Snow!

I know this isn't that exciting for a lot of you, but it is now snowing for the second year in a row in Houston, and the third year out of five. This is probably the heaviest out of the three, and I believe it is the earliest recorded snow in Houston (so was last year at the time, but this is a week earlier).

Jessie is ecstatic. Of course, it's a bit of a difficulty for the plans for her birthday party tomorrow, which included a lot of outdoor stuff... And of course today's the day the Louisiana contingent is driving here, so that's not the best.

New Stake

Yesterday the League City Texas Stake was created. It consists of the Galveston, League City, South Shore, Clear Lake 1st, Clear Lake 2nd, Broadway 1st and Pasadena 1st wards, as well as the Lehi (Spanish) and Kemah (Spanish) branches. The new stake president is Weldon Reeves.

In addition, one branch moved from the Houston Texas East stake to the Friendswood stake, and two wards moved from the Kingwood stake to the Houston Texas East stake.

Stake Conference

This will presumably be of interest to my family.

This coming Sunday is Stake Conference. It has been announced that at this Stake Conference a new stake will be created. For a variety of reasons, we have every reason to believe that the new stake will be made up of parts of Friendswood and the Houston Texas East (our current) stake, and that the two Clear Lake wards will be in the new stake.

We have also been told that by the end of the year, another new stake will be created somewhere in the greater Houston area. I will provide more details after next Sunday.

Programming Tip

When you call a method that gives you a time interval expressed in seconds, and pass it to a method expecting a time interval expressed in milliseconds, you will find things happening rather faster than you expected...

Update

Time gets away... I know I still have pictures I wanted to get up here, but I had problems when I tried. I still need to find some before pictures of our wall, and upload those and the "middle" ones. I'm nearing the end of construction of the first cabinet, and then we'll start on the second before finishing with the bookshelves and the mantel. Also, we'll still have tiling to do. And then we have to see if we can afford to do the floor of the living room now, which we'd really like to do... So we'll see where it all ends up.

Jessie had a minor bout of the flu week before last. I don't know if I ever mentioned that she decided to run for Student Council--Elementary here is only through 5th grade. The student council officers are fifth graders, but the fourth grade classes each have two representatives. Jessie won the election for girl representative for her class. Sadly, the day of the first meeting was the day she got sick. That turned out to be the only day that she missed, however.

Jessie's also back in bowling. For a few reasons, we ended up not doing the scholarship league this time, though we'll evaluate that again in January. She's still doing well with that and enjoying it. She's been busy with some medium-sized geography assignments, and also trying to complete several book reports.

I was somewhat surprised when she brought home the book, "Someone Named Eva," a story based on history about a Czech girl who was taken by the Nazis and trained to be a perfect Aryan. We weren't really anticipating such subjects coming up, and were somewhat concerned about her readiness for such serious material. So I skimmed through it so that we could make a more informed decision. In the end, I think it was a good experience for her. And I realized that some of what happens wouldn't have nearly the impact on her that it does on me. Anything touching on the Holocaust or the racial policies of the Nazis brings up all those feelings and memories of walking through Buchenwald, and living for seven months in its shadow.

Brennan had his first big assignment, a "Dinorama." He decided to do his on Triceratops. It was somewhat painful to get him to work on it, but he really did a good job. We planned on making his triceratops out of clay, but it turned out our clay was dried out. So he ended up making it out of salt dough, and that actually worked very well.

Brennan has had two baseball games now (with another rained out). The first game he hit the ball all three times he came up. His first time he made it to first easily. The second time, the bases were loaded and he hit it right up the middle. The second base man made a good play to get the ball, and landed on 2nd base, forcing out the runner. But two runs scored, and Brennan was safe. His third hit was again more or less up the middle, and by the time the shortstop got the ball, he realized Brennan was already almost at first and didn't make a throw.

In the second game, Brennan was able to make a play at 2nd on a ball hit to him. He struck out his first and fourth times up. His second time up, he hit a good fly ball into the outfield, but it went pretty much straight to an outfielder, who was able to catch it. But two runs scored on the play. The third time he came up, he hit a line drive into the outfield for an easy single. He's really hitting it much harder than last spring, and even though his bunting in practice is still at the level it was before, he hasn't been asked to bunt in a game yet because the coach expects him to be able to hit it swinging away.

Sunday was the primary program. As always, that means it was a very memorable and special meeting. Both Jessie and Brennan had memorized their parts and scriptures and presented them well, speaking clearly and confidently. They both also knew all the songs, and once again Jessie carried the rest of the primary in the singing. Our new primary president teaches singing, and has asked us to have Jessie take some piano lessons to prepare to take voice lessons, because she really wants to teach her. We're trying to figure out the best way to do this.

Another entertaining part of the program is that there's a 2-year-old girl in the ward who adores Jessie. When Jessie came up to do her part, she was beside herself: "Hi Jessie! Hi Jessie!"

A month or so ago I was released as the Finance Clerk, and called to be a ward missionary. Dee, as always, is busy with Young Womens. She's also adjusting to teaching without her co-teacher from the past three years (and friend), whose husband got a job in California, and organizing the school workroom that she's in charge of with the PTA. I've also ended up with a PTA position, putting together the PTA newsletter. Which then turned into putting together a combined PTA/school newsletter at the last moment... I'm also trying to write some web applications for the little league to use to manage practice fields and batting cages, and this year I'm the first base coach for Brennan's team.

Well, that's probably all I can think of right now.

Bowling

I'm not sure I've said much (or anything) about Jessie and bowling. This summer she decided she wanted to participate in a summer bowling league--mostly, I believe, because of playing Wii Bowling.

Anyway, the way the league worked is that she was assigned to a team. Each Saturday, she would go and warm up, and then bowl three games as part of the team, with coaches there to help teach her how to do better. She also received a card that allowed her to bowl two free games each day for practice. Plus, it turns out the bowling alleys had cards for the summer that we could get for the kids that gave each of them a free game every day. Of course, those free games didn't include shoe rental. So, we ended up buying Jessie and Brennan each their own bowling shoes.

