Hunter's Football Picture

What an exciting life I don't lead

Graden is off to Stockton Lake again this weekend - this time for a tournament. I talked to him a little while ago and it sounded like he had a pretty decent day ... let's hope for a perfect day tomorrow!

Today the kids and I went to Heritage Park in Olathe, KS for a picnic for my work. It was pretty fun ... the kids had fun playing with all the other kids. They played kickball, football and even an egg toss!

That was kind of draining so we all came home and took a little nap, then cleaned the house, did laundry and watched Forrest Gump. I still cry when he is talking to Jenny at her grave site. : (

Not much planned for the rest of the weekend ... Hunter will be watching the Iowa football game tonight so maybe Dayne and I will get a movie to watch, too. I watched the movie "The Break up" last night ... it was pretty good. A decent way to kill two hours anyway.

Well, if we do anything profound over the next 24 hours I will be sure to update the blog!

Hugs to all,
Tiffany

Weekend activities

Domestic. That's the word that best describes my weekend! Graden was gone all weekend pre-fishing for a tournament next weekend so I had the house to myself so I planned to do a whole lot of cleaning and work!

But before I did all this work we started the weekend out on a fun note! My boss, Matt, had a party at his house on Friday night so we met all my work buddies and their spouses as Matt's Mansion. We had a very nice dinner and then played the "Not So Newlywed Game." It was a blast! We had to answer questions like which of my friends does Graden find the most attractive (Jen!) and which of his friends I find the most attractive (he thought Adam, but I said Mike). The last question was the best (for the guys): If you were born gay and had to be with one of the men in the room, which would it be? Funny thing is quite a few women chose Graden for their husband, but none of the men chose Graden for themself!

Saturday: Graden left about 7am and I sllllllllllept in 'til about 10:00! Then Dayne and I went to the grocery store, got a whole bunch of groceries (this is a luxury for my family to have a house full of food. I loathe grocery shopping!). When I got home I put the groceries away and then started cleaning the house. I had six loads of laundry that needed folded. Guess what ... I hate folding clothes! Hunter and Dayne each stayed the night at a friends house, so I had the place to myself! I rented a movie and just hung out enjoying the peace and quiet!

Sunday: Again, I slept in a little and then got to work! I cleaned and rearranged the downstairs living room and tried to make it more "manly." I rearranged some pictures, rearranged the furniture and moved the computer and desk from the living room into Hunter's room (eek?). The desk was always messy and a general eyesore! I also hung all of Graden's fishing trophys and some of his fishing pictures! He was pleased when he came home to the renewed "man" room!

Lastly, I cleaned the basement - or the dungeon, as we call it. It was a horrid mess! I had a deocorative bale of hay that Oz got into and must have had a blast throwing it all over the place. There was hay on top of boxes stacked 6 feet high. I have no idea how he got it way up there. I can just picture him on his hind legs, standing, using his front legs to throw the hay all over the place. Asshole dog. It only took me about 2 hours to clean it, but it was a crazy mess and a bit overwhelming to tackle at first! I really should have taken a before and afer picture!

Well, now it is past my bed time and I really need a shower! I have worked waaaaay too hard today and I smell like it!

Damn, I got smart kids!

The state of Missouri has students take MAP (Missouri Assessment Program) testing (like ITBS) each year in April. The test describes performance in terms of four levels of acheivement in a content area.

We got Hunter's test results for 7th grade testing in the mail yesterday and he is in the 90th percentile! This means he scored better than 90% of the students in the nation!

Some of you may remember that Hunter scored a 99% in 4th and 5th grade! We are so proud of Hunter! He is a smart kid - and overall pretty good!

He has all A's and one C+ on his grades so far. And you can imagine how much he hears about the C+!! (Science isn't my thing either!)

Wouldn't it be great if he could keep these grade up and get into college for free?!?!?

Hunter's 8th Grade School Pic

(forgive the quality, I took a picture of the picture so I could post it).

Look how my little boy is becoming a young man! He's even growing an Adam's Apple!!!

Hunter's first football game

Hunter had his first football game tonight! They won 34-0! Hunter is #72; he plays defensive end.

Remembering

I find it interesting to hear where others were when they heard of the attacks on our country. Please feel free to post a comment with your story.
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I was on my way to drop Dayne off at daycare. I heard it on the radio. I only caught the tail end of the initial report and the bits and pieces I caught didn't make sense to me - - How could a plane land on top of the World Trade Center? I admit, I was not real familiar with the facts on the towers, but I thought "Wow, that'd take a lot of skill to land a jet on top of a building!" About 10 seconds later, it all started processing: they didn't LAND there, they CRASHED into the building. I dropped Dayne off at daycare, told the girls working and they turned on the t.v. to get some details. I went ahead and went on to work, at Affina for the Navy account. From second one of entering work that day, all hell broke loose. For reasons I am not real sure why, I needed to talk to Graden. He was still asleep so I had to wake him up to tell him. I told him we were being attacked. He didn't beleive me. I told him to turn on the t.v. Silence. Eerie silence. Graden is my rock so to hear him silent and just imagining him absorb this awful information was disturbing to me. Eventually we hung up and I had to move on with my day - although it would prove to be anything but a typical, boring day at Affina. For the next two weeks we were inundated with calls. People with a sudden interest in joining the Navy. What an awesome feeling that was; to know this is the country I am part of. One of the more memorable callers was a man who said, "I was there 40 years ago when you needed me; I am here for you today." He was a veteran of the Korean War. Amid all the articles were postings of peoples thoughts, stories, poems, etc. One of the most impactful to me was a poem called "The Day I Lost My Hyphen."

The Day I lost My Hyphen
Frantic, worried, wife didn't call, the day I lost my hyphen.
Plane fell many died, black, white, yellow the day I lost my hyphen.
No more African-American once the second plane hit, the day I lost myhyphen.
United in sorrow, pain, anger, courage, resolve and love of God, family and of my country.
Day of infamy, no my day to stand, my day of rebirth, no longer African-American but an American on the day I lost my hyphen.
— Reuben D. Eckels, 38, Wichita, Kansas

Over the next two weeks we had over 500% increase in call volume due to people expressing interest in helping this wonderful country. I worked 16 hour days trying to help in the way that I could.

HBO did a presentation on the events of 9/11, "In Memoriam: New York City, 9/11/01". With the exception of this year, I watch the video every year on the anniversary of 9/11. Every so often when I am cleaning out my old stuff, old photos, memorbilia, I find an article I saved re: the horrid events of September 11th. One of my friends, Erin Schmid, is an excellent writer. She was in school at the time and wrote a paper titled The Day with No Contrails. When I look in the sky and see contrails, I am grateful for the seemingly simple, common event of planes flying.

Where were you when you when the world stopped turning?