No Sports This Weekend

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Evan was supposed to play baseball in Dallas this weekend. He was going to go up with one of his teammates on Friday and I was going to go up on Saturday.  But there was 100% chance of rain this weekend so the parents voted to not go.  That saved everyone a drive as well as paying for a night at a hotel.  It did rain and the tournament was cancelled so it ended up being a good decision.

I was happy because I thought I would get to see Noah play football.  Unfortunately, it rained heavily yesterday morning and Noah's game was cancelled.

I took the boys to Target where they spent some money from their birthday.  Then we picked up a movie from Redbox that we watched in the afternoon. Rachel tutored while we did that.

For dinner, we went to Hula Hut.  We did some shopping at HEB on the way home.  We saw Grandma and Papa as well as our neighbor Rita there. 

Today, I got up with the animals and fed them and then went back to bed.  Later in the morning, Rachel got up.  She didn't realize I had fed them and took them downstairs and fed them again.  I think they were quite happy.

Rachel and I took Chewie for a long walk this morning.  Then we came home and had lunch.

In the afternoon, I did some work.  Rachel left to go to a Pink Ribbon Cowgirl event. 

Noah had Sunday School in the afternoon.

For dinner, we were able to eat outside.  It was nice.  Chewie loved having us outside.  We let Calvin come out too.

The boys are playing upstairs now.

Until next time...

Laser Tag

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

I had a bunch of work to do today so I got up a bit early to do work.  First I got breakfast for the boys. The boys played well.

Rachel made lunch for the boys later.

After lunch the boys cleaned up.  Then Rachel took them to Jude's birthday party at Blazer Laser Tag.  Jude was having his birthday party there.  Evan was not invited but Rachel brought Wade and him there and paid for them separately so they could join in.  All the kids had a good time.

When they got home, the boys and I ran to HEB to return a Redbox and get steak for dinner.

We made salmon and I grilled steak for dinner.  We ate it while watching Timeless.

The boys are getting ready for bed.

Until next time...

Winners

This morning the kids watched the Middle School movie we rented for them from Redbox.

I went for a run.

We all left the house around 12:15.  I dropped off Evan at Applebee's for his ride to his baseball scrimmage game.

Morry took Noah to his football tournament.

Then, I met Morry and Noah at the game.

Noah had a game scheduled for 1:00 and if they won, they would play in the championship game at 3pm.  Noah's team won, so we waited around for the second game.  Noah's team won that game too and were the winners of the lower division teams.  Noah played very well.

From there, we went to the end of Owen's birthday party at the bowling alley.  We arrived just in time for pizza and cupcakes.  Noah spend about 45 minutes with his buddies and then we went home.

For dinner we had a frozen Asian meal and egg drop soup.

Now the boys are getting ready for bed.

First Football Practice

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

We didn't have a Camp Gladiator camp after dropping the kids off from school.  We were able to just go home.

I worked from home all morning long.  Then Rachel and I went to Wholy Bagel for lunch.

We only got Noah from school today.  Evan went home with Wade.

In the late afternoon, Noah had his first flag football practice.  He really seemed to enjoy it.  The coach had each kid trying all the positions out.  Noah threw the football as quarterback a few times.  He hiked the ball as a center and he went out as a wide receiver.  He also played defense and was able to deflect a pass.

Rachel picked Evan up from Wade's and took him to get his hair cut.  Then they went to Costco.

Noah and I met them after Costco and we went to Torchy's to get dinner.  Torchy's was moving very slow and said it would take 25-30 minutes to get the food to us.  Rachel needed gas and she needed to get the food from Costco home.  So she left.  The boys and I went to Redbox to get a movie.  Then we came back and it still took another 25 minutes to get our food.

We came home and ate.  Now the boys are in bed.

Until next time...

Happy New Year!

Yesterday Aaron's family came over in the afternoon for a little bit.

At night, we went to Wade's house.  They had a nice family friendly New Year's Eve party.  We stayed until a little after midnight.

Today, was filled with family.  We went to Uncle Marvin and Aunt Sandy's house around 10:30 and stayed there until mid afternoon.  Trent's family, Grandma and Papa, Jay and Holis, Jacob, JT and Helen, Lisa's boys, Joel, and Jimmy's kids were there with their significant others.  We had a nice time with everyone.

We took it easy tonight.  We ordered pizza and picked up a Redbox movie.  We just watched Inside Out with the kids.  We all liked it.