Anyway, Jessie did a lot of bowling, and learned a lot. Her coach ended up giving her a used 6-pound ball. But before long she was preferring to use an 8-pound ball. The coaches frequently told us how well she was doing for her experience level. Anyway, Saturday was the end-of-season party for the league. As it turns out, Jessie's team came in first place. Here she is with her trophy:


But that's not all. Jessie also had the high series among girls with a handicap, gaining her another trophy:


We're very proud of her hard work. Next week she'll be able to start a new league. I don't understand exactly how it works, but depending on how well she does, she can win scholarship money. She's very excited about this. Since the 6-pound ball wasn't heavy enough for her anymore, we did also buy her an 8-pound ball. She's very excited to pick it up tomorrow after school (the shop needed time to drill the holes, which will are measured for her hand. I guess as she grows they'll fill in the current holes and redrill new ones).

First Day of School

I'll join in the crowd of first day of school pictures.

Here's Jessie, all ready for fourth grade. Please note that that's a binder over her shoulder, not a bag. Her teacher is Ms. Danek for science and math (homeroom), and Ms. Houston for English and social studies.


And here's Brennan, heading off for second grade. His teacher this year is Ms. Rock. Keep in mind, his teacher last year was Ms. Schrock. Any guesses as to how often he'll say the wrong name? This is the first year Brennan's teacher isn't new to the school.

Brief Update

Last week we went to Louisiana. I'm going to cover that in more detail, but I was waiting until I got my pictures to a place where I can upload them first. Also, I do have some "middle" pictures of the living room project, and I'm sure I can find some to serve as a before.

Next week Jessie and Brennan start school. We think there will be a lot of changes this year, because 2/3 of the way through last year the school got a new principal, and now she's had a chance to make more changes. Plus, a lot of the teachers went to the new school that the old principal is now in charge of.

Anyway, expect more fairly soon.

Let There Be Light (I Wish)

OK, so here's the story. As part of the living room remodeling, we were thinking of replacing the ceiling fan in the living room, the dining room chandelier, and the entry way light. The ceiling fan is a big massive one that we brought with us when we moved, but it didn't seem to fit in with some of the changes. We've never liked the way the dining room light looks, plus two of the four bulbs don't regularly work (as in, even with a brand-new bulb they don't light. Except for every now and then, when they feel like it)--and the bulbs are non-standard ones that we never remember to have. The entry one was a simple silver tube with a square plate on the bottom, and a medium-sized white globe. It's never worked well, either, usually requiring a jiggling of the switch to get it to come one. A while ago it quit completely. As we were working, we realized we'd never checked if it had just burned out, or the light itself had quit working. At this point, we discovered that the globe was actually the light bulb--and it was burned out.

A week or so ago, as we were priming the ceiling in preparation of painting, we took down the ceiling fan. At this point, we were actually still deciding whether or not to replace it. I had the thought that we might be able to fix the entry light when we replaced its switch--I thought that might be the problem, since jiggling the switch made a difference. Then, a couple of days ago, we got to the point of painting the dining room and entry, so those lights needed to come down, too. When I took off the entry light, we decided the light was the problem, considering that the wires looked older than the actual house--I don't particularly feel comfortable with wires that look like they've been charred...

Yesterday we went to pick out lights, hoping for something complementary, as all three lights are in close proximity. That of course took some time. We went home, ate dinner, and I started on the installation project.

First up, the entry way. Unfortunately, it turns out the outlet box is recessed up into the ceiling--and the light we got has a long pole extending from the bracket that needs to extend through the half-globe glass to screw the bottom piece on that holds the glass. And with the bracket being up in the ceiling, it didn't reach. But, for now, the base of the light is installed with no cover, until I find the best solution to that problem.

So, that was disappointing. Next I turned to the ceiling fan. There was some confusion in my understanding of the instructions for taking off the downrod (our ceiling is too low for that kind of installation), and then it took some time to get the wires separated enough to attach to the motor--oh, and there was the fun part where I realized that when you took the light off the wires a week earlier, it's harder to remember to make sure the switch is in the off position before you start working on the wires--but after that it was pretty quick to get the whole thing installed. But that's when we realized that when the packaging referred to the lights as spot lights, it wasn't refering to styling or anything. No, three little spotlights. So we could very nicely light three small sections of our living room, but the rest of it was rather shadowy and dark. A nice atmospheric effect, perhaps, but not exactly ideal for normal living...

So, the ceiling fan had to come back down and go back into the box, and now this evening I'll try again with a new ceiling fan, plus a different chandelier (that goes better with the different ceiling fan), and hopefully fix the other mount as well...

Should I be worried that we've had thunderstorms all afternoon...?

Too Many Cooks?

Not really, but I couldn't come up with a better title...

Dee & I spent all day yesterday painting and changing outlets and switches (the latter mostly actually done by one of the missionaries, who happens to be an electrician), and trying to replace light fixtures (the last bit is still ongoing, maybe worth a separate post), etc. We went to bed a little after midnight. So, this morning Dee wasn't really ready to make something for breakfast. She told Jessie and Brennan they could have whatever for breakfast, and Jessie said she wanted to make a coffee cake for breakfast. Dee got her a recipe and helped a tiny bit, but I guess for the most part she did it all herself. I'm looking forward to getting to try it out.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Friday we went to the Astros vs. the Mets at Minute Maid Park. It was the first time in a couple of years we'd all gone together. A few weeks ago Dee went as a mutual activity, and Brennan and I went last year with his baseball team, but this was Jessie's first game in a long time.

