Full Week

Hello everyone, this is is Morry.

We had a full week this week.  On Monday it was back to meetings for me.  Evan and I went to HEB after school and work to get food for the week.  It was crazy crowded at the store.  We had dinner at home and then Evan had a hitting lesson with Justin.

On Tuesday, I took Grandmom to have an endoscopy.  Rachel taught.  Luckily Evan's baseball practice was canceled in the evening which helped.  Rachel still had a long afternoon and evening of tutoring.

On Wednesday, Grandmom stopped by to bring the boys a Playstation 5.  The boys wanted one for Hanukkah and Grandmom was able to get one from eBay.  In the afternoon, Evan went and coached the younger kids.  I stayed out at TRPD and had a meeting and talked to my siblings.

Thursday was a little easier.  I had fewer meetings and we didn't have any baseball.  Rachel did have a very long stretch of tutoring that started at 3:30 ended at 7:30.

On Friday, after work, I took Evan to Marucci with Josiah and his dad John.  After that we picked up pizza from Austin Pizza Garden which is going out of business after 27 years.

Yesterday, Evan had bullpens at TRPD.  Rachel and Chewie came with us.  We stopped at Donut Taco Palace and then took at walk on the Hamilton Greenbelt after dropping Evan off. 

We came home and had lunch and then I took Evan to the park to play baseball with Reid.  He stayed over Reid's house last night.  For dinner, we had Cypress Grill.  Papa picked it up for us.

Today, I went golfing with a bunch of dads from Evan's baseball. I played much better this time.  Our team came in second out of three foursomes.

I picked up Evan on the way home.

Rachel, Evan and I went to HEB for food.  For dinner, we had Torchy's.

Rachel is cleaning now and then we'll sit down.

Until next time...

Marucci

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

As crazy as it seems, the boys only have one more week until Thanksgiving Break.  The school year seems to be going by quickly.  I think after that Thanksgiving, the boys only have three weeks until winter break.

This morning was a busy morning for me. I didn't have any meetings but there were a bunch of things at work I needed to complete.

The boys had school as normal.  One of Noah's teachers is dealing with family issues.  And in the new COVID world, they don't get substitutes.  The kids get an assignment to work on without any synchronous instruction. 

Rachel went into teach at ATA today.  At lunch, she met a mother from baseball who lives near there for a nice walk.

After school and work, I took Evan to a set of batting cages called Marucci Clubhouse.  We met Josiah and his Dad there.  For the first 30 minutes, Josiah's dad, John, pitched to the boys.  The second thirty minutes Evan and Josiah hit off of the pitching machine.  They have a thing there called HitTrax.  They also have it at TRPD.  John gave a suggestion to Evan to get his back hip around and Evan immediately set a personal best for distance a hit traveled and exit velocity of the ball.

We stopped at Simply Pho on the way home and got dinner.

The boys are new upstairs and Rachel and I will sit down and watch TV.

Until next time...

They're Done!

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

We were all awakened at 5:30 this morning because of a very violent thunderstorm.  Noah came in our room and he had his iPad with him.  He was using some app to tell him where the nearest lightning strike was.  It was told him it was 0.0 miles away.  He was freaking out.

We got a call from the school around 6:15.  They said that they were opening the doors to the school 15 minutes early.  It was the fifth grade graduation today and there were going to be more people parking out front and coming into the school than normal.

We had to drive because it was raining.  Normally when it's raining hard, we park out front and walk in.  But with all the cars already parked we had to go through the carpool lane.  It was the first time ever.  I had been avoiding going through the carpool lane since Evan started Kindergarten.  We didn't really have to wait much because we were early, but it was weird just dropping the boys off and not walking in with them.

Rachel left in the morning to get a Brazilian Blowout.  After that she went to a Pink Ribbon Cowgirls lunch.

I worked from home all day.

It was partly sunny in the afternoon and we were able to walk to get the boys on their last day of school.  Noah was very excited.  The boys are ready for summer.

Jack came home with us because John could not get home in time to get Jack.

For dinner we had flank steak cooked on the grill.

After dinner, we went to HEB and then on to TCBY for a celebratory dessert.

The boys are in bed now.

Until next time...

