Friday...

Ahhh...the summer...or end of summer.  I know some people will say that when they take a day off and spend it with their kids it is boring.  I agree, it might be boring but I would much rather hang out at the park pushing Stacy on the swing than to be stuck in the office and working!

What nice balance:




Stacy and I spending one of my last 'free' days before starting up my new job:

Gymnastics...

Stacy is doing well on her pre-club gymnastics team.   Aya and I both agree that we do not want Stacy to do gymnastics but this new pre-club team does harder workouts and Stacy is getting stronger and more flexible.














Hopefully this will give her an advantage for basketball when she starts playing next year.  Stacy is doing very well in her class:

Last Day....

Stacy went to summer school this year and I surprised her and picked her up from school on her last day. We stopped off at Menchie's for dessert:

Jetts Tournament

The Pirates played in the Jetts tournament but we were late in submitting our paperwork so the only way we could play in the tournament was if we played up a grade and played a 4th grade team.  I figured it would be good practice for us and I expected to lose all 3...so it was quite a pleasant surprise when we won the first 2 games and played in the championship game!



The Pirates are not a tall team to begin with and the boys we played were much TALLER than us.  We won the first 2 games by double figures.  The first game almost every player except one scored.  The second game our good players carried us thru.

In the championship game we came out flat but after some adjustments we made a huge comeback.  In the end we just ran out of gas and lost by a few points.

Still I was super happy for our 2nd place finish:

Up next for us, the Pasadena tournament:

Balloon...

I got a new PC and the blog editor that I use can't install on the new PC so now I have to edit via the web client and I just don't like it as much.   It makes want to update less often.

In any case, the family went to Santa Monica pier.  We wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel but Stacy was just a tad too small still to ride.  Instead we played games.  Jack, opted to play a balloon game where he threw a bean bag at some balloons.  I thought it was going to be darts but when I saw the bean bag I was thinking...this is going to be hard.  To make matters worse some older kids went before Jack and they were terrible!

Nevertheless, Jack still wanted to play and he popped 5 out of 6 balloons!!  He really hit all 6 but one of the balloons did not pop!

Luckily both Jack and Stacy won their own stuffed animals:

New Job...

Maybe this is my thing, when I leave a new job I get a TV.   So I entered the Venice Community Center raffle fund raiser.  Jack is suppose to sell raffle tickets but I never want to bother people with the tickets so I just buy them all as a donation.  I have never won and I have entered this raffle at least 15 years.  As you know, EA laid me off and then I find out that I won a new tv:

Not only did I win the TV but I also got a new job.  I am working at Herbalife.  Today is my first day on the job...I hope I like it!!

Scrimmage...

Jack's basketball team has been playing a lot of basketball lately.  We even got invited to scrimmage girls teams during the summer.  Initially there was boys teams in this brief summer league but once other boys team coaches found out they dropped out but we decided to keep playing.  I figure girls or boys it gives us more of an opportunity to play and just work on things we need to improve on.

We crushed all the teams in summer...sometimes I didn't even realize the score until late because we were just working on different offenses, new plays, new defenses.  We played well and hopefully it will carry us into our league play.

Oh and Jack's summer league was at my high school alma mater:

Pool...

Summertime is when we take advantage of our pool...we our schedule permits.  We have been so busy with sports this summer that we can't go to the pool as often as we would like.  Since EA told me that I was laid off it really didn't give me incentive to work hard every day.

One day it was so nice, that I just decided to leave work, get the kids and head on out to the pool!  We had the whole pool to ourselves:

We got to splish-splash and jump in the pool:

 Jack thought it was hilarious to jump in wearing his crocs:

Dodgers...

Man, we are not bringing the Dodgers luck this season.  We have only seen the Dodgers win one time this season.  We went again to watch the Dodgers take on the Indians and the Dodgers lost 10 - 3!

We did get to the stadium early so we tried walking around taking different pictures:

I think the Dodgers should list all these photo op places so I don't have to randomly walk around the park looking for places to take pictures:

 Of course my kids want to eat as soon as we get there!!

