Finally Home + Noah's Birthday

We are home! Our Spring Break travel adventure has finally ended… almost 48 hours after the time we were supposed to be home, we are finally done.

It’s all fun and games until you get stuck in Charlotte without your luggage. ⁣

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We had a great time in Bradenton, Florida for baseball spring training. I went to a couple of the Pirates games with Morry, Evan, and Noah, but what I would do was drop off the boys early. Then, I’d head to the beach or river for a while and come back to see the last part of the games. ⁣

We played mini-golf, ate a lot of good food, played on the beautiful white sandy beaches with turquoise water, and more.

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We were supposed to get home on Thursday, the 18th. There was bad weather in both Charlotte and Dallas that apparently caused lots of issues for both airports. We knew there was going to be bad weather in Charlotte and we even got a warning from American Airlines that our flight might change. But American wouldn’t let us change our layover to a different city even though they knew that the bad weather was coming through Charlotte. Well, that was unless we wanted to pay an extra $400 something dollars per person.⁣

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So after our first flight from Orlando to Charlotte was delayed, we eventually landed in Charlotte, a lot later than planned. We turned on our phones to an email that our next flight home to Austin was canceled.⁣

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After a couple of hours of trying to figure out how to get home, we realized there were no options that night.  We even tried renting a car to drive home, but there were no cars available. 

The kids and I took the hotel shuttle while Morry stayed at the airport a little longer hoping to get our luggage.

As soon as the boys and I checked into our hotel room, around 10:30pm, I ordered a couple of pizzas from Domino’s.   

We waited and waited for our pizzas. I even called to check on them and was told they would be coming soon.  

In the meantime, Morry came to the hotel finally but without our luggage.  American said our luggage would be sent to Austin the next day on the first flight out.

After two hours of no pizzas, and completely exhausted, I finally called to cancel our pizza order and get a refund.

We ate snacks from the gift shop for dinner at almost 1am and then went to sleep.

We woke up at 6:30am Friday morning to head back to the airport to try to get a flight home.

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After a crazy day, trying flight after flight to fly standby we eventually were able to get on a flight to San Antonio. 

Only one of our suitcases (mine) made it to San Antonio.

The cheapest way to get all of us back to Austin was with a rental car. So funny thing about the rental car. We just wanted to get home last night from San Antonio and they said for $30 extra we could have the BMW and drive it right then, otherwise, we would have to wait about 10 minutes for another car. So we went with the BMW, although it took us about 10 to 15 minutes to even figure out how to start the car and put it into drive. We had to actually Google it.

We finally got back to our house around 8:30pm last night.

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This afternoon, the other suitcase was delivered to our house. ⁣

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Our kids were troopers. All of the airline staff were super friendly and helpful. I don’t know how people did it with young kids or even babies. What a mess!⁣

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After Evan’s baseball game this afternoon, we drove back to San Antonio to return the rental car.  We had to return it to SA or pay a large fee for not returning it at the pickup location.⁣

Since we had such a crazy last few days, we are celebrating Noah's birthday today and tomorrow rather than packing everything in in one day.

Today, he chose Wholy Bagel for lunch and Black Rock lavender lemonade to drink.  Wholy Bagel made his sandwich wrong, so I had to go back out to pick up the correct one after we got home.  They threw in several desserts to make up for it.

When we went to pick up the car in San Antonio, we stopped at Genghis Grill on the way home.  Noah loves that restaurant, but we no longer have one in Austin.

When we got home, he Facetimed with Michael, Jen, Maya, and Artie and then Grandma and Papa.

My Spring Break + Kayak

 This week and next is my Spring Break.

The boys have off next week.

Today, I went to Walmart to buy a kayak.  Last summer we wanted to buy a kayak but they were impossible to find.  They were either sold out or incredibly expensive.

I saw  Walmart had one on sale and went to get it.  Luckily, I was able to fit it in the car to bring it home.

Even though it's my Spring Break from my school, I still have tutoring.

I had a long afternoon/evening of tutoring.  I went from 4-7 and then again from 8:30-9:30.

During my tutoring break, we ate dinner.  Morry made flank steak and air fried french fries.  Everything was very good.

Now, I'm done working for the night and Morry and I will watch a TV show.

Back to School + Crazy 2020

 Hello again... after a long, long time.

I kept thinking I should write on the blog again, and here we are.

So, here's what's been going on in the last several months.

On March 12, the Thursday before Spring Break, Morry and the boys were looking forward to their annual Spring Training Florida trip.  We were starting to hear about more and more COVID-19 cases and by the end of the day, Spring Training was canceled.

On March 13, we got an automated call from the school district saying all schools and offices would close that day in order to remain vigilant and healthy.

So, pretty much everything started shutting down after that.

Spring Break was extended and the kids went back virtually on April 3.

Since then, we have mostly stayed at home except for occasionally shopping and outdoor activities.

Evan went back to baseball and they had several games and practices this summer.

We also got a kitten. A friend of mine need to quickly find a home for a kitten and we volunteered to "help". 

