  Soon, we'll get ready for bed.   It's been a long day.

G-Force

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning we planned on going to see G-Force at the movie theater. Evan had seen the previews and wanted to go. So we knew we had to get going on the earlier side. Around 8am, while we were still sleeping, the phone rang. It was the vet calling with Mottel's blood test results. The results were negative so he is not vitamin B-12 deficient and he won't need any more B-12 shots.

We were able to get going and go out of the house when we had planned to leave. I had set that as a target time figuring that we not make that and so buffer was built-in. So we got to the mall early where the movie was playing. We bought the tickets and Evan and Noah played with the fire truck strollers that you can rent at the mall. Also there was a photo booth which Evan said was his spaceship. After a while, we went into the theater and Evan and Noah pretended to play with the video games while Rachel held seats for us as well as Aunt Susan, Aunt Donna and Leslie. 5 minute before the movie I brought the boys in and then went and got popcorn for us.

The movie was pretty stupid. I knew it would be. But I think Evan enjoyed it. Noah did pretty well there too. Both boys ate a bunch of popcorn. I also had soda (we had a coupon for free popcorn with the purchase of a soda) and Evan kept grabbing my soda when I wasn't looking and drinking it. It was Coke.

Before the movie, there was a preview for Toy Story 3. It was the same teaser trailer that Evan had seen at home. Nevertheless, Evan was mesmerized while it was playing. As soon as it was over, Evan looked over at me with a huge smile. I think I'm getting just as excited as him to go see it. The thing is I'm excited to see Evan see the movie. In October, they are re-releasing Toy Story and Toy Story 2. Obviously, we'll take the boys to go see them.

After the movie, we went to Rudy's with everyone. The food was good but I think the boys were starting to get very tired. Evan was very antsy.

On the way home, Evan fell asleep. That is really bad news because Evan doesn't transfer. Once you wake him up, he won't go back to sleep. That was the case today as he didn't nap. Noah took a good nap though.

After naps, Barry, Lisa and Lincoln came over. Evan was very excited to have Lincoln over. He said he was going to show Lincoln all his toys. The boys seemed to play together well. I made chicken fajitas and we had salad. I made Spanish rice in the steamer but forgot to put water in the steamer. So there was no steam to cook the rice. In my defense, I was doing about 50 things at once, but still that's a pretty obvious thing. For dessert, Lisa made brownies and chocolate fondue. She brought fruit also. Evan ate the fruit and had a brownie. Noah also ate some fruit and part of a brownie.

After dinner, I helped Lisa with the Content Management System that someone set up for her, for her website. It was not at all intuitive. I think I had it figured out, at least one part of it, when they left. Hopefully that helps her out a bit.

We put the boys down to bed, but Evan is out of his room saying he needs to go potty. Rachel is dealing with him.

Until next time...

Rachel's Birthday

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Today is Rachel's birthday. I think overall, she had a pretty nice birthday.

It started off when my alarm went off at 6:20am. Rachel noticed the light in Evan's bathroom was on. I got up and walked out into the hall. Laying on the floor right against Lizzy was Evan. He had used his blue blanket as a pillow and was laying down against her. I think it had been fairly recently that he had gotten up to pee and decided to lay down next to Lizzy after he peed. I got Evan set up in the game room with a movie playing.

I was working from home in the morning today because I had to take Mottel to the vet for a follow up appointment. I brought Evan downstairs with me to let Rachel sleep and got him set up down here and started working. Shortly before I had to leave, I went upstairs and woke Rachel up to give her the gift that we got for her. It was a 32GB iPhone. Unfortunately, you can't just buy an iPhone so I bought the gift certificate for it and wrapped the box from my iPhone.

I took Mottel to the vet and he's doing fairly well. He gained 1/4 pound which the vet was very happy about. He's had some diarrhea in the last week so she gave him a vitamin B12 shot, took a blood sample and gave me some antibiotics to give to him (along with the steroids and prozac he's currently on).

When I got home, Rachel and Evan were preparing to leave to go to the mall and then lunch. Blanca had come over to babysit for Noah. Rachel and Evan went to the Apple store where she got her iPhone. While she was filling out paperwork, they gave Evan an iPod Touch to play with and he really enjoyed it. They then stopped at Chick-Fil-A and got food for Evan as well as a cookie at the Great American Cookie Co. From there, Rachel drove to Panera for her lunch. They brought Evan's food in. Rachel got coffee and put a sleeve around it. Evan said he wanted a sleeve for his lemonade. He ate very well there and was very well behaved the whole morning.

After that Rachel came home and dropped Evan off and got her hair cut. When she got home she installed a bunch of apps on the iPhone. I think she'll enjoy using it.

For dinner tonight, we met Aunt Susan and Rachel's Aunt Donna and cousin Leslie who are in visiting from Seattle at Fish City Grill. Rachel really wanted crab. Both boys were very well behaving and Noah enjoyed sitting in Aunt Susan's lap. Evan had shrimp and some of Rachel's crab. As we were leaving Fish City, a policeman was coming in. Evan was very excited. The policeman spent some time talking to Evan and asked him what he ate. Evan was shy but he did answer the questions. It was really fun to watch.

We walked over to Yogurt Planet for some frozen yogurt. I shared with Noah while Evan had his own.

The boys are now in bed although I think I hear Evan running around upstairs. I'll probably have to go check on him in a minute.

Until next time...