Toshihiro's 1st Birthday...

What?  I guess my nephew's birthday didn't make it to my 100 Happy Days.  Well, we celebrated Toshihiro's birthday twice.  First we had a family dinner at home with the Eberly's:

Toshi got to have his first piece of cake:

Then we had a big friends and family gathering at Toshihiro's house.  I guess I was too busy eating taco's to take a lot pictures but I did get this picture of Jack using an ice pick for the first time while we helped set up: 

Stacy got this super cool balloon animal dog from the party:

50 Percent...

After being married for a few years, I told Aya that one of her chores was to take out the trash. We have lived at the same house for 15 years now and the trash man always comes on the same day...Thursday.

It took a number of years for Aya to remember to take the trash out on Wednesday.  For the most part she remembers that now.  Unfortunately, she still doesn't remember to close the cabinet door after she gets a trash bag.

It is worse when Aya remembers to take the trash out but she forgets to put a new trash liner in and then I don't realize it until AFTER I throw my trash away:

Maybe I need to wait another 15 years and maybe then Aya will remember how to take the trash out every week.

100 Happy Days…Day 100

Wow!  100 days.  Seemed longer and definitely harder than I thought.   When I started I didn’t even think about the 100th day and then right around the 70th day, I started thinking, what should I  do for Day 100??   Luckily it was rather easy to pick my 100th happy day.  It was a day at the beach with the family.   We enjoyed a nice So. Cal summer Friday at the Santa Monica Pier:

The beach was packed but you would never have guessed from our pictures:

Sometimes I wish the kids would grow up faster because it would be ‘easier’ for me and I wouldn’t have to be so patient with them.  When I look back at their pictures or see these new pictures, I think these kids are growing up TOO fast and time is just going by quicker than I can enjoy and appreciate it.  I know the 100 Happy Days and my regular blog postings are pretty much the same but watching Jack and Stacy grow up and being with family makes me happy (just like the smiley face on the parachute in the background).   100 Happy Days.

100 Happy Days…Day 99

There is lots of hard work that goes on behind the scenes for Jack’s basketball.  Grandpa takes him outside to practice during the week.  Uncle Bryan and Aunty Dawn help coach his Venice team.   On Sunday, Jack and I go to the park to put in more work.

This summer Jack played in a Gym Ratz league where he is on co-ed team of kids going into  2nd, 3rd and 4th grade:

Jack had a great game and scored 24 points and almost lead his team to a big comeback.  They trailed 36-18 with 10 minutes to go and Jack started scoring like crazy.   They ended up losing 46-42.

It was great to see Jack so dialed into the game and trying so hard.  In the end the 4th grade kid was just too good for Jack:

100 Happy Days…Day 98

Sometimes I miss the day of just going to the pool quickly and lounging.  Going to the pool with kids is a chore…I have to put sun tan lotion on both kids, get towels for them, get pool toys, get snacks and then go to the pool.  Only to find out that sometimes after 10 minutes they want to go home!  Grrr.  Luckily, as the kids have gotten older they like to stay for HOURS but we got to take Toshihiro to the pool for his first time!

It is so hard to get a good picture of all 3 kids.  In the picture above, Jack has his finger on his nose.  On the picture below  Toshihiro looked down:

Now, Stacy has her eyes closed:

But it still makes me smile.

100 Happy Days…Day 97

Now that baseball season is over, Jack knows that next year it is player pitch.  When I asked Jack if he wanted to be pitcher next year he said, YES!   I was pitcher in baseball and I always thought when I was a dad it would be great to play catch with my son.  Honestly, I thought we would have played catch sooner but this was the first year Jack and I could toss the ball around where he would actually catch it AND throw it back to me.

I told Jack if he wanted to pitch for the 2015 season, we need to start practicing now to build up his arm strength.  Every Sunday, we go to the park to work on his mechanics and arm strength. 

Jack obviously struggles with consistency but I am just happy being outside tossing the ball around.