Soon the boys will get ready for bed.

Here are a few pictures from today.

Lots of Football

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

We took it easy this morning.  The boys watched a movie we had gotten at Redbox last night.

After lunch, Evan had a football game.  Rachel and Noah went to a Wonders and Worries party at a bowling alley.  Noah had his face painted and got to bowl.  Rachel and Noah had their picture taken, and Noah made filled a jar with small Nerds-like candy in layers of color.

Evan's game did not go well.  His team, unfortunately, is not very good.  Evan caught a few passes and had a nice run.

We came home and the boys cleaned up and then went outside and played with Connor and Christian.

We all sat down to watch the Super Bowl, though Rachel didn't watch the whole thing.  Evan was upset about the result of the Super Bowl.  They are now in bed.

Until next time...

Wet

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

We had nothing scheduled for today.  There were no birthday parties, no sports events, we were free the whole day.  I had talked with Jack's dad about getting Evan and Jack together and playing some baseball, but it was only loosely scheduled.

However, when I got up, it has already begun to mist and just looked wet out.  I got the boys breakfast and printed out some 1099s that I needed to send.  Then Evan and I drove to the post office and stopped at Donut Taco Palace for the first time since November.

Rachel made pancakes for lunch for she and Noah.  Evan had matzoh with jelly on it.  I had some leftovers.

By lunch it had really started to rain so we didn't play baseball.

Later in the afternoon, the boys and I watched the fourth Harry Potter movie.  We had popcorn as well.

For dinner, we went to Pho Thai Son.  The boys ate the grilled beef and vermicelli very well.

We stopped at Randall's and picked up Redbox on the way home.

The boys are getting ready for bed now.

Until next time..

Rain

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

It was raining very very hard this morning.  It was raining too hard to even drive to the trail.  When that happens, we leave early before the traffic backs up in front of the school and park in front of the school and run in.  This is Evan's fourth year in elementary school.  I think this was the hardest it's rained on a morning when we had to take him to school in those four years.

We stayed home pretty much the whole day though I got my hair cut and ran to HEB and picked up movies from Redbox.

In the afternoon, it was still raining but not nearly as hard.  We parked by the trail and ran down and into the school.  Because of the rain, we had to go to each child's classroom to pick them up.

Evan started watching the Transformers movie I got at Redbox for the boys.  For some reason, Noah didn't want to watch it.

For dinner I grilled hamburgers and corn.  The boys ate left over salmon from the other night.

The boys will be going upstairs to bed soon.

Until next time...

Father-Son Football Game

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

At 6:34 this morning, I woke up and looked at the time.  My alarm is set during the week for 6:25.  I jumped up thinking my alarm hadn't gone off and went into the bathroom to start getting ready when I realized that today was Saturday.  Luckily I had realized before I woke the boys up.

We stayed in this morning and the boys watched the second Harry Potter movie.

Evan had a birthday party to go to that was a Father-Son football game.  I haven't played football in a long time.  They had rented out an indoor facility that had astro turf for us to play.  Everyone seemed to have a good time.  I was exhausted at the end.  We played football for most of it but at the end we played some soccer.  Evan seemed to have a good time with his buddies.

We came home for a while.  Then Rachel and Noah joined us and we went to Best Buy.  We bought a new vacuum cleaner to replace the one that Rachel sold.  We also ended up buying a new TV for downstairs.  It will be delivered on Wednesday.

We went to Chipotle for dinner.  Both and Evan and Noah ate steak tacos.  It was great.

We stopped at Redbox on the way home.

Until next time...

Staying at home

We stayed at home today.

I tried to get the boys to go in the cul-de-sac so Noah could practice on the bike.  Noah did not want to.  He doesn't have interest in learning how to ride a bike.

For dinner we had hamburgers, corn on the cob, and fruit.

Morry just went out to pick up a movie for us from Redbox.  We have a coupon for a free movie rental.

The boys just had showers and are ready for bed.

Busy Day

Morry and Evan got up early to go to the Oak Hill baseball tryouts.  Evan didn't need to try out this year, but he wanted to be there to help.  Morry texted me around 9am to come get Evan.  He was to cold and wanted to come home.

I took both boys to Evan's basketball game at noon.  Evan played well and got a basket.  His team won.

After that we went to HEB to pick up a few things.

Morry got home a little after we did.