I was a little nervous when the Astros kindly emailed me the following scouting report before the game : "Mets: Santana extended his streak of scoreless innings to 15 Saturday afternoon when he beat the Braves. He allowed only five hits and two walks in his seven innings and then sweated out a Braves rally in their eighth. The victory was his 59th in 76 career decisions after the All-Star break. His career .776 winning percentage after the break is the highest in big league history among pitchers with at least 75 starts after the break. Now he faces the Astros, a team he has dominated -- 0.98 ERA -- in three career appearances, two last season after the break."--I think it was kind of cool that because I had bought tickets to the game they sent the report, but that wasn't exactly encouraging news about the game...

Our seats this time were in the top level, but more or less just above the first base dugout. In the end, the game had a little bit of everything: a 2-run home run from the Astros pitcher, a stolen base, the Astros throwing a runner out at the plate, a near-diving catch, a bunt for a base hit (that probably should have been an error), the lead runner getting thrown out at second on an attempted sacrifice bunt, and several double plays. One thing, sadly, that was missing, was Lance Berkman, who had just been put on the DL. Brennan was disappointed since, in his words, "I'm crazy for Berkman." Best of all, in the end the Astros won, 5 - 4. And, as it was a Friday night, we stuck around after for the fireworks show. According to Jessie and Brennan, it was much better than the Fourth of July fireworks because we were closer, and it lasted longer.

We got home very late and very tired, but it was worth it.

Apollo Eleven

I realize that I'm the only member of my family who was not alive for the moon landing. Nonetheless, I did grow up with the space program as a major portion of my childhood, what with the shuttle and all. And I do happen to be living in an area where the 40th anniversary of the moon landing is a big deal, you could say.

So, I wanted to take a moment to mention my appreciation for all those who put so much effort into making the moon landing possible. I hope that our country never fully loses the desire to learn and attempt great things, even things that seem impossible.

More Church Growth

So, I've discovered that as recently as 1961 they still announced all the changes in mission presidents and stake presidents in General Conference, and even listed all the new wards and branches created. Can anyone imagine if they still did that now? That would take up at least an entire session of conference, if not more.

It can be fun, though, to look through the new stake presidents from back then and see names turn up that later became General Authorities...

What Everyone is Up To

It's been a busy summer. Here's a short review.

Dee and I have spent a fair amount of time working on a remodeling project, with lots of help from others. The story goes like this:

The back wall of the living room, containing the fireplace, is entirely brick, with a brick hearth and brick mantel. We've never really been fond of it. The color wasn't our favorite, and the bricks weren't, either. Plus, it made it hard to do anything decorative with that wall. Dee, in particular, has never liked the hearth, viewing it as some nice sharp edges just waiting for a child's head to crack open. (Although, in it's defense, it was not responsible for either time Brennan cut his head open...).

Then, about a year and a half ago, a new family moved into the neighborhood and our ward. Their son is Brennan's age, and they became friends. Their house has the same original floor plan as our house. They didn't like the bricks, either. They decided to do something about it. So they pulled out the bricks, patched up the sheetrock behind the bricks, and fixed up the fireplace chimney that wasn't in too good of condition. They told us it wasn't too hard of a project, and offered to help us do ours, along with the missionaries (he's the Ward Mission Leader). We decided to take them up on the offer.

The planned day came, and the helpers arrived. We set out to demolish the breaks, and quickly discovered that in our case, there was no sheet rock behind the bricks. Just studs and insulation, and then the outside wall. So I set out to find someone willing to help us get to the store and get some sheet rock (the sheets are too big to fit in our van). Meanwhile, our friend was feeling sick, so he went home. One of the missionaries was an electrician, and helped us add an outlet over the fireplace (the plan being to get an LCD TV and hang it on the wall), before he and his companion left for appointments. One of the other elders had done a lot of sheet rock work, so he stayed to help us get that all installed.

So, by the end of the first day, the sheet rock was up and the bricks were gone. Dee spent several hours working on adding mortar around the fireplace to try and bring it out to the level of the sheet rock. Oh, and the plan is to NOT replace the hearth, and put tile around the fireplace and on the floor. We're also adding in built-in bookshelves/cabinets all along the wall. Oh, and this was all happening in the middle of fixing the ceiling that sagged after Ike.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, after Dee finished the first layer of mortar someone had a better idea on how to do it nicely, and another member of the ward (who we didn't even really know) came over and spent several hours on the 4th of July finishing up the mortar, which looks quite nice. We've now finally picked out the tile we want to use, and some paint colors, and are working on getting the ceiling and walls primed, and finding new light fixtures.

Unfortunately, the suddenness of the sheet rock project didn't allow us to think things through all the way, so we're still ending up cutting some holes so that we can connect up the TV and DVD player and Wii through the walls, rather than stringing cables across the wall. But we're happy that we're finally getting this project done, and looking forward to more plans for the future.

Aside from that, Jessie has joined a summer bowling league. She's learned a lot, and improved a lot, and I believe is planning to continue working on it in the future. As a result of this, both Jessie and Brennan now own their own bowling shoes. Jessie was also actually given a bowling ball, although I think she's already graduated to a heavier one. Brennan has been doing a lot of bowling as well, and enjoying that.

Jessie just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Brennan was finally allowed to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So there's a lot of Harry Potter going on around our house.

During June we all spent a week at Cub Scout Twilight Camp. Around here, you go into Cub Scouts the summer when you're seven and going into second grade, so this was Brennan's first Cub Scout experience. I was one of his den leaders. They have a group for the sisters of Cub Scouts, so Jessie did that, and Dee was one of the leaders for that group. It was very hot, but both Jessie and Brennan had a lot of fun.

We did go to see one of the local fireworks shows on the 4th. It wasn't very long, but was fun. The weekend of the 11th of July we went to Lafayette for Heather's birthday party, and then Beth, Heather and Jessica more or less followed us home, coming Tuesday through Thursday for a visit.

Potato

Wow. I didn't really realize how long it had been...