Clothes

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Evan and I rode our bikes to school this morning.  I think Evan was really happy to do that.  It reminded him of when he was in Kindergarten and First Grade and just he and I would ride to school.  On the way back from school, I rode with Jack's dad, John.

Noah got up a little after I got home.  He was doing much better.  Rachel called the doctor last night and had the doctor talk to Noah about the importance of following the rules that they gave including drinking and eating cold things.  He's been drinking a lot more.  He looks much better.

I went into Aaron's for a while today.

Rachel and Noah stayed home.  After lunch we had cleaning people come to the house.

Rachel left to tutor after I came home with Evan.

Before Rachel got home from tutoring, I had the boys try on some of their nicer clothes for the Bat Mitzvah this weekend.  I found that most of the clothes did not fit the boys.  So we had to go shopping.  Rachel came home and we went to the mall and got the boys some nice clothes.

Noah wanted to eat pizza from Uncle Maddio's, so we picked that up on the way home.  Unfortunately, it was too hard on Noah's throat so he only had about 1.5 pieces.

The boys are ready for bed.

Until next time...

Thrift Store

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning, I watched Lizzy in the grass as I waited for Rachel to come back up the trail after walking down with the boys.  My back was towards the street.  All of a sudden Lizzy jumped up and started pulling towards the street.  I turned around and Brody the Golden Retriever was coming down the hill.  I saw that Brody, too, was pulling.  Lizzy and Brody exchanged greetings and then Brody wanted Rachel and I to pet him.  We hadn't seen him in a while.

Rachel left shortly after we got home to go to a thrift store.  Last year Rachel went and got some nice stuff, especially some good stuff for our skiing trip.  Today they were having a 50% of everything.  Rachel got there when they opened.  But Rachel said the stuff wasn't as good this year.

When she got home, we left to have lunch at Wholy Bagel.

We went directly from lunch a meeting with a client about SEO.

We picked up the boys from school.  Jack walked back with us because John was in the middle of something.  The boys were bored when we got home so they wanted to go to Grandma and Papa's.  Rachel walked them most of the way and watched them cross Spruce Canyon.

Rachel and I went over the later for dinner.

The boys are in bed an sleeping now.

Until next time...

Halloween and the Last Few Days

Thursday, we walked to school and brought Evan's marble machine project.  From there, I walked with Lorena and Morry and Lizzy walked home.

After walking I went to HEB.

We walked to get the boys at school and then went to the Book Fair.

My tutoring got canceled.

Evan and Morry went to baseball practice.

Noah and I walked to the neighborhood farmer's market.

Later, we went to get Zayde at the airport.

Morry and Evan picked up Pho Thai Son for all of us on their way home from practice.

Friday, it rained really hard for most of the day.  We drove the boys and our neighbors Brody and Drew to school.  The 2nd graders' classrooms are in portables and they were not allowed in their portables all day.  They even had a tornado drill. Noah's class got to spend the day in the computer lab.

For lunch, Morry, Jack, and I went to Wholy Bagel.  There was a lot of water on the roads and we had to take a detour at one point to avoid a huge flooded area in the road.

We drove to pick up the kids from school.

For dinner, we went out to dinner with Grandma and Papa and Zayde to Evangeline Cafe.

Today, we took it easy in the morning and made waffles and pancakes for breakfast.

Morry, the boys, and Zayde went to Barnes and Noble while I went for a run.

Later in the afternoon Aaron's family came over and we all went to the block party in our cul-de-sac.  Grandma and Papa, Jack and John, and Mandy's parents joined us as well.  Aaron went to pick up pizza from Via 313.

Morry and I took the kids trick-or-treating with John, Jack, and Audrey.

We got home around 8:30.  It was fun night.

The kids are in bed now.

Baseball Practice

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning on the walk to school, our neighbors Jenn and her son Brody and daughter, Drew walked with us to school.  Drew is in first grade.  She was very interested in Lizzy and ended up holding her leash and walking Lizzy.  Lizzy seemed to like having Drew walk her.  She was really trotting.

I only left the house to get a haircut today.  I stopped and got a smoothie on the way home.  Rachel stayed home pretty much all day.

We walked with Jack's dad, John, to and from school when we picked up the boys.

