Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts

Monday, January 29, 2024

Noah's Half Marathon + NYC Trip for Rachel and Morry

Noah ran the half marathon a week ago.  He did great and got an even better time than last year!  His time was around 1hr 50 minutes.

I had a travel conference in New York last week, so Morry came with me.  We stayed in Midtown Manhattan.

It was a busy few days but a lot of fun.  

Oh, and I don't think I wrote about Scott and Fran coming to visit.  They were here right at the end of Christmas break, and we had a really nice time with them.

And we got a freeze with a little bit of ice, so Evan had to scrape the ice off his car for the first time.

Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks.

















Monday, May 6, 2019

Champions

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

I just noticed how long it's been since we wrote the blog.  It's been a busy few weeks.  Two weeks ago, Rachel was at a conference for most of the week.  Last week, I was in Philadelphia and then Richmond for work.  And this past weekend, Evan and I were in Dallas for a baseball tournament.

Rachel enjoyed her conference.  She feels like she met some good people and made some good contacts.  We'll see if anything comes out of it, but it seems promising.

My trip to Philadelphia and Richmond was good.  I went to Grandmom's retirement party.  It was nice and some really nice things were said about her.  It was also a super productive time at the office.  I think it went really well. 

Evan and I left for Dallas on Friday afternoon.  We were able to get out before the big rains came.  Rachel and Noah went to Panera and on the way home, they saw police cars.  It turns out there was a water rescue not far from Panera because of the floods caused by the heavy rains.  Luckily our house was good and the lighting which was close did not affect Rachel, Noah or the house.

Evan and I went out to dinner with all the families that had made it up to the hotel.  Then the boys went swimming at the hotel while the parents are sat out and talked.

Evan played on Saturday late morning/early afternoon.  His team won both games.  He caught the first game and threw out a runner at second.  He almost threw out another runner.  The throw beat the runner but the umpire said the tag was too slow.  The team won the second game as well.  Evan had a key hit in the game and played third base.  He was also involved in a controversial rundown where the umpire said that the fielder interfered with him and they said he was safe at home.

Noah had a football game in the afternoon.  Rachel didn't think it would happen based on the amount of rain the night before, but they were able to play.  Noah had two QB sacks and caused a safety.  It seemed like he had a good time.

Saturday night in Dallas, we went to a sports bar for dinner.  There is a pool table and arcade games for the kids to play.  The parents all ate together.  Then the kids went to a laser tag place with the coaches while the parents stayed at the hotel.  Evan came back into the hotel with his arm around his friend Elliot.  They seemed to be in a really good mood. 

On Sunday, Evan's first game was not until 11:30.  He was named the starting pitcher for the first game.  The other team showed up late, but they still played.  They did shorten the game.  Evan pitched two innings of no-hit shutout baseball.  The offense took over most of the game and took up the rest of the time.  Evan had a hit and scored a run.  The final score was 7-0.

We wen to lunch and then played the second game.  Evan caught in that game.  He played very well at catcher.  The starting pitcher also pitched well.  The team won that game 6-0.

In the third game - the championship - the team faced a pitcher who was 6'5" or 6'6".  He seemed about as tall as Evan's coach who is 6'6" but we didn't see them exactly together.  This boy was 13.  But Evan's team did not seem intimidated.  Evan had an RBI ground out, knocking in the first run and a well hit line drive that was right at the shortstop.  The boys threw hard, probably in the mid 70's.  But the pitcher on Evan's team was even better.  Evan made three very key plays at third base including two in the final inning.  He looked really good there.  They won the championship, 4-0.  So for the day, they didn't give up any runs.  They allowed two total hits in 11 innings with 17 strikeouts between the three pitchers.

We got home a little after 10pm.

Today, the boys started their 3rd-to-last week of school.  It was a fairly uneventful day.

Until next time...

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Recovering + Getting Back on Schedule

Last night I spent the night at Grandma and Papa's so that I could get some rest.

I spent most of the day resting and doing a little bit of blog work.

Morry was out at a work conference.

I drove with Chewie to pick up Noah from school.

Grandma picked up Noah on her way home from book club.

I drove Evan to Coopers so that they could take him to baseball and then I tutored two students in the neighborhood.  I figured that was a good start to ease back in.

For dinner Morry and Evan had pasta and I had a leftover hamburger.

We just got home from walking to Grandma and Papa's to pick up Noah.

Noah is doing homework now and Evan's playing video games.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

The Belkin Athletes

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Rachel left early this morning to get to the final day of her conference.  Evan was staying over Cooper's so I didn't have to leave as early to get him to his games.  I tried to sleep in some but Chewie and the cats made it somewhat difficult.