Anyway, yesterday we were reminded why you poke holes in potatoes before baking them. I'd put a bunch of potatoes in the oven for dinner. While they baked we were playing Life. As they were reaching the end of their baking time, we noticed the house was smelling slightly burnt. So I went to check on the potatoes. One of them had exploded, leaving an empty, crispy potato peel and a bunch of potato guts all over the oven...

I'm sure the potato next to it was traumatized by having it's friends remains plastered on it... :)

Still, the rest of the potatoes survived, until we ate them. And they were still yummy...

40 Years

OK, I'll have to try to mention the past week at some point, but that will have to wait. This is just something I think is interesting to look at.

I was looking at the statistical report from April conference in 1969. I thought it was interesting to look at the differences in some of the numbers between then and this April.

	1969	2009
Stakes	473	2,818
Missions	83	348
Wards and Branches	4,385	28,109
Membership	2,684,073	13,508,509

End of School

Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since I had posted something...

And this one will be short. At the end of the school year, along with the usual good grade and attendance awards (well, not attendance for Brennan, since he gets sick more often), Jessie received an Outstanding Music Student award. These are given out to those with perfect grades in music who also do additional work. In Jessie's class, she spent most of the year writing her own songs and bringing them in to class. Not that she generally bothers to share these songs with us, mind you...

In fact, as the music teacher announced, Jessie had the most pluses (extra work marks) of any of the third grade students this year.

We are very proud of her for her initiative and hard work and good behavior. And we're also very proud of Brennan for all of his hard work and good behavior. It's hard to believe another school year is over, but I guess I don't really have much choice.

We Are the Champions!!!!!

Tigers win! Tigers win! Tigers win! Tigers win!

Final score 13 - 11, in a back-and-forth game. More details (if I remember) later...

More Baseball

It's the week of the baseball tournament, so our lives still revolve around that... But maybe they'll settle down a little after this.

Monday was the first game of the tournament. We had a bye for the first round, so we had to wait to find out who we played. It turned out to be the White Sox again. Once again, it was a close, tough game, although not quite as nerve-wracking as the last game of the season. I think it was tied going into the bottom of the sixth this time. Any way, the Tigers won in the end.

Tuesday was scheduled to be a short practice. Brennan woke up that morning with a very stuffy nose. Then, after the practice he had a 99 degree temperature. In the morning he still was about the same, so we kept him home from school. Most of the day he seemed to feel OK and be doing fine, so we thought everything was good. But then around dinner time he started feeling not good, and his temperature started going up. He ended up getting up to 101+. He was also obviously exhausted. One of our home teachers and the missionaries came over and helped me give him a blessing. Just after they left, he ended up throwing up. After that his temperature started coming back down (with medicine), and he slept pretty good through the night.

By yesterday morning his temperature was near normal, but with the medicine. He stayed home from school again (missing field day, unfortunately), and went to the doctor. The doctor said it was just a respiratory bug and there really wasn't anything she could do. Although somewhat hesitant, she didn't say he couldn't play in the game. Brennan was still feeling pretty good. After a lot of discussion, we decided to go ahead and at least go to the warm ups for the game and see how he was doing at that point (of course, being Houston, it was 87 degrees and humid). This game was the East division championship, against the Diamondbacks (the team that was leading the whole season until we won that last game).

Brennan was still feeling OK after warm ups, and one of the other players was delayed and wasn't there yet. That meant if Brennan hadn't been there, the Tigers would have forfeited the game. So it was a good thing he was there.

The first inning started out well. The Diamondbacks didn't score, and the Tigers scored three. Brennan came up with runners on and two outs. He hit the ball hard, but unfortunately it went straight to the second baseman, who threw him out.

The second inning the Tigers again held them scoreless. In the bottom of the inning the Tigers scored four. Once again Brennan came up with runners on and two outs. They had him bunt, but the Diamondback's best player was at pitcher, and he was able to throw out Brennan on a close play.

In the third, the Diamondbacks scored a run. Now the Tiger's bats went silent, and they weren't able to score, leaving it at 7 - 1.

In the fourth, it started to get tense. The Diamondbacks started hitting, and in the midst of a lot of close plays and near-great defensive efforts, they were able to score the maximum five runs, making it 7 - 6. Once again, the Tigers weren't able to score.

The held the Diamondbacks in the fifth. In the bottom of the inning, Brennan came up with a runner on third and one out. He had another hard hit, this time right down the first base line. The first baseman fielded it while standing on first base. Meanwhile, however, the runner on third scored to make it 8 - 6. That was the only run scored that inning.

The last inning had some more near-plays, and some very good plays. But in the end, the Diamondbacks scored 3 to take the lead, 9 - 8. In the bottom of the inning, our 10th batter (the late player, who made it in the third) got a solid single. He stole second. The next batter was out. Then another hit and a stolen base got us to runners on second and third with one out, and our best hitter up. He hit a looping hit over the shortstop--but that was where their best player was playing that inning, and he made a very good play to catch the ball for the out.

Now it was all on the line. Runners on second and third, one run down, two outs, bottom of the last inning. The coach's son was up. On the first pitch he drove the ball up the middle and to the fence. Both runs scored, and the Tigers won the East championship.

After the game, Brennan was given one of two game balls for, as the coach put it, "Coming out to play when the night before he had a 101 degree fever and was yakking it up at home." The other game ball went to the championship-winning hit.

Tonight is the City Championship against the winner of the West. Brennan's very tired this morning, but went to school for at least the first part of the day. We're planning on trying to get him to rest as much as possible before the game.

Baseball update

So, last year the Tigers heading toward the end of the season were 1 game out of first. Their next-to-last game was against the first place team, and their last game was against the last place team, who they had already easily beaten. So it seemed that if they could beat the first place team (which would put them in a tie and give them the tiebreaker), they would win the regular season. Then, the week before the "big game", the Tigers lost to the third place team, seemingly ending the hopes of a title. Still, second place was on the line. The Tigers played a great game and beat the first-place team (giving them their first loss of the season). Then, a few days later, the first place team lost again. That put us in a tie for first place. All that remained was that last game against the last-place team.