Then, at 4pm Evan had his baseball practice.  Morry took Evan to that and they picked up Chuy's for dinner on the way home.

Morry just ran out to get a Redbox movie for us.

We'll get the boys ready for bed soon.

Family Movie Night

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Early this morning, maybe around 5 something, I was awakened by the sound of thunder and the pouring rain.  After seeing how bad the fields looked because of the rain during Evan's game yesterday, I thought to myself that poor Noah's game was going to be cancelled.

When I got up in the morning it was sunny.  Evan and Noah were up playing with each other.  I held out a slim hope that maybe the fields would dry enough.  Unfortunately, around 11am, we got an email that the fields were closed and all games were cancelled.  Noah cried when Rachel told him though he refused to admit it was because of the game being cancelled.  I'm hoping that the game will be made up.

We decided we were going to go to Sam's Club.  It's been a while since we were there and we needed some things.  Evan and Noah were very well behaved there, so we got them an Icee and soft pretzel at the end.

We came home and had lunch.  After lunch, the boys went upstairs and started the massive cleanup in the game room and their rooms.

Around mid-afternoon, Rachel had to tutor a student so she left.  On her way home, she picked up pizza at zpizza and got the movie Big Miracle from Redbox.  We ate at the coffee table and watched the movie.  The boys ate well and they seemed to like the movie. Rachel also made meringue cookies.

We just put the boys to bed, but Evan decided to come down here and is watching me type.  He wanted to show me a baseball card.  If you need to get him something small for Hanukkah, baseball cards will do the trick.

Until next time...

Games Cancelled

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

I slept in this morning. I guess I was really tired as I got up around 10:30 and Rachel had just gotten back from a run.  The boys were playing some sort of game downstairs that they made up where they hit a ball with a stick.

Rachel got ready for a brunch with her friend Melissa.  I started getting things ready for the boys' baseball games.   Noah had a game at 2:15 and Evan had a game at 3:30.

Rachel came downstairs and we got the car packed because she and Noah are going to Dallas this week.  She was going to go to brunch, come over to the fields afterwards, and then take Noah from the fields.  However, just as she left, we got a message that the fields were too wet from yesterday and the games were cancelled.  Both boys were disappointed.

I got lunch for the boys, showered, and then had lunch for myself.

Shortly thereafter, Rachel came home and she and Noah left.

Evan and I watched some baseball and then went outside to play baseball.  We were briefly sent inside as it started to rain but it cleared up and we went back outside.

For dinner, we picked up McDonald's and got the move Pirates! A Band of Misfits from Redbox and watched that while we ate.

We talked with Rachel and Noah on Facetime before bed.

Evan is now in bed.

Until next time...

Taking It Easy

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

After yesterday's very long day, we decided to take it easy.  The boys let us sleep in, which was nice.  They played in the game room and their own rooms for a while before going downstairs to play Wii.

When we came downstairs, we made brunch.  Rachel made Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and I made green eggs and ham for Evan and just ham for Noah.  Rachel and I had left overs.

After lunch, the boys cleaned up their rooms and the game room and they they played in the game room until it was time for a birthday party for a boy down the street, Nathan.

Nathan's party was at the Little Gym.  Noah was excited to go there.  Both boys seemed to have a good time at the party.

On the way home, we stopped and got Mr. Popper's Penguins at Redbox.

Rachel was going to the Oasis tonight to see The Brew play with Yenis.  I ordered a pizza from Austin Pizza Garden for us and we had a "buddy party".  We put on Mr. Popper's Penguins and ate at the coffee table.  The boys enjoyed the movie and Evan had more pizza than I did.  He really likes pizza from there.

I put the kids to bed at 8pm but it's 10:45 and they are still up.

Until next time...

Another rough morning

Noah woke up early this morning while Morry was taking Evan to school. Noah was pretty good until it was time to leave for school. He started throwing a fit. I had to strap him in his car seat first and then come back in the house to get the rest of his stuff for school. He calmed down on the drive.

I went to Sams Club after dropping Noah off at school.

I went for a 3 mile run with Lizzy.

Morry had a meeting here at the house.

I picked up Noah and we went to the library and then HEB to drop off our Redbox movie.

Once we got home I tried to quickly make my lunch to eat before getting Evan at school. Morry was running out to the post office so he offered to pick up Evan at school.

I tutored one student tonight while Morry gave the boys dinner. I just got home and we got the boys ready for bed. Now we are going to eat our dinner.

