The Month of December and the Holidays

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

I noticed that this is our first blog post since December 5.  That makes sense.  It was a long month of traveling.  Right after our last blog post, Rachel went to Israel for 10 days.  She traveled with Grandma and Papa to go to a wedding and see some family.

She was home for 5 days after returning before we drove to Tucson to visit Zayde.  There we got to spend time with Zayde as well as Uncle Ron and Aunt Kelly.  We had a nice time seeing everyone.  Our hosts made paella for us again.  Evan and Noah really enjoyed it.

Six days after returning, we flew to Denver, CO where we then went to the Winter Park ski resort.  We were there for two full days and parts of two others.  We had a nice time skiing and tubing.  Rachel's cousin Gila, her husband Joel, and daughter Alma drove in from Denver one day to visit with us.

After one working day at home, I flew to Richmond, VA for work.  I hadn't been in a while and it was important that I get in the office for a week.  It was a good set of days where I think we accomplished quite a lot.

I flew home yesterday.  I took Evan to TRPD for a meeting about his team's trip to Omaha in June for a tournament.  Then Evan had a coach's meeting.  He'll be coaching the younger teams again this season.

Today, Evan went over to Reid's to draw up plays for his flag football team.  He got a ride with Reid and his family.

Rachel and I went out and watched Evan's game.  Evan is quarterback half the time.  He led the team on one touchdown drive.  The defense was good and before Evan could really get back out to quarterback, the mercy rule had come into effect and the other team played on offense the rest of the game since Evan's team was winning by more than 30.  Evan seemed to have fun despite the game not being competitive.

For dinner, we went with Grandma and Papa to Maudie's.  We had tried to go to Via 313 but it was really crowded.

Rachel is now making lunches for the week, Evan is doing homework and Noah is on the Playstation.

Until next time...

Gizmo and the End of Winter Break

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Rachel, Grandma and Aunt Susan went to New Braunfels for the weekend for a girls trip.  They left just before lunch on Friday. That left the boys and me alone for the weekend.  But in addition to the boys, we have Calvin, Flash and Chewie.  We're still pet-sitting Luna. And, on Thursday, we got a new kitten who we named Gizmo.  He is so cute and so happy and loves to be around people.  He's still scared of Chewie but he seems ok with the two cats and Luna as long as the cats are not hissing at him.  The thing about him is he was born without eyelids and he needs drops in his eyes twice per day. 

Also on Friday, Evan invited his friend Angelo to stay with us.  So we had a full house, even without Rachel, on Friday night. The boys all stayed up until 3am playing video games.

On Saturday, I took Evan to flag football practice.  Angelo's dad picked him up from there.  In the afternoon, Evan and I went to the TRPD facility and I helped him practice some.  A boy that we know that is joining the 11u team met us there and Evan worked with him some.

For dinner, we went to The League and Tavern with Papa.  It was our first time there.  We liked it.

This morning, I took the boys to get their hair cut.  In the afternoon, we went to the Ramati's for a 6 Points event. 

For dinner, we met up with Grandma and Papa and went to Maudies.

Until next time...

Super Bowl Sunday + Monday

Yesterday, we took it easy in the morning.   I took Chewie for a walk.

I left for tutoring around 12:45. 

Evan had a football game, so Morry, Noah, and Evan left the house around 1:30 to get there for the practice before the game.

When I got home from tutoring, I rode with Grandma and Papa to Evan's game.

Evan's team lost their first game of the season.

Later in the day, Morry, Evan, and Noah went to a Super Bowl party at Evan's friend, Reid's house.

I stayed home and went to eat dinner at Maudie's with Grandma and Papa.

Today, we walked Chewie to school.

Morry and I were both gone today, so Chewie was in the crate for a few hours.

I got home a little bit before it was time to get Noah.

Morry got home a few minutes after I did and then we walked to pick up Noah from school. 

Evan went to Grandma's house today for dinner.

For dinner Morry and I had sandwiches and Noah had a waffle.

Then, we walked to pick up Evan from Grandma and Papa's.

Now the boys are in bed.

Football and Hanukkah

This morning Morry and I took Chewie for a walk. 

Then, Morry ran out to pick up some bagels.

A little before noon Noah's friend Jake and his dad Alex came over to watch football.

I left around 12:30 to tutor and got home around 2:30.