The game didn't start out well. I don't remember all the details, but the Tigers weren't hitting and scoring runs and fell behind. But towards the end they began to inch closer. In the end, in the bottom of the last inning, with two outs and still down one run, with a runner on first, Brennan came up to bat. Needless to say, this was very nerve-wracking for Dee and I (although I don't know that it was to Brennan...). He got one of his trademark short hits in the infield that he beat out with his hustle. The next batter then hit a hard line drive to the fence in center field, the lead run scored easily and Brennan scored from first with the game-and-title winning run. Final score, 12 - 11.

Fast forward to this year. The Tigers started out slow, then had a 9-game winning streak to move into second place, 1 game behind the first place team, with three games left--the next-to-last game against the 1st place team, and the last game against the next-to-last place team. The Tigers had won 2 out of 3 against the next-to-last place team, and 1 out of 2 against the first place team. So, a win against the first place team would give us the tiebreaker. If the Tigers win the last three games, they will be the regular season champions. The third-to-last game is against the third place team, who we had beat twice already.

That game was last Saturday, and it just wasn't a good game. The defense was really quite good (including a catch on a fly ball in right field by Brennan), but the offense never really clicked. In the end they made it close, but still lost, seemingly ending the hopes of the regular season title. But in the next game, the first place team lost! The race is back on.

Tuesday night was the big game. This time the Tigers got off to a hot start, scoring five runs in the first inning (as I believe I've mentioned, there's a limit of five runs per inning). They didn't do quite that well the whole game, but did enough that the game was really never super close, and their defense was superb. The final score was 7 - 4 Tigers.

That brings us to last night, the last game of the season. Tigers win, and they're the regular season champions. This seems oddly familiar... And it got to feel even more familiar. The Tigers were the home team. The White Sox easily scored five runs the first inning (highlighted by a 2-run home run from one of last year's Tigers...). The Tigers did OK, and scored three (although Brennan struck out with the bases loaded for the third out). The Tiger defense started to look better, but the bats weren't. Going into the bottom of the fourth, it was 11 - 3. With only three more turns to bat, and a maximum of five runs each time, it was looking tough. Bottom three hitters are coming up. The first batter gets a single. Brennan is now up. He puts down a perfect bunt about 1/4 the way down the third base line and beats the throw--which got past the first baseman anyway and into the outfield. Brennan heads towards second, but soon realizes that the runner on second isn't going anywhere. So he turned around and went back, sliding into first just ahead of the first base man, coming back with the ball (and yes, I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that last part happening...). The next batter hit a pop out in the infield, and the runner on second ran to third anyway, leading to a double play.

But now it's the top of the order, and they come through enough to score Brennan and one other run. Now it's 11 - 5. Top of the fifth, the defense holds tough and the White Sox fail to score. I wish I remembered the details of the bottom of the fifth better. Brennan came up again with at least one out, and at least one runner on. Once again, he was asked to bunt. This time it was more to the center of the infield, but Brennan (as always) hustled down the base line, and the throw was low and went under the first baseman's glove, allowing at least one run to score. Next thing I know (after the head coach talking all game about how good the White Sox catcher is and how hard it will be to steal) they're giving Brennan the steal sign. Despite my nerves, he was easily safe at second. From there the details again escape me, but Brennan scored the fourth of the Tigers' five runs that inning. The score is now 10 - 11. If the White Sox score five, the game is over. Every run they score makes it that much harder for us. A couple of quick outs, a couple of near-plays, and the White Sox have the bases loaded with two outs. But our third baseman makes the play on a grounder and throws out the runner to keep it 10 - 11.

Bottom of the sixth. Hitters 3 - 4 - 5 coming up. First batter singles. Second batter singles. Or maybe there was a double in there. Anyway, we end up with runners on second and third. The batter smashes a single up the middle to the fence. Both runners score, and the Tigers win the game and the regular season championship. Final score, 12 - 11.

Now it's just the tournament left. But already an impressive accomplishment as the Tigers go from a 1 - 3 record to end the season at 12 - 4.

We're very proud of how hard Brennan has worked, and the improvements he has made. I believe I can say without bias that he is likely one of the top six outfielders in the league, and one of the (if not the) best bunters in the league.

I also want to mention that Jessie has been phenomenally supportive and done her part in cheering on the team. For example, apparently last night she was playing with some of the other siblings, but when she saw that the team was struggling she got the other siblings to come watch and cheer to help the team in their comeback.

Agency and Existence

I have often thought that D&C 93 is one of the deeper parts of the scriptures. I remember thinking when I was in college what it would be like to be in a philosophy class somewhere NOT BYU and start quoting from that section during discussions of truth.

Sunday I was reading that section again (parts of it anyway), and the following thought came to mind. Make of it what you will.

All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.
(verse 30).

Therefore, Satan's plan, which would make intelligence dependent and unable to act for itself (as we would all just be doing whatever he wanted us to) was a plan for non-existence.

I know that I used to interpret things that in the council of heaven Lucifer came up with a plan, it was rejected, and so he got made and decided to, more or less, take his ball and go home. But the more I understand about how things really work, the more I realize that he knew his plan was impossible, unworkable, and would in no way help anyone other than himself. In other words, rather than rebelling because his plan wasn't acceptable, his plan WAS a rebellion. The amazing thing is that he was able to talk 1/3 of the hosts of heaven into going for his plan that would leave them with nothing. But I guess that just shows how good of a talker he was.

Another thought, that I just had while writing this. It would appear from the verse quoted that truth is itself able to act, and has agency. Not sure of the implications of that, but it's something perhaps to think about.

Baseball and rain

Baseball season continues, and everything else seems to revolve around it. Last week we were supposed to have games Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This week there was a game on Wednesday, and a game on Saturday.