First Ever Movie Night

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

When I woke up today, I decided I'd take the boys to the Wildflower Park.  I wasn't sure if Rachel would come along or not.  But she got up shortly after me and the four of us went to the park.  As soon as we got there, Noah told us he needed to poop.  I drove Noah back home while leaving Rachel and Evan.  We got home, went to the bathroom and Noah said "Daddy, I was just tricking you.  I don't need to poop."  Needless to say, I did not take this revelation well.  I told him he needed to stay on the toilet until he went.  After about 15 minutes of him screaming and crying, I told him I was going back to the park without him and pretended to leave.  He freaked out and told me he would go to the bathroom.  He told me he'd "try my best".  He did go and we went back to the park.

Evan and Noah had a great time while we were there.  They were playing Star Wars.

When we got home, Evan and Noah went in the backyard where Noah pitched some more to Evan while Rachel and I made lunch.

When we were finished lunch, we went outside and Evan did very well riding his bike.  Here's some video of it:



Next we had nap time.  Rachel had an idea that after nap time that we offer having a movie night where we eat dinner while watching a movie of their choice, maybe they would clean up without a fight.  She was right and they cleaned up the game room and their rooms with little problems.

They said they wanted to watch Cars 2, so I reserved it at a Redbox at the Walgreen's near us.  I went to pick it up and the touch screen wouldn't work.  Several of us who were trying to get movies worked on it to no avail.  One lady even through the breaker that the box was plugged into.  It must have had a battery backup because it didn't shut down.  I called the phone number on it and they credited my account while saying they'd have someone out to look at the kiosk within 24 to 48 hours.  So I drove over to HEB and picked up the movie there.

I grilled chicken when I got home while Rachel got food ready for the boys.

We pulled out the TV trays in the game room and watched the movie there.  The boys sat on a towel and ate on the floor.  We had a good time.

The boys are now in bed.  They were pretty tired.

Until next time...

No Rachel: Day One

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

With Rachel gone this morning, Noah needed to come with us to take Evan to school. First I woke Evan up and made breakfast for him. Then I went and woke Evan up. Luckily Noah did not give me a hard time and got dressed right away. We drove to the walking path to school and then walked the rest of the way.

When we got home, I put a movie on for Noah downstairs. When that was over we went upstairs and I worked in the upstairs office while Noah played with GeoTrax.

I made Noah lunch and Blanca came shortly after. As I was working, I kept hearing Noah yell "Yes!", "All right!" loudly. I was guessing he was simply playing Wii. Then it got quiet. I went downstairs and Noah had asked Blanca to put WALL-E on. He looked very tired.

I left to go pick up Evan while Noah stayed home with Blanca. When Evan came out with his class, he saw me and got a big smile. Then he ran up. I was thinking he was going to say he was really happy to see me since I had never picked him up from school. He got over to me and he opened his mouth to speak. I thought me might say he was he liked me picking up. But he said "Where's Noah?" I'm glad that he and Noah are so close.

We got home and I did some more work. After I finished up, I came downstairs, made popcorn for the boys and started getting dinner together. I also got Evan's lunch ready for tomorrow as well.

After dinner, the boys cleaned up their rooms and we ran over to HEB to return the Redbox movies. I promised them if they cleaned up their rooms well, we could get Icees at HEB. They did it well and so we got Icees.

They are now in bed but not sleeping. Lights are off though.

Until next time...

Goodbye Rachel

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Rachel left for Dallas this evening after her tutoring. She'll be back on Saturday, most likely. It's just the boys and me for Thursday and Friday.

This morning, I walked Evan to school. Actually Evan ran much of the way. He'd run ahead and wait for me to catch up. He always stopped before a curve or a corner so I could see him. It's amazing because he was very tired when I got him up. Also it was especially humid this morning.

Rachel took Noah to school. He was fine this morning but gave Rachel a hard time after she picked him up from school.

Rachel left the house at 4:00 to go tutor.

On my way home, I picked up two movies from Redbox. I got Rio and Megamind. I don't have a babysitter for Noah in the morning. So I wanted to do something to keep him occupied. When I got home, we made popcorn and started Rio. Then I ordered a pizza and we ate pizza while watching it. At the end of the movie, we heard the ice cream truck so we want outside. Noah got a popsicle and Evan got a sno-cone.