When I did get up, I made breakfast for Noah.  He got ready for his football game and I drove him to the fields.  I stayed with him until several of his teammates came.  Then I drove up to Round Rock to get to Evan's first game so I could score it.  Noah is playing up.  He wanted to play with his coach from last year who is coaching a 5th/6th grade team.  We got permission so Noah could play with the older kids.  So Noah told me, he had a big run where he almost scored a touchdown.  He caught two passes and he pulled two flags.  Before the game I told him he didn't have any pressure.  If he didn't play well then it probably because he was playing against older kids.  If he did do well, then people would be impressed that a 4th grader was doing so well.  It sounds like it was the latter.  Rachel and I are really proud of him.

Papa came to pick Noah up and they got Chewie and spent the afternoon with Papa at their house until Rachel's conference was over.

In Evan's first game, he started at third base.  He played well there.  He popped up in his first at bat, and walked in his second at bat.  In his third at bat he crushed a ball that was just foul.  He and I both jumped up when he hit it.  One of the father's was laughing because apparently we were both reacting the same way just feet from each other.  He grounded to third with the infield in and they threw the runner going home out.  But Evan stole second, moved to third on a wild pitch and the scored on another wild pitch that didn't go far but Evan was being aggressive.  It turned out to be the winning run.  In the bottom of that inning, Evan made a good play to catch a foul pop up while playing catcher.  And the final out was a great play by a boy named Owen on the team.  It capped a big comeback after being down 7-1 after the 3rd inning.

We went to Popeye's for lunch and a few families joined us.

In the second game, Evan started at third.  Moved to first in the second inning, but after the first two batters walked, Evan came in to pitch.  He gave up a hit that scored those two runners but didn't allow another run.  He ended up pitching 4 innings with 4 strikeouts and gave up 4 hits and just one run.  Through 3 innings of pitching, he had only thrown 33 pitches.  The team ended up tying but we had a chance to win. There was 8 minutes left in the game with Evan's team leading, if that half inning had taken up more than the 8 minutes without giving up a run, then they would have won.  Instead, Evan got out of the inning in 2.5 minutes.  He had a big double and scored what could have been the winning run again.  He looked quite good pitching and playing.

Rachel had a great time at her conference.  She met a bunch of really good, big, experienced bloggers.  Today's speaker was Amy Robach from Good Morning America.  Rachel actually got to meet her and talk to her for awhile. 

When we got home, we ordered food from Madam Mam's.  We had it delivered.

The boys are getting ready for bed now.

Until next time...

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Rachel's Conference and Haircuts

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Rachel and I took Chewie for a walk this morning after taking Noah to school.  It was decent-sized walk at about 2 miles.  It's good to walk Chewie for a while in the morning to tire him out.

I went into the office after coming home.

Rachel was home for a while.  In the early afternoon, she went downtown for a conference for bloggers.  It's a 3 day conference.

The big speaker today was Randi Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg's sister.  She developed Facebook Live.  Rachel got to meet her and they talked for a bit.  Rachel liked her.

I picked Noah up from school and then had a conference call with HomeAway.

When Evan got home, I took them to Sport Clips for haircuts.  After their haircuts, we went to Craig O's for dinner.

When we got home, Evan went in the cul-de-sac to play basketball.

Rachel is on her way home now.

Until next time...

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Microwave

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

We walked the boys to school this morning.  On the way there, we saw Lizzy's dog friend, Tucker.  Tucker's family got another Australian Shepherd named Pumpkin.  While Tucker is super excited to see Lizzy as well as all of us, Pumpkin was quite scared.

When we got home, I left to go to a conference downtown for something called NodeJS.  Aaron and Mandy were there too.

Deborah came over and worked at the house today with Rachel.

I was at the conference all day so Rachel picked the boys up from school.  She then took Evan to TRPD for his facility practice.  Noah had to go too.

We made a pork tenderloin for dinner.

After dinner, I went to Best Buy to get a new microwave oven.  Ours broke on Sunday.  It is 13 years old now and just to get the problem diagnosed is at least $50.  So I ran to Best Buy and got a microwave oven tonight.

The boys are in bed.

Until next time...

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Traffic and Parking

This morning we walked the boys to school.

Shortly after we got home I left for a conference.  I won a ticket to the Texas Conference for Women.  It took me two hours to get from our house to the inside of the convention center.  Traffic was bad downtown.  The two different parking lots for the convention center were full.  After driving around downtown for a while trying to find a parking spot, I was thinking about heading home.  One of the "full lot" signs said to try the parking garage at the Palmer Events Center (across the lake and quite a far walk).  I decided to try that and then figure out how to get to the convention center.  After parking there I learned they had shuttle service to the convention center.  I boarded the bus, which had quite a few others on it, and we sat for about 15 minutes before leaving.  I found out the shuttle bus only runs every twenty minutes.

I stayed at the conference until 4pm.  The lunch keynote speakers were Patricia Arquette and Robin Roberts.  I was really impressed by Robin Roberts.

I got home around 5pm as Morry and Evan were getting ready to leave for baseball practice.

At 5:30 Noah and I went to one home for tutoring.

When we got home I started heating up food for dinner.

Morry and Evan got home around 8:15 and we ate dinner.

 The boys are getting ready for bed now.