Monday's game was rescheduled from a rainout earlier, and the end result was that Monday and Wednesday were both against the same team. Going into Monday's game, the Tigers were a game behind the A's (the opponent) for second place. Behind some somewhat streaky but overall good hitting and some stellar defense, the Tigers won both games with identical scores of 12 - 6 to move into second place. In the second game, Brennan got one of those "only in Little League" 2-RBI bunts.

Friday was very gloomy, and it kept not raining although it kept being supposed to. But finally, at around 5, the rain started coming down, and the game was canceled.

Saturday it was still very gloomy and a bit rainy. I went out early to get some sheet rock to repair the ceiling from the post-hurricane leak. Shortly after I got back, it really started to rain. And rain, and rain and rain. I've heard at one point we got nine inches of rain in one hour. And it rained for more than an hour. We had planned on doing a few things that afternoon, but we ended up putting them off because we didn't think going out in the storm was such a good idea.

Finally, it started to let up, so we decided to head out. We planned on going to a few places and then getting something to eat. We soon started passing a few cars in the middle of the road with blinkers on. Then we saw a long line at the intersection ahead. At this point Dee and I decided that we wouldn't try to go anywhere except to get something to eat. So we turned around. Then we turned to go toward where the places we were considering were. That was something of a mistake. Pretty soon we came to some rather flooded intersections. We gingerly made our way through them, and began trying to decide the best/shortest way to get back home, while still hopefully finding a place to get food. About an hour later, after nervously going through many more flooded intersections and passing numerous stranded cars, we had made it to Space Center Blvd (about 2 miles at most from where we had started). Here it seemed less flooded, and we took it towards home. Luckily there was a KFC near our house, so we did get to eat. And we learned to not go out so quickly after that kind of a storm.

Anyway, needless to say, none of the baseball games scheduled for Saturday happened, either. This led to a mad scurry of rescheduling games. Before Friday, actually, our Wednesday game this week had been rescheduled to Thursday. This was nice, because Wednesday Dee had a carnival planned for Young Women's, Jessie had Achievement Night, and I had a pack meeting. The Friday game got rescheduled to Tuesday. Then it got moved to Sunday. Then it ended up on Wednesday. Oh, and I had been scheduled to umpire the first game on that Friday, so I still had to umpire the first game on Wednesday. This led to a lot of complicated scheduling changes and adaptations to get Young Womens and Pack Meeting taken care of and Jessie to Achievement Night and then to the game.

Umpiring on Wednesday went well. I had to make two close calls at the end of the game at home plate, but I don't think they really changed the game, and both teams seemed OK with things. Brennan's game went well, and the Tigers won 12 - 5. Thursday it was obvious that the team was very tired. Neither team was hitting well, and the Tigers still had most of the usual defense, so it was a low-scoring game for quite a while. Brennan's first at-bat he got a hit, but then was out at second on a very close play on the next hit. His second at-bat he put down another of his trademark bunts, but was just thrown out at first (although Brennan insists that he was safe on both of these plays--and he may be right. But the umpire didn't see it that way). His third at-bat came with the Tigers up 8 - 2 (and with three runs in that inning), two outs and the bases loaded. Brennan proceeded to get his hardest hit this season, a hard grounder up the middle. The shortstop was able to get it, but not in time to make a play at any base. This time, there was no chance for Brennan, as the next batter hit a grounder that the shortstop got to one step away from second, forcing Brennan out. The defense struggled the next inning, but then closed out the game and the Tigers won 10 - 7 (or maybe 9 - 7).

The Tigers have now one 8 games in a row, and are 1/2 game out of first place. The game Saturday was with the first place team, but now it is being rescheduled because one of our players will be out of town and another has strep throat, leaving us with not enough players for the game. No doubt that will lead to further adjustments in the next week or so.

Spring Break, Part 5 (The Journey Home)

I suppose it's about time I finally finished this report of our trip...

Friday morning we got a fairly early start on our trip back to Slidell. One interesting part was as we drove past the Atlanta airport we had a plane come right over our heads just before it landed. It looked almost like it was going to land on top of our car.

Other than that, the trip was uneventful until somewhere between Montgomery and Mobile. Suddenly we found ourselves coming to a halt in a long line of traffic. After slowly inching along for some time, and having already decided we would take the first exit off the freeway, we discovered we didn't have a choice. The freeway was closed (in both directions). We don't know exactly why, although about the time we stopped we could see what appeared to be a large cloud of black smoke ahead.

It turns out that the roads they had us detouring on were not designed for freeway-volume traffic. All we could do was follow the line of slowly moving (sometimes) cars that wound through some small village in Alabama. Eventually, the Garmin showed that we were very nearly into Florida--but we didn't quite cross the border. Finally, after about two hours, we made it back onto the freeway, I think about 10 miles further along than when we left it.

We had hoped to eat dinner in Slidell, but with the long delay that was no longer an option. We ended up following the Garmin in search of a Taco Bell, which took us into Ocean Springs, Mississippi. We weren't impressed. I have to say, as a Lousiana semi-native, Dee hasn't exactly given me the best impression of Mississippi ever, and this stop did nothing to change that image...

Oh, and one more note on the detour. One of Erik's friends who lives in Birmingham turned out to be heading to Slidell as well, a little behind us. At least, they were behind us at first. Apparently by the time they reached the place where we detoured, there was no traffic to speak of and they ended up reaching Slidell quite a bit before us. But we did eventually make it and settled in for the night.

The next day we finally began the last leg of the journey. Other than the usual brief stop in Lafayette, there wasn't much to note on this part of the trip.

But the adventure was not quite over, since just after we reached home Jessie discovered water dripping from the ceiling outside her room. Once again, there was a leak in the water pipe. This time, I was eventually able to stop it on my own.

Well, that's it for that trip.

Spring Break, Part 4 (Atlanta: Stone Mountain)

Thursday we were planning on spending the day at Stone Mountain, a nearby park. But there was one rather interesting "adventure" along the way.