Around 4, Rachel and Noah went over to Jack's house for Rachel to tutor Audrey.

Closer to 5, Evan and I left for baseball practice.  It was our last practice before our first two games.  We play two games on Sunday.  Evan is excited to get back out there and play.

Evan and I just got home. Rachel and Noah are finishing up at HEB and then we'll eat dinner.

Until next time...

Talking

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

We walked to school this morning without being rained on.  On the way home, we bumped into John, Jack's dad.  He talked to us for a long time.  He doesn't work on Fridays so he always has more time.

I worked in the morning and then Deborah came over.  She was coming to work on Lizzy.  Lizzy seems to get excited when Deborah is here.  She just lays down and lets Deborah work on her.   Deborah, too, is a big talker and we talked about biking and how well Evan rode his bike last Saturday.

After Deborah left, we went to Wholy Bagel.

When we got home, the electrician came.  The outdoor lighting guy found that our breaker and GFI switch for the outdoor lights was broken so they came do replace that.  I also told them about the problem we are having with our outdoor lights turning on and off when Rachel goes on the treadmill.  They said we won the "weird award".  They were really looking at it and couldn't figure out the problem.  The head guy seemed frustrated and when he was talking to me and pointing at the switches he accidentally hit the wires which caused a weird flicker of the lights and then he said "that's it".  The lights shouldn't have done that and it caused him to realize the wiring was not done correctly there and he was able to fix it.

We walked to get the boys.  Ms. Wenske spend about 20 minutes talking to us when we got Noah because she was talking about next year and what she recommended for Noah in terms of teacher.  She is really a nice lady.

For dinner we picked up pizza from Via 313.

The boys are getting ready for bed now...

Tryouts and the River

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning, Noah had tryouts for coach pitch.  It was his first time at tryouts.  Every kid makes a team it's really more of an audition.  Noah's tryout was at 10 but we got to the fields around 9:35 to get warmed up.  Evan came with us.  They threw Noah 5 pitches.  Unfortunately he didn't hit any one.  The pitches really weren't that good, to be honest.  It didn't seem to affect Noah too much which was good.  Then he went out to the field and got three ground balls and three pop ups.  He got 2 of the 3 ground balls and the one he missed he really stayed with it.  His throws to first were on target though they did bounce.  The first pop up they threw to him he actually caught but it took his glove off.  The ball stayed in the glove.  Everyone who was watching cheered for Noah and cheered for him to get the ball and throw to first.  All in all it was a good tryout and I think Noah felt good.

After tryouts we went home briefly and then drove down to Jack's family's house in Canyon Lake on the Guadalupe River.  It was about a 50 minute drive.  Jack's grandfather built the house in the 60s and they've had it in their family ever since.  Jack's dad, John, grilled burgers while the kids played.  The river was very shallow.  In fact, it was very creek-like.  I guess the drought has had it's effect on the river.  So the kids were down running through the water and playing.  After lunch, we walked to another part of the river and got in tubes and floated back down to their house.  Again it was very shallow and at times we hit our butts on the rocks.  But it was nice and relaxing and the kids loved it.  Jack and Evan even got in a kayak which was kind of funny to watch.  They have a pool at the house too and all the kids played in the pool until we left.

We came home and had dinner and now the boys are in their rooms.

Until next time...

Happy New Year

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning was a normal workday for me.  I got up and helped Noah get his breakfast.  Evan actually got up later than Noah did.  They played Wii for a while while I worked.

Later in the morning, Rachel took the boys to run some errands.  When Rachel got home, she cleaned.  We had Jack and his family over for New Year's Eve.

When I got done working I rolled out pizza dough and pre-baked it so that it would cook faster when we were going to eat.  We let everyone put their own toppings on several pizzas and baked them.

As soon as Jack and his family got here, all the kids immediately ran upstairs to play.  Jack and Evan hadn't seen each other since school ended.  We had appetizers and talked with John and Randa.  Then we had the kids make their pizza and eat.  When they were all done, we put on a movie upstairs for the kids and then made our pizzas and ate them.

The kids were super wild and didn't seem to be slowing down at midnight.  We said Jack could stay over.  John, Randa and Audrey went home.

All three boys are in bed, but not asleep yet.  Hopefully they go to sleep soon.