The boys and men had a good time hanging out.

I took the boys to Sunday school at 4pm and then picked up a few things at Walgreens.

There was a Hanukkah party at Sunday school at 5pm.

Morry, Grandma, and Papa, met me there for the party.

Noah's group preformed a Hanukkah play.  Noah was the king and he really hammed it up.  Everyone enjoyed that.  The kids played dreidel, bingo, and more.  There were latkes.  It was quite a good turn out.

From there, we went to dinner at Maudie's with Grandma and Papa.

The last few days Evan has been complaining about his finger hurting.  He poked it with a paper clip at school on Thursday.  Today it was swollen and hurting even more, so Morry took him to an urgent care place after dinner.

They are on their way home now.  The doctor said Evan's finger is infected and prescribed some antibiotics.

Here are some pictures from today.

Hello Harvey

The storm came through around 5am this morning and we have had rain on and off all day today.

We stayed at home for most of the day.

At 5:45 we picked up Grandma and Papa and went to see Wonder Woman.

After the movie, it was raining harder and very windy outside.

For dinner, we ate at Maudie's.

While we were out our neighbor texted and said our fence fell down.

When we got home, we saw a section of our fence had fallen over.  The post snapped so Morry was not able to just prop it up.  We will have to figure out what to do tomorrow.

Now the boys are getting ready for bed.

Party, Pool, and Michael

This morning I took the boys to a birthday party at Austin Sports Academy.  Noah's friend Liam invited both boys to the party.  They had a good time.

I made lunches and did laundry.

Then, later in the afternoon, I took the boys to the pool for about an hour.  It was overcast and only about 75 degrees outside, but they still wanted to swim.   The pool was pretty empty.  For most of the time, it was just Evan, Noah, and one other kid in the pool.  Evan knew the other kid. He is in his class this year.

Around 5:30 we went to Grandma and Papa's house.  Michael is in town for work.  So, we all went out to dinner at Maudie's.  We had a nice time.

It started raining pretty hard tonight.

The boys are in bed now.

Lots of Food

This morning it was drizzling a little bit, but we walked to school anyway.

Around noon, I went over to Mom and Dad's house to meet up with Maureen, Lanie, and David.  Maureen is in town for a few days for the girls trip with Mom, Aunt Susan, and Aunt Diane.  Lanie and David came in for the day from San Antonio.

We ate lunch at Snooze.  It was very good.

I dropped them off at Mom and Dad's house and then Mom, Maureen, Lanie and I walked to pick up the boys from school.  We had to walk back to their house to get my car.  Evan wanted to stay there until his baseball practice.  I took Noah home with me.

I tutored and got home around 5:30.

Evan and Morry got home around 7pm and then we met Mom, Dad, and Maureen at Maudie's for dinner.  The boys ate well. Evan ate a ton of tortillas.

Now the boys are supposed to be getting ready for bed, but it sounds like they are playing.

Lego Batman

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

With nothing planned this morning, everyone slept in.  Evan actually slept until 8:30 which is really good.  He normally gets up early.

The boys and I hadn't gone to a movie on a weekend morning since November.  So we decided to go to see the Lego Batman movie. It was really good.  It almost seemed more aimed at adults than kids.  There were a ton of references to other things.  I think I would have to see it many more times to catch all of the references.

Rachel went for a run while we were at the movies.

We were home for a bit before Evan and I took Noah to his football practice.  Evan and I played basketball for some of Noah's practice.  Then I dropped Evan off at a birthday party and went back and got Noah.

For dinner, Rachel, Noah and I went to Maudie's.  It was really good tonight.

We're about to go get Evan from the birthday party.

Until next time...

Day at Home

This morning we took it easy and were able to sleep in.

We ate leftovers for lunch.

Evan did some school work.  He had a few things to he needed to do to get caught up from all of the days he missed a while back.

Morry and Evan ran out to Target to pick up a video game Evan ordered with a gift card he had.

I got stuff done around the house.  I did laundry, cleaned, got lunches ready for the week.

Morry and the boys watched the Steelers game this afternoon.

Grandma and Papa picked up dinner from Maudie's and we ate at our house after the game was over.

The boys are getting ready for bed now.

Camp Kesem

Today we mostly took it easy.

We had lunch at home.