We were in our hotel room getting everything ready to go when there was a knock on the door. Since the housekeeping cart had been down the way, we assumed that's who it was. But, when I opened the door we instead saw a glazed-eyed man holding some cigarettes and a lighter.

"What's happening?" he said (or something to that effect).

"What?" was my rather confused reply.

He repeated that same thing, at which point Dee, thinking much clearer than I was, came up and simply closed the door. He went, got in his truck and drove off. Dee then said she'd seen him driving around the hotel. At this point, our desire to remain in that hotel plummeted. So we packed up all our stuff into the car and checked out. There was another hotel next to the one we'd been in (one that had internal doors, not external ones). We stopped there and they said they had rooms available, and just to come back and not make a reservation. That was kind of nice, because we weren't sure we wanted to commit to that place anyway.

Anyway, we went on to Stone Mountain. The line was longer than we'd anticipated, and took longer to get through. Once we got our tickets, we were ready to go. The first thing Jessie and Brennan decided to do was a little ropes course:


They also had a high-level ropes course, that had three levels (at 12, 24, and 36 feet high). Jessie and Brennan wanted to do that, as well. But you couldn't have hats, or loose things in your pockets, so Dee gratefully decided to sit out, watch, and take pictures. While we were waiting in line Jessie decided that she was too nervous to do it, so she went to join Dee. Brennan was not nervous, so the two of us headed out on the first level.


Brennan wanted to keep going with the second and third levels, but since Jessie was anxious to do some other things, we decided that wouldn't work out.

Next we went to a barn with some play equipment, rope ladders, slides and such.

By now, we were already realizing time was going to be an issue. Jessie and Brennan really wanted to ride the tram to the top of the mountain, so we decided to go there next. They were very impressed with how high up it was, though Jessie decided she was a little nervous about riding the tram down.

The view from the top:

All of us, on top of Stone Mountain:
The carving on the side of the mountain. That's Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. Sometimes I wonder if some in the South realize that they lost that war...

From there we went to the mini golf course. It was a lot of fun, but time was running out and it was really crowded, so we only played 6 or 7 holes.

We sadly missed the glass blowing demonstrations, and realized that there was a whole little village of shops and demonstrations that would have been interesting. But we just had a few minutes to get to the plantation.

They had a petting zoo there. Brennan, as always, was very confident with the animals.

Jessie was OK with the sheep, but she has issues with goats, so she didn't go near those, even though they were very calm, relaxed goats (unlike some we've had experience with in petting zoos in the past, hence the issues...).

We quickly made our way through the plantation home. As an example, here's a picture of the dining room. We thought it was interesting that they had a separate dining room for the kids to use until they learned good enough manners to join the adults. We wonder if some kids would ever make it out of that dining room...

I really recommend you view this picture at full size so you can appreciate the poses of the kids:

School, in the old days...

Meanwhile, during the day Dee had talked with Marilyn and told her about the hotel situation. About the time we got to the plantation Marilyn called and told us she'd found another hotel for us. It turned out to be a rather nice, new Holiday Inn. We felt much safer and more comfortable there.

The Week of Baseball

I'll take a break from the vacation reporting to talk about this past week, which can be summed up in one word: baseball. This week Brennan had games Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. No practice, though, so I guess we really slacked off there. Starting the week, we were 1 - 2. To briefly recap, the first game was close, the second game the team as a whole really didn't play well at all and lost, and then the third game they won.

Tuesday's game was against the Diamondbacks, the first place team in the league. It was a good, hard game, closer than the final score, but in the end the Diamondbacks hit it more consistently to where we weren't than we did, and the Tigers lost, 15 - 9.

Wednesday's game was against the Rays, the team we lost to in the aforementioned, "not our best game". This was the game where our defense really started to come into its own, with several good plays. Offensively, the Tigers scored four in the first and five (the maximum per inning) in the second, and then held on from there to win, 9 - 4.

Thursday was baseball-free, except Brennan and I did play some catch and work on some bunting, as he had not done as well with that the last couple of games.

Friday was the White Sox, the team we lost to in our first game. I don't remember a lot of details. Brennan made two great bunts his first two times up, although one of those he was thrown out on a close play at first (but moved up a runner). And he did score a run, sliding in at home to beat a throw. (OK, so he slid about two feet too soon...). And in the end, although the hitting wasn't great, the Tigers won (but I don't remember the final score. Very low-scoring, though...).

After the game, most of the team went to Mr. Gatti's (a buffet pizza place with a lot of arcade games). Jessie and Brennan had a lot of fun there. Of course, that meant we were up late.

Saturday morning was an early start, because the last game of the week started at 10 AM. Once more, it was against the Diamondbacks. The game didn't start super, with only one hit in the first. The defense did well, but pretty soon the Tigers were down, 4 - 1. The bottom of the order started making up some ground (including a nice bunt from Brennan that scored at least one, and maybe two runs), and after the top of the third inning it was 5 - 4 Tigers. The Diamondbacks came back to tie it in the bottom of the inning. Brennan led off the fourth with another bunt single. He made it to third, but the third out was made before he could score. The bottom of the inning was a great defensive display. Only one Diamondback reached base, and we then got a double play on a pop out to the first baseman. The Tigers scored a run in the fifth, and then with more great defense retired the Diamondbacks in order to make it 6 - 5 Tigers. The league (as I mentioned) has a five-run-per-inning rule, so we were hoping to get the five runs and end the game in the sixth (especially since the Diamondbacks had the top of their order coming up in the bottom half of the inning).

Our first batter got a hit. He stole second. The second batter grounded out, but moved the runner to third. Brennan came up to bat. Once again, he was asked to bunt. The first attempt was foul. The second one came straight off his bat and into Brennan's forehead (just under his helmet). Brennan barely reacted, and took off for first. Of course, as he was still in the batter's box, it was a foul ball. Once he reached first and knew it was foul, it took him a few minutes to recover (understandably), but then he headed back to the plate. Swinging away now, with two strikes, he hit it short down the first base line (basically, a swinging bunt). The pitcher fielded the ball, made a swipe at Brennan (who was already past him) and then tried to throw to first. But by this time, Brennan was just reaching the bag and the throw was off. In fact, it hit Brennan in the back of his batting helmet and bounced away from the first baseman. Meanwhile, the runner on third was scoring to make it 7 - 5. We were very proud of Brennan for handling everything so well. He stole second, moved up to third on another ground out, but then the next batter got out.

