Summer time with Stacy...

I took off a few weeks between jobs and I got to spend the summer with the kids.   Aya kept telling me to relax and just rest but I signed up to carpool the kids around to summer camps and I just wanted to watch them enjoy the summer.

I will admit it is a little boring just hanging out at the park watching the kids play, but I really enjoyed it.  I would much rather be outside in the sun, watching the kids have fun then to be working and thinking about all the fun the kids are having!

Being a stay at home parent definitely is not easy but I love doing it.  If I could I would do it in a heart beat!

Football Part 2...

The coach gave kids nicknames at Summer Camp.  I was hoping Jack would get a cool nickname, like his friends...Mini Black Mamba or Mr. Efficiency.  Jack was happy because coach gave him not one but TWO nicknames....Couch Potato or Butterfingers.

Luckily Jack thinks they are cool names so he was fine with it.  Despite the nicknames and dropped balls Jack did well at football camp this year scoring a few touchdowns:

Football Part 1...

Where to start??   Lots to catch up on.   During the summer Jack was busy with summer camps and sports camp.  Jack signed up for flag football again.  Luckily I was off from work during this time so I could watch and take pictures.

The first day of camp when I picked Jack up the coach told me that Jack caught the most balls in camp.  Keep in mind, this is the same coach from prior camps where Jack hardly catches any balls!  I just thought the coach was being nice but I had to take a few other boys home and I asked them how Jack did at camp and they both confirmed that Jack was the best football catcher of the day!

A couple of pictures of Jack in action:

I am back!!

I am back!!!   I took a brief summer hiatus from the blog.  Aya and I started binge watching the tv series Breaking Bad.  Normally binge watching would occur for a few days but Aya and I had 5 season of Breaking Bad to watch and with kids it doesn't leave us a lot of free time so we would watch 2-3 episodes a night for the last month.

So, the time I would spend to process the pictures and write up the blog was taken away by television.  To make matters worse the fall tv schedule started so we had even more tv to watch!

Did I mention, Aya and I both started new jobs are well?   I started at Herbalife a month or so ago and after 14 years, Aya quit her job in Pasadena and started a new job close to home a few weeks ago.

With all the new changes going on, I just didn't have time to update the blog but it looks like I am back and ready to get started again!

Hoarder Part 2...

I should have included this one in yesterday's post about 'hoarding' but the new blog program I am using sorts my pictures differently and I forgot about this picture.

Stacy loves her stuffed animals!  Not any stuffed animals, these are ones that she has picked out at the store or won at a carnival or given to her by Jack.  Stacy names each one of them and places them on her shelf.  The 'lucky' ones make it onto her bed.  

This is the clean up picture.  Usually all the stuffed animals on the left are all over Stacy's bed.  Only 'wow-wow'  (the dog) in middle, which is her favorite gets priority.  Stacy will even sleep on the edge of her bed near the rail so she can save room for all her stuffed animals to sleep!

Hoarder...

Jack didn't really 'play' with a whole lot of toys, but Stacy plays with a variety of toys AND she plays by herself.  Stacy will 'hoard' a bunch of toys in bags, purses, cabinets, etc.  Then she will set them up and play with them and entertain herself!!

She loves the little nick-nacks.  Of course, Stacy doesn't like the clean up...so I am always yelling at her to clean up her mess!

Pasadena Tournament...

The family spent Labor Day weekend in HOT Pasadena for a basketball tournament.  Normally, I don't go to any tournament unless we have at least 7 boys playing but I made an exception when I found out the only boys that wanted to play were the 6 best players on the team.  I was curious to see how we would do so we entered the tournament.

Sadly, we entered late and we didn't get in but then a week before the tournament a team dropped out and we took their spot.  In the future, I need to ask the following 2 questions:

1.  Are we playing in a big gym, because sharing a gym playing on 2 short courts is TERRIBLE; and
2. What division are we in?

Once we accepted we found out the team we replaced as in the upper division!!  So now, we have 3 games in 2 days, with 2 games back-to-back and only 6 boys.

In the first game, the Pirates played great against the host team Pasadena.  The game was back and forth.  Normally we either win big or lose big...nothing in between.  This game was back and forth all game.







We had a one point lead with 2 minutes left and the other teams best player hit a 3 to go up by 2.  We rallied back and won 28 to 27.

In the second game, we played a very good Gardena team.  We played pretty hard...we even had the lead early in the game and other team just made us pay for every turnover.  They ended up running us out the gym and we lost 26-14.

We bounced back in the 3rd place game and showed a lot of heart by beating Evergreen 25-14.

I was pretty proud of the boys for playing hard and short handed in the tournament.  We definitely can compete with any team!!

First Day of School...

Stacy started another year at Montessori school.





Sadly about a month or so ago, Stacy started to have some anxiety issues.   Stacy didn't want to leave Grandpa and Grandma's house and start to cry but once she got to school or swimming or gymnastics she would stop.

Stacy crying at her first day of school.  Sadly, I couldn't take Stacy to school but Aya took her...hence the blurry picture:

Hopefully all the crying issues stop this week!

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First Day of School...

A little late posting...but lots of things going on at home with the new job, binge watching Breaking Bad, playing Madden, etc.

Jack starting 3rd grade a few weeks ago:



Jack is in the same classroom I was in when I went to Farragut!

Man, it was strange to be in that classroom 30+ years later!   Jack seems to be growing up too fast now!

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!!