The kids played video games in afternoon and went outside with Morry for a little bit.

Around 3:30 we left the house.

First, we stopped in Wimberley to get a snack before camp. We got cobbler and ice cream at a diner in the square.

Then, we went to Camp Young Judaea nearby to drop off the kids at Camp Kesem.   It's their first time going to an overnight camp.  They seemed really excited when we pulled up to the camp.  I'm not sure what they were expecting, but Evan was especially excited when he saw all of the sports field they had.  The have a baseball field!  The drop off took about an hour.  We had to check in and all kids got lice and temperature checks.  Overall, the kids seemed pretty happy - a little nervous maybe.  Everyone there seemed really happy to be there and returning to the camp.  It was nice.

Morry and I went to Maudie's for dinner.

Here are some pictures from today.

Houston and Bagels

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Yesterday we went to Houston.  Rachel had an check up with the doctor.  All went well.  I also set up the point of sale and Rachel taught the sales people how to use it.  It was a successful day.  We left the house at 5am and didn't get back until 8pm thought.  It was a long day.

We walked the boys to school this morning.  It was somewhat cool but nice out.

Rachel ran to Wholy Bagel today.  I drove and met her there.

Evan went over to Wade's after school so just Noah walked home with us.

We picked up Evan and Jack from Wade's and dropped Jack off at his house.  Then we went to Costco to get some things.

We stopped at Maudie's on the way home and got dinner for ourselves.

We're about to sit down and eat and the boys are getting ready for bed.

Until next time...

The Belkin Athletes

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

This morning, Evan had his first flag football game of the season.  His team is the Raiders.  I have to tell you, it is very hard for me to root for the Raiders.  I just yell "come on guys!"  Evan is in the third and fourth grade league and his team is all third graders.  The other team today was all fourth graders and they were pretty big.  It made a difference and the other team was able to win.  But Evan had a great play in the second half.  He was covering a boy who was much bigger and the quarterback threw to him.  Evan cut in front of the boy dove and knocked the ball away and then somehow taking the kid out.  The boys was laying on the field crying and Evan got up and went over to him and checked on him and then tried to pull him to his feet.

After the game, Evan and I went with the two other families to Maudie's for lunch.  These are families of boys that Evan has played many sports and teams with.  It was Evan and Darius and Carter and Carter's older brother Ben.  They were really excited to be with each other.  When we got to Maudie's all four boys went to the bathroom together.  But somehow, only Evan, Darius, Ben came out and as they walked back to us they had big grins on.  Apparently Ben was messing with Carter in the bathroom and they all thought it was funny.  Carter was all right and he was smiling when he came out.  After lunch, Darius' dad Daniel bought ice cream for the boys.

When Evan and I got home, we picked up Noah to go to Noah's baseball game.  I had promised Noah last night that we could go to Smoothie King on the way.

Noah had a very good game.  He struck out in his first at bat.  In his second at bat he hit a hard grounder to third and then took second on the overthrow.  In his third at bat, he didn't get much of a ball but he put it down the third base line in between the foul line, the pitcher, the catcher and third base.  No one went to get the ball so I sent Noah to second base.  What ever player picked it up threw so wildly to second that it went into the middle of the outfield and Noah came all the way around to score.  Everyone was cheering for Noah.  He played pitcher quite a bit because he makes great throws to first base.  He stopped a shot in the fourth inning and threw just a tad late to get the boy.  Noah's team lost in a walk off so Noah was upset but he did well and should be proud of himself.

We came home and had dinner.

The boys are in their rooms.

Until next time...

Busy Night

Both of the kids went to school without any problems today. Evan got to walk to school with his friend/classmate, Jack. Jack lives right around the corner from us and they ran into to each other walking to school. Morry said Evan and Jack had a fun time playing this morning on the way to school.

While Noah was at school I had an acupuncture appointment.

After I picked up Noah we went to HEB and then picked up Evan from school.

Gabby came at 4pm and I tutored.

I had one student until 6pm and then met Morry at the boys at Maudie's for dinner. I had a new student meeting me at the bookstore near there at 7:15pm. I won't normally meet her at that time, but she needed some help studying for a test tonight.

Morry took the boys to Dick's Sporting Goods after dinner to get tball pants for Evan.

I got home around 8:45pm. Evan was asleep and Noah was almost asleep.