On the News

Last week, an anchor/reporter from the local Fox station interviewed me for a breast cancer story.  The story ran today several times.   It was first on at 6:45am.  I'll add the video to the end of this post, you can also see it here at Breast cancer survivor shares story.  Evan was very excited to his picture twice on the news!

We walked Noah to school with Chewie.

Morry went to Camp Gladiator and then I went to teach.

I got home around 2:30 just in time to pick up Noah from school.

We walked with Chewie to school this afternoon also.

I left for tutoring a little after 4pm.

Noah had football practice tonight.

When he got home we had dinner and watched another episode of Stranger Things.

Soon, the boys will get ready for bed.

No Kids, but Busy Day

This morning the CBS Austin news woman came to our house to interview me for a coupon story.  I enjoyed that.  She was here for about 45 minutes.  She asked me some questions and had me show her how I find coupons and save money by preparing the kids lunches ahead of time.

Around noon I took Morry to the airport.

I stopped at Costco on my way home.

At 6pm I went to Mom and Dad's house to celebrate Dad's birthday.  Uncle Marvin, Aunt Sandy, and Joel came too.  Aunt Sandy made most of the dinner.

At 6pm we watched the news to see the coupon story.  Here's a link to the story and video.
http://keyetv.com/news/local/high-tech-coupon-clipping-creates-big-back-to-school-savings


Now, I'm just taking care of the animals and will get ready for bed soon.

Baseball with Lincoln

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Last week, I got a text from my friend Barry.  He told me he was going to be signing his son, Lincoln, up for baseball.  Lincoln is Noah's age.  Barry was curious if I had any tips.  I offered to meet them to play some baseball and show Barry and Lincoln some things they'll need to know for coach pitch.  This morning we met them half way - at a field off 2222 and Shoal Creek.  On the way, Evan and I stopped at Donut Taco Palace and got donuts.

We had a really good time playing baseball.  Lincoln really hadn't done much at all in the way of baseball, but he was really good.  He showed excellent instincts.  Before they got there, I pitched to Evan and he hit.   And then the last thing we did after working on Lincoln's hitting and fielding was have Evan hit.  Lincoln fielded in the outfield.  He didn't catch anything in the air but he was able to keep the ball in front of him which was good.

We came home and then I hung the tv in the game room and moved the shelves I built over to the walls.  Rachel was busy organizing for a garage sale we had next week.

We had leftovers for lunch.

Evan and I drove over to property that Darius' dad owns that he's turning into a baseball infield so that we can practice there.  Daniel had someone with a bobcat leveling the dirt and putting infield dirt down.  Darius and Evan ran around the property and got dirty in the big mounds of dirt.

Darius came home with us but first we stopped at Smoothie King.

Rachel was working in the backyard on some left over vines we were pulling down.  We came in and I hung the tv in our bedroom on the wall.

For dinner, we got Salt Lick.  Darius ate with us.

The boys are still playing together.  Daniel is on his way over to get Darius.

Until next time...

Busy Afternoon

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Yesterday, we cut the cord.  We got rid of cable.  We increased our internet connection to 300 Mbps but got rid of TV.  We will now be watching all of our TV via Netflix or something similar.  It took two cable guys nearly 4 hours to get it set up and it went well into the evening.  But we're all set up now.

This morning we walked to school.  Our neighbor, Brody, rode his bike with us as we walked to school.  Brody is Noah's age but he was following Evan closely.

I went to Aaron's for a bit and then met a dad whose son has played baseball for lunch.

Rachel had a big Costco run while I was gone.

In the afternoon, we walked to get the boys.  As has been the case, Evan and Noah ran up ahead and beat us to the house.

Rachel left shortly after getting home to tutor Audrey.  She came home and picked Noah up and took him to another place to tutor.

I left with Evan and picked up Darius to go to baseball practice.  We have two fill-ins that are playing with us this weekend so they came to practice.  So we had more participants at practice than we normally have.  It was fun.  Evan pitched quite a bit today.  It was good seeing him out there.

After practice, I drove Darius to Cheddars where his family was and dropped him off there.  Evan and Darius had a ton of fun in the car and it was tough separating them.

We had rotisserie chicken from Costco for dinner.

Noah is now reading to me as I write the blog.  The kids will then go to bed.

Until next time...

Internet

Hello everyone, this is Morry.

Last night during the Steelers game, our internet went out - for 45 minutes.  Our TV relies on internet.  We've been having problems.  We had someone come out at the end of August.  I called AT&T and insisted someone come out today.

In the morning, we walked to school.  Lizzy got all the attention as usual.