After dessert, we came up and I read to the boys and put them to bed. They are in their rooms now.

Until next time...

All Boys

Note: For some reason this didn't publish last night. Here is yesterday's post.

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Evan came out of bed a few times last night. I think the nap is what made him not stay in bed. It took him a while to go to sleep and then he was up early this morning.

It was just boys today since Rachel is in Chicago. We got up and played in the gameroom some. Then we all got dressed and came downstairs. I put on a movie for a bit and then we went to the park. At the park, Evan was climbing on everything and doing very well. Noah went up to two boys (at separate times) that were a little bit younger than he was. One actually was his height though and was only 17 months old. He was a large kid. Each time Noah went up to these boys, he'd say "Hi baby". It was very cute. I let Evan hang from the monkey bars without holding on to him. He didn't actually go from one bar to the other but he hung there.

We were going to get smoothies after the park, but Evan was bad as we were getting in the car and then yelled "No" at me so we didn't go. I made sure he knew the reason we weren't going was him.

For lunch, both boys ate well.

I put Noah down for a nap and Evan played quietly in the gameroom.

For dinner, we picked up Little Caesar's. Evan again ate well but Noah didn't eat anything. I had promised Evan if he ate well we could get Dairy Queen. So we drove out to Dairy Queen. Noah ate all his ice cream and served himself - with his left hand. I'm pretty sure he's right-handed so I was a bit surprised. Evan ate about 3/4 of his ice cream.

We came home and I gave the boys a shower in my shower. It was a bit easier than giving them baths by myself. In fact, since it was easier and there is no standing water, I wondered why we give kids baths at all. It seems safer, I could wash them better because they were standing up and they had a great time.

They are now in bed. I'm going to watch Inglorious Basterds which I got at Redbox. We'll see how it is.

Until next time...

Chemo

Hello everyone, this is Morry. This is the 366th post we've done. So basically, we're starting a brand new year of blogging.

Today was Rachel's first day of chemo. It was scheduled for 8:45 but we had to go in early and fill out paper work. Grandma/Lynn is in town to help out and she was going to take care of the boys today. Evan got up after I was done with my shower so I was able to get him breakfast and set up watching a movie before we left. We left around 7:40am and Grandma was done with Evan when we left.

We got to the oncologist's office exactly on time at 8:15am. We both brought out computers; Rachel brought hers to watch movies and browse the web and I brought mine to do work. I dropped Rachel off and drove over to HEB and got her two movies from RedBox. I returned to the office around 8:35 and Rachel was waiting in a patient room to meet with the doctor. The doctor finally came in around 9am and talked to us some.

Finally, by about 9:30 we made it to the room where they administer the chemo. It was an open room with lots of lounge chairs set up in rows. It's a corner room and there were lots of windows so it was fairly bright. They had Rachel pick a chair near the nurses' station so they could watch her more closely. I pulled up a chair next to her and got a tv tray and set up to do some work. First, Rachel had to fill out some paperwork including agreeing to the treatment. Then they started giving her steroids and some anti-nausea stuff through her port. That took some time. Then they had to wait an hour from that before they could start chemo. Some time close to noon, she finally started getting the chemo. Luckily, Rachel had no allergic reactions or any of the initial side effects that they warn about. By no means is she out of the woods, but the actual administering of the chemo went flawlessly.

For lunch, I ran out and picked up some sandwiches for us at a place called the Little Deli.

Around 4pm she was done with everything. We packed up and had to schedule her upcoming chemo appointments.

On the way home, we stopped at HEB to pick up medication that she'll need to make sure she feels well.

Meanwhile, Evan went to school today. He wore his Halloween costume because they were having a party at school. We sent him with an extra set of clothes. Grandma took Noah to HEB and got food for us for dinner. After that, Grandma got Noah dressed up in his Halloween costume and went over to Evan's school for the party. When she got there, though, all the kids were out of their costume by that point. So they took Noah out of his costume. Noah is wearing Evan's Buzz Lightyear costume from last year. He seems to love it. He kept saying his version of "To Infinity and Beyond".

For dinner, Grandma made us chicken, squash and rice. It was very good. It was very nice of her to make the dinner.

After dinner, Rachel told us she was tired of having been cooped up all day. So we went for a walk. Can you believe Rachel wanted to go for a walk right after chemo? Amazing.

The boys are now in bed but are nowhere near quiet.

Until next time...