Now it was up to the defense. I believe the first out was a pop up to the second baseman. The next batter hit a grounder up the middle. Our shortstop made a diving grab over second, but had no chance to make a throw. But no worries, because the next two batters both hit grounders just to the left of the shortstop, and in both cases he easily fielded the grounder and stepped on second.

After the game, Brennan was awarded the game ball for his three hits, and especially for his toughness in getting an important hit under trying and painful circumstances when the team really needed it.

Spring Break, Part 3 (Atlanta: Georgia Aquarium)

On Wednesday, we headed out fairly early for the Georgia Aquarium, apparently the world's largest. We planned on spending a few hours there, and then perhaps going to the Puppetry Museum, or the World of Coca-Cola, or the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, or to a plantation.

As you might expect, at the aquarium we found a lot of fish:

Though, really, I think the pictures tell the story more than my words could. (Wait, that sounds similar to something I've heard before.... Maybe it'll make a good cliche someday...)




Brennan touching stingrays and hammerhead sharks:


River Otter:


Beluga Whale:


Giant Octopus:

Sea Otter (We'd never realized how much bigger than river otters sea otters are...)




Whale Shark:


Manta Ray:

We ended up spending a lot longer at the aquarium than we had planned. When we left, it was already too late to go to the plantation or the puppetry museum. We went across the street to check out the Centennial Olympic Park:

Jessie and Brennan found these odd things on a playground, but they were a lot of fun.

We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon there, and not going any where else. Then, once we got back to the hotel we met up with Marilyn for dinner:

And that was the end of another busy day.

Spring Break, Part 2 (Travelling, Atlanta)

Tuesday morning we headed out fairly early for Atlanta. The weather had cleared up quite nicely, so it was good weather for the trip. Although Dee had often been this way, and even Jessie and Brennan had gone part of this road last year on the way to Florida, pretty quickly we were in to territory I had never been to before. Our route took us across the southern chunk of Mississippi and into Alabama (a state I had never been in before), then cut across the bulk of Alabama, through Montgomery. In Montgomery we had planned to stop briefly at the Civil Rights Memorial there, but I had neglected to find out about parking, and we didn't have any coins for the parking meters that seemed to be the only options. So we ended up just driving past it and the state capitol, and then getting back on the freeway and heading off in the direction of Atlanta.

We were excited to finally reach Georgia (another state I'd never been in, not counting the layover in the Atlanta airport on the way home from my mission), and since we hadn't stopped in Montgomery, we stopped at the Georgia Welcome Center instead:


After that, it was off on the final leg of the journey. We hit Atlanta just about 5 PM, and we had to go through downtown to get to our hotel on the north end of town, so we got caught up in rush hour traffic--it made us feel right at home for Houston traffic. On the other hand, it was fun to drive through the city and get a chance to take a look at it. It was nice to be in a place with at least hills again, after so much time in the flat lands.

Anyway, we finally made it to the hotel, a Days Inn. We checked in and unloaded the car. We weren't entirely happy that the room had an adjoining door to the next door room, and even less happy with the state of the carpet in the room. So after a little bit, we decided to see if we could move rooms. They let us do that, and the new room had no adjoining door, and much better carpet. So we were much happier with it. Oh, I should mention that Erik had let us borrow his Garmin, which proved to be quite useful throughout the trip.

So, after we got everything settled in at the new room, we headed off to visit the Atlanta Temple grounds. It was only 10 -15 minutes away from the hotel. It was very nice to be there.




It's always impressive to realize the difference between the temple grounds and the surrounding area. Truly the temples are set apart from the world.

While we were there Dee got a hold of her friend Marilyn. Dee and Marilyn have been friends since Kindergarten, and have still stayed in touch, and Marilyn now lives in Atlanta (also not too far from the hotel). We arranged to meet her for dinner the next night. After the temple we got some dinner, then went home and went to bed, ready for more excitement the next day.

Spring Break, Part 1 (Louisiana)

We headed out Saturday morning. Not quite as early as we hoped, but not too bad. There had been some concern about the weather, but it turned out we missed most of it, and had just a little rain. We reached Lafayette in the afternoon, and settled in. As usual, the kids were soon playing with their Uncle Scott:


Sunday morning we went to Sacrament Meeting in Lafayette, before heading back to get ready to leave for Slidell. While we were doing this, Jessie was playing with Uncle Scott some more, and got dropped. She hit her mouth on the floor and chipped one of her front teeth. We were able to get hold of the nurse from the dentist's office, and she said to not worry and just make an appointment when we got back to town. So we were soon headed for Slidell. Again, the weather held up for us. We got in pretty late, because we had started a lot later than planned, but other than that it was a good trip.

The next day, we had talked about going to the New Orleans' zoo or the aquarium there. But it turned out that they were closed on Mondays, so that wouldn't work out real well. It was raining all day, so pretty much going outside wasn't an option, either. So we ended up going with Vickie (Dee's brother Erik (not to be confused with my brother Erick)'s wife), Jordan (our 2-year-old nephew) and Jenna (our 4-month-old niece) to Chuck E. Cheese to play games. I don't think Jenna much noticed where we were, but the other kids all had fun:




We also went over to Grandma Pat's, where we also visited with Megan, Abbey and Kate (Uncle Scott's brother Mike's wife and two younger daughters) as well as their new Dalmatian puppy, Sammy (her full name is much longer than that, but I don't remember all the details...). That was fun:




But sometimes Sammy was a little too excited and friendly...



To be continued...