I went to Aaron's for a bit.

The AT&T guy showed up just before 1.  He couldn't find anything outside the house.  He ran a bunch of tests inside the house.  He's still not entirely sure what the issue is.  He put a filter on the line thinking there was noise on the line.   He also replaced our modem.  Let's hope it works.

We walked to pick the boys up from school and then Rachel tutored Audrey.

Evan had football practice in the evening.

Noah is reading to Rachel and then the boys will get ready for bed.

Until next time...

Trying to get better

I'm not sure what I have, but I have had a slight fever and have been achy since yesterday. This morning I still wasn't feeling well and spent most of the morning in bed.

Morry took the kids out for a little bit and when they came back we had lunch.

At nap time Evan and Noah lied on the couch and watched tv.

For dinner Morry picked up Blue Bamboo for all of us.

We just gave the boys bath and put them to bed.

Another Busy One

This morning Evan got up early while Morry was getting ready for work.

At 10:30 we went to the JCC for Tot Shabbat. They were having a clothing swap. You bring in clothes your kid/s no longer wears and maybe get some other clothes they can wear now. I brought a big bag of stuff. Most the stuff there was for babies or small toddlers, but I did get a few size 3 and 4 stuff for Evan.

After the JCC we went to get an oil change and inspection. Morry met us there and then we went out to lunch. We ate at Zuzu’s across from Morry’s work. After lunch Morry dropped us off at the car place and we had to wait a while. Evan and Noah were good considering we were there for a long time.

Then, we went to Evan’s school. There was an open house from 2-3 for the kids to come see their new classrooms. School starts next week. Both Evan and Noah had a great time playing in Evan’s new room.

We came home and I put the boys down for naps. They both slept.

While they were napping a tv repairman came by. Our tv will occasionally freeze. Luckily, it froze while he was here. That never happens. Whenever you have a problem and someone comes to fix it, it always seems fine. Anyway, he took some notes, and will hopefully come back next week to fix the tv.

I packed food for the boys and we left the house around 6pm to meet Morry, Matt, Ben, and Molly for dinner at Phil’s Icehouse. Evan and Noah had a great time playing on the playground, but they didn’t eat much.

We just put the boys to bed. Evan is still up.

Small Playgroup

No one volunteered to host playgroup today, so last night I sent out an email saying I could have people over at our house. Since it was last minute only a few people replied. It turned out only one kid ended up coming. Marissa (and Bodar and baby brother, Espen) came over this morning. We had a very nice time. The kids had fun playing with each other. Noah was very curious about the baby. I made blueberry/cranberry oatmeal muffins for the playgroup. Since it was last minute, I hadn’t gone shopping so I just made muffins using what we had in the house. They turned out pretty good. Evan ate a ton of them. I also cut up oranges and Bodar brought clementines. Evan ate a lot of the oranges and clementines as well. Noah didn’t seem to like the muffin, but he did eat quite a few animal crackers.

After playgroup I let Evan and Noah play for a little while and then I put them down for naps.

Right around the time Morry got home Evan woke up. We spent some time upstairs. I was getting some things together to get rid of (baby toys, etc) while Morry hooked up the tv and components upstairs in our old entertainment center we moved upstairs.

For dinner we went to Mimi’s Café. We ate for free. Yes, you heard me. Evan, Morry, and I had free dinners. A little while ago we ate at Mimi’s and were disappointed with the service. We had to wait a really long time for everything and they didn’t give the kids a snack plate. I wrote a little message through their website saying although the food was good, we were disappointed with the service. I got a call from the manager and he invited us to come back and dine on them. The service was a lot better this time. All we paid was $9 for the tip.

The boys are playing now and we are about to put them to bed.

More TV Trouble

We had another busy day.

On the way to school today Evan told me he didn’t want to go. I was worried I’d have to fight him going into school again today. As we were parking, Yenis and Kevin pulled up next to us. We all walked in together. That made things a lot easier. Evan didn’t complain at all.

After dropping Evan off Noah and I went to my doctor and had to get some blood drawn.

I stopped at CVS on the way home to pick up a few things.

At home I had just enough time to put away some toys, deal with laundry, give Noah lunch, and wolf down my lunch. Then, it was time to get Evan.

Wendy said Evan spilled his yogurt at lunch today. It was an accident, but he got yogurt all over his clothes. He kept telling me it was dry now. It didn’t look too bad.

At home, I vacuumed and mopped downstairs and then put Evan and Noah down for a nap.

I was able to nap just a little bit until I heard Evan playing with his Nemo book that has buttons on the side that makes sounds.

Blanca came at 4:00 and I tutored from 4:30-5:30.

