Football Season

I have SO MUCH that I could post in regards to football season. John is playing in his last year of the JFL league. That will get a post of it's own.

For today (since I really am trying to get back on track with updating more) I thought I would post some video from the high school football games.  The video has nothing to do with football itself.  While we do go to support the high school team we are more motivated and there for the Gadets, which Angel performs with, and the band, which Mandy performs with.  Enjoy these videos:



I know it's a little hard to hear the music. They performed this at the first football game of the year.


This is not the school song, but Hi Ho Silver Streaks, that they play to bring the players onto the field.


This is a rough draft of the marching band show for this year, which is doing a tribute to John William's music. It was their first time performing this in front of a crowd. Which, in case you can't hear, the crowd was quite rowdy that night :/

New set of wheels

With the passing of Jim's dad, there has been one item that was a no brainer that we keep for ourselves.  That would be Papa Jim's motorcycle.  He has always been a Harley man.  Back in 1997, he sold his '69 Harley so he could have money to travel to Jim's college graduation.

We had to pay a little extra money to have it properly shipped from California, but it arrived a few weeks ago.

Then it sat in the garage for a few weeks un-touched.

 Jim was able to get into the Motorcycle Safety class a few weeks.  It took up the better part of his whole weekend.  Once he took & passed the class he was then able to get his motorcycle license.  Since then he's been out practicing.  First it was just up and down the drive way.

He's been faithfully practicing almost every single day.  Once he was comfortable with the driveway then he moved to up and down our street.  Then around the block.  Finally he felt ready to take on a passenger.  I am very honored that I was the first person to ride the bike with my man.  Once I had a ride he took all the kids on a short ride as well.  They are beyond thrilled.  Now Jim is taking bigger rides, like 1-2 miles at a time.  Still practicing and getting used to the bike.  We will wear helmets on a regular basis.  He has one on order.

Jim has always wanted a motorcycle.  More from a practical stand point since he commutes to work 30 minutes each way many days a week.  We actually looked at and bought a motorcycle many years ago.  Once we got home though, we realized what we thought was a good bike for a good price wasn't and we called and cancelled the agreement.  So it's been on Jim's radar for many years to get a bike, but we couldn't ever find the right one for the right price.  Although this bike came to us at the price of losing Jim's dad, I can't think of the most perfect bike for Jim. I KNOW Papa Jim is smiling down on us and is very happy that his bike is now his son's.

1st day of school

I know I've said this before, but I am (again) making a vow to be better at updating this blog.  I started this blog to keep family members up to date on our lives since none of our family lives in the same town as us.  Most of my family is within an hour or so from where we live, that helps a lot.  We see them a lot more frequently.  Jim's family though is further away.  His closest relative is 3 hours away, many of them much more than that.

When I started this blog it was at the same time that I joined facebook.  Back then I only had a few friends.  Facebook was still relatively new to the public.  I was actually very leery of it, refused to join it the first few times I had requests.  Anyway, one reason I'm guilty of not updating this blog as much is because of facebook.  I don't post everything on there, but I do post a lot.  I forget that not everyone has facebook or is as addicted dedicated to checking it.  Even if you frequent fb, it's easy to miss things that others post.  I miss stuff all the time.  Anyway.....enough excuses.  Back to updating the blog with the happenings of the zoo.

I know I mentioned that I didn't post A LOT of stuff that went on earlier in the year.  I had every intention of catching you all up.  But I think I'll just start with a reasonable goal.  Making too big of a goal will just discourage me & I'll feel like I can't possibly ever catch up.  So we'll start with the 1st day of school.

Angel, 11th grade & Mandy, 9th grade.  Yes, TWO in high school.

Note:  There is no good picture of Mandy.  I think this one was just bad timing of the shutter, but it's still the best one of the bunch.  Besides the "enough pictures mom!" attitude, she was not too happy about going out into the pour rain storm we had that morning.  It was pitch black and POURING when we walked out the door.  Do you know how much time she spent straightening her hair?!?!?!?!?

Brianna, 7th grade & John, 6th grade.  Yes, TWO in Jr. High.

Andrew, 1st grade.  I haven't had only 1 kid in elementary school for 9 years.  It won't last long. Carmen will join him next year.

He is standing out on the porch about 30 minutes after I took the girls to school.  You can kind of get the idea how icky it was that morning.

Carmen, preschool.  She returns to Bright Futures which runs a 2 year program.

She gets picked up right in front of our house each day.  She started a week after the other kids, hence the bright sunny day.

Our school year is off and going again.  It's full of activities and happenings.  I'm looking forward to another great year!