Until next time...

The Day Before

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Today is the last day before school starts. Evan will be a first grader officially.  Noah will start his last year of preschool.  One year from now, Noah will begin Kindergarten.

I got up and I needed to go to Sam's Club.  Yesterday when we tried to take Rachel's car somewhere it flashed a message that the battery was going bad.  So I took it in to get a new battery.  Their prices were much better than NTB and I got some shopping done while they were replacing the battery.

On the way home, I stopped and got smoothies at the Smoothie King for everyone.  The guy who told the staff that I was his favorite customer was there so I got special treatment.

At home I got lunch ready for the kids.  Rachel had gotten up while I was gone and gotten the backpacks ready for the boys.  We hadn't gone through Evan's backpack since the end of school so Rachel cleaned it out as well as cleaning up a bunch of stuff in my office.

I spent the afternoon working but walked Evan over to Jack's house to play.  The boys were very excited to see each other.  One of the boys from their class last year, Jax, is in with Evan this year.  Jack thought that maybe they made a mistake and they meant to put Jack with Evan and they just mixed up the names.  Later in the afternoon, I went back and got Evan.  Noah came with me both times and played with the older boys while I talked with Jack's dad, John.

The boys played baseball outside when they got home.  Evan came inside screaming "Yes!" and ran into my office to tell me that Noah caught a ball in the air with his glove.

For dinner, we ordered Hula Hut and had it delivered.  We had a gift certificate left from a delivery place that brings food from restaurants that don't deliver.  Rachel got food ready for the boys.

We gave the boys showers and they are now in bed.  Hopefully they get some sleep for tomorrow.

Until next time...

Brave and Jack

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

It has been a while (last time was Mother's Day) when the boys and I went to a movie.  I always love taking the boys to the movies because they behave really well and they always seem to enjoy themselves.  So we planned a trip today.  We thought we'd let Rachel have a morning to herself. The movie started at 11:35 so it wasn't so much of a morning by herself for Rachel, but she did get a lunch to herself.

As always the boys behaved extraordinarily well.  It was a pleasure to take them.  We got our normal popcorn and Icees.  They loved the previews.  Unfortunately, they weren't that thrilled with the movie.  It was set in the time of castles and archery and that's just not their thing.  There were no lasers and no one got hit in the crotch.  I thought the movie was wonderfully animated and I thought the story was interesting, but I knew it wasn't their cup of tea as the movie went on.

We came home and then left shortly thereafter to go to HEB to get some food.  Rachel and I each got a cart and had our own lists to get through the store faster.  I think it worked.  The boys came with me.

We weren't home for very long before we went over to Jack's house.  His parents, John and Randa, invited us over for dinner and swimming.  They have a pool.  Before we went over, I had a catch with Evan and Noah in the front yard.  It was our second time that day (we went out before the movie).  Evan backhanded two ground balls I rolled to him to his right.  He was very proud of himself.  Tryouts for fall baseball are in three weeks.

We had a great time with the Stephensons.  The boys had a good time in the pool while we enjoyed adult conversation.  They ordered pizza and we ate.  We brought over an ice cream cake for dessert.  Evan and Jack liked that.  We also cut up watermelon.  Evan and Noah almost ate all of it.

The boys went back in the pool for 15 minutes before we left.

They are in bed now though not sleeping.  I think Noah is overtired.

Until next time...

Swim, Door, Tutor, ...

First I ran with the boys in the stroller.

Then, John came to start refinishing our door and outside shutters.

I took the boys to swimming. They did well. Noah still won't jump off the waterfall on his own. He didn't like that part, but seemed to do well with the other swimming. I promised the boys we could get Blizzy's (shaved ice) later in the afternoon since they had a good swimming week.

Morry came home at lunch time. We had the floor lady come by to measure the house and show us some samples.

Then, at 1pm I had a student come for tutoring.

Noah actually napped.

I woke him up around 4pm and we went to Blizzy's.

After Blizzy's we went to the bank and then Panera to pick up my dinner.

The boys and I were by ourselves tonight. Morry had a meeting. I made mac and cheese for the boys and ate my Panera's.

Evan and Noah are eating their Panera cookie and then I'll get them ready for bed.