I got home at 6:00. Morry made tacos for us for dinner.

After dinner we went to the gym. We had been working out for maybe 5 minutes before they paged us to come the child care. Noah had been crying the whole time and they couldn’t get him to stop. We spent the rest of the time at the gym in the kids’ area helping Noah get used to the place. We’d play with him or hold him and as soon as we walked away he would start crying again.

The TV situation is still driving us nuts. We are supposed to get a new receiver tomorrow. Because the receiver is messed up, every 12 hours it resets and stops working. You switch out cables and then it finally works again. The shows we wanted to watch tonight ended up not recording for some reason. In addition, the TV will freeze at times or not put out any sound. I’m hoping once we get this new receiver things will be better. If not, we are thinking about switching to that AT&T U-verse.

Lunch with Morry

Noah, Evan, and I met Morry at his office and then went to lunch. Evan was very excited about going to Daddy’s work. When we walked in the lobby he asked, “Where’s Daddy.” I told him we had to go in the elevator and up to Daddy’s office. Morry took us around the office to meet a few people and Evan was very shy.

For lunch we went to Cheddar's. Evan sat in the booth next to me. He made it very hard to eat my lunch. He was bouncing around, touching me, wanting strawberries from my strawberry lemonade. Noah did pretty well in his high chair. He ate some baby food and some of my green beans and grapes we brought from home.

We dropped Morry off at work and went to Barnes and Noble. We needed to buy a book for the book exchange at Evan’s school tomorrow. It had to be a book under $5 that was gender neutral and not holiday themed. It was tough finding a book that meet all those criteria while trying to hold Noah and watch Evan. I saw the “Grover, Monster at the end of the Book” book. It was $4.95, so I got it.

I had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon. Blanca wasn’t able to babysit so Morry worked from home in the afternoon. Evan and Noah napped most of the time I was gone. Noah got up once and Morry had to calm him down and get him back to sleep.

On the way home from the doctor I stopped at HEB to get sugar cookies for Evan’s class tomorrow. They are decorating cookies and I said I’d bring the cookies.

For dinner we had pizza, roasted garlic, and bread.

After dinner Matt came over to help Morry move our entertainment center and TV upstairs.

Evan and Noah are still awake right now. Hopefully, they fall asleep soon.

Zilker Park, Train ride, Rachel’s on TV again

Grandma/Lynn/Mom came over to the house this morning to hang out with Noah, Evan, and me. We decided to go out to lunch and then to Zilker park. We drove over to Austin Java Company on Barton Springs, but there was no parking out front. Luckily they have a parking down the street and a free shuttle that will take you to the restaurant. It worked out well and Evan loved riding on the “bus”. It looked like one of those over-sized golf cart things. Lunch was fun. We were able to sit in the enclosed patio that overlooked Barton Springs road. We got a high chair for Noah and Evan sat in a regular seat. I ordered a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce on it. Evan ate most of my turkey and cranberries so we ordered him his own sandwich. He ate quite a bit of it.

After lunch we went across the street to Zilker park. They have a small train that goes around the park. Luckily it was leaving within the next 10 minutes so we were able to get tickets and not wait too long. Both Evan and Noah love train rides. Noah was talking and jumping up and down in my lap. Evan and Grandma shared a seat, but Evan insisted on sitting on Grandma’s lap. Evan enjoyed waving to the other kids in the park.

When we got off the train we went to the concession stand and got snow cones. We gave Evan his own and let him choose the flavor. He got Banana/Strawberry. Noah had a little of my snow cone and seemed to really like it. We sat at a picnic table overlooking Barton Springs Pool. There was no one there at the pool for us to watch. We later found out why.

As we were eating our snow cones Evan noticed some men with large video cameras. We thought maybe they were shooting a movie or something. One of the guys keep looking at over at us and I jokingly thought maybe they are looking over here because they want me in their movie. One guy who was holding a notebook came over to talk to us. He asked if we knew that the pool was leaking. He told us the pool was closed because it was leaking about 4 inches of water an hour. Then, he asked if I would like to be on TV and talk about it. He said they were there with KVUE news. So, I got interviewed for the news. Those of you that know me well know that I always seem to get on TV somehow. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an opportunity to say “It tastes like chicken.” (from when I was interviewed eating alligator a few years ago). We’ll watch the news tonight and see if I really got on TV.

So, yes, we got on TV. Here's the link to the video of the news story. http://www.kvue.com/video/index.html?nvid=289346&shu=1

Poor Noah got Mike Wazowski’d (Monsters, Inc). Every time they showed him, his faced was covered by something.