Here's Pixel.

Over the summer, instead of going to Europe as planned, we updated our kitchen and some other areas of our house.  We added wood floors in the kitchen, removed the half wall between the living room and dining room, removed our old kitchen island and column, and replaced it with an counter-height island.  We also had the cabinets painted and other walls in the house painted.  Oh, and we put tile in the laundry room and bathroom.

Before:

After

Tomorrow, we go back to school.  The kids start their online school. Evan is now in 9th grade at high school and Noah is in 7th grade in middle school. 

My school is going back in person tomorrow.  I'll be teaching two middle school math classes.  I'm hoping to use the outdoor classroom as much as possible.

That's it for now.  I took videos and pictures over the last few months and will add more of those later.

Florida + Noah's Birthday

We went to Florida for baseball Spring Training on Friday and got back yesterday.  Two families met us there.  Everyone had a great time.

Today, for Noah's birthday, he chose bowling, lunch at Panera's, Big Top Candy Shop, sushi at Kura revolving sushi, and the bookstore.

Here are some pictures from our trip and today.

Low Key Day

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

I stayed home all day today.  I wanted to take it easy.  Rachel laid down after taking Noah to school.  Then she went back to teaching for the first time after a two-week spring break.

During her lunch break, Rachel went to HEB and got some food for the week.

Rachel got home just before we had to get Noah from school.  Both of us walked to get Noah.

When Evan came home, he relaxed for a little while and then walked to Grandma and Papa's where he had dinner.

We just had leftovers for dinner.

Rachel and I took Chewie to walk to get Evan.

We're home now and Evan is doing some homework.

Until next time...

The Home Stretch

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

The boys went back to school today.  They are in the home stretch of the school year.  After today, they just have 50 days of school remaining.

After walking Noah to school, Rachel and I took a longer walk.  Chewie liked going for a longer walk.  He got to see and play with two dogs on the walk, including his buddy, Nico. 

Rachel's school has off for two weeks for Spring Break so she stayed home today.  I went into the office for a little while.

It was warm when we walked to get Noah from school.  On the way home, we bumped into a family who lives on our street that has a dog a bit older than Chewie.  Rachel and Noah took Chewie over to their house for the dogs to play in the backyard.

Rachel and Noah made cookies to bring to school for his birthday tomorrow.

Evan came home and was here for a bit before he went over to Grandma and Papa's where he had dinner.  Noah went outside to play with Brody.

Brody's family was going to the Circle C Park for Brody's sister's soccer practice.  Noah went with Brody to play.  Rachel and I drove over later with Chewie to get Noah. 

On the way home, we stopped at Grandma and Papa's to get Evan.

Then Rachel, Noah and I ate dinner.  Noah, Rachel and Evan also iced the cookies.

The boys are getting ready for bed.

Until next time...

Spring Break is Here

We drove the boys to school this morning.

While they were at school Morry had a meeting, I ran, and then we met at Wholy Bagel for lunch.

We walked to pick up the boys from school.

Today starts spring break.  The boys were in good moods.  Jack came over for a little while after school.

Morry and Evan went to baseball practice and picked up Yaghi's on the way home.

Noah and Evan are getting ready for bed now.

Baseball Begins

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Today, spring break ended. Evan had to go back to school.  He was pretty dead asleep when I went into wake him up.  As usual, though, he was in a good mood and didn't give me any problems.

Rachel took Evan to school and then went to HEB to get some stuff for the week.

Rachel had to tutor so Gabby picked Evan up from school.

I came home and got the boys ready for baseball.  Noah had baseball practice from 5:30 to 6:45.  Evan had a game at 7pm but he had to be at the fields by 6:15pm.  So I took Noah to practice. Evan and I helped out with the practice until we had to go to the fields.  Rachel was then able to make it there in time to get Noah.  She got to see the end of practice.  This is really the true beginning of the intense baseball season.  There is no baseball tomorrow, but our next day without baseball is next Thursday.  The boys have a game or practice 20 of the 30 days in April.

Noah did well in his practice.  His throwing is really coming around.  He seemed to enjoy it while I was there.

At Evan's warm ups, he was really into it.  He was absolutely crushing the ball in the batting cage.  It translated into the game.  In the first inning, Evan smacked the ball into deep shortstop.  The shortstop actually made a nice play to stop it.  But for some reason he decided to throw to first even though there was no chance he was going to get Evan.  The ball was overthrown so Evan hustled to second.  The first baseman got the ball and overthrew second. Evan got up and race to third and then turned to go home, again, forcing a bad throw.  He was ecstatic.  In the 2nd inning, he reached above his head to have his hardest hit of the season.  The ball went all the way to the fence.  The other team played it well holding Evan to a double.  In his third at-bat, Evan hit a ball into right center.  The coach sent him to second and the outfielder made a nice throw to second so Evan ran back to first but was tagged out in the rundown.  His team won the game.  They are now 2-1.

We came home and put the boys to bed and then we had our dinner.

Until next time...