Wednesdays

Although I am perfectly capable of doing all the stuff around the house that needs doing.  I just don’t wanna.  The last time Chris deployed everything at home seemed to go pretty well.  We had our issues and problems but overall we did ok.  My expectations this time were just a bit off.  I expected that this time it would be easier than last time as we had done it before.

Wrong. 

We still had the same issues as last time.  We all miss mom, still need to figure out how to juggle stuff.  We are getting it done but the routine settling is taking longer than I want it to.

Yes, I am whining.  If you are patient it will end and we can get back to the goofy stuff the kids and dogs do.

Family Day

Today was Family Day for the Livonia Orioles.  Since Samantha is a cheerleader she has a part in the halftime routine.  There are three games, Freshmen, Junior Varsity and Varsity.  The flag kids didn’t have a game so they had a Mothers vs. Boys game.  The boys won – of course.  It was fun to watch. 

I went to the game early as I volunteered to hang posters.  All the kids had an opportunity to make a poster.  This year’s theme was patriotism.  Sam made a poster with Chris before she deployed.  I know I am biased but the poster was very cool.  Evidently the judges thought so as well.  She won a gift card to Dairy Queen for her awesome poster.  Sam wanted to help me put the posters up in the morning.  Jason stayed home since he had practice from 11 to noon.  We hung 120 or so posters.  It took us an hour and they were wrapped all around the inside area.  A few folks commented on the fact that there was so much participation this year. 

Sam and her Award winning Poster

Sam needed to be at the field by 10 am.  All the Freshman parents had to line up on the 50 yard line.  Then Sam lined up with the players at the end of the field and they announced the players and their parents.  They were supposed to come out one at a time but we ended up getting a mad crush of cheerleaders since they had trouble hearing the announcer.  I went back to the stands and settled in to watch the Freshman game, I mean Sam cheer when she reminded me that I left the drink at home.  I left to get the drink.  While I was gone I lost my great parking spot.  At halftime we got to see the entire Cheer squad take the field and perform a routine.  It was very cool. 

This is the You Tube link;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgMsYvZWh00

You need the link as I marked the video private, just in case. 

Overall it was a very neat day, just a tiring one.  

The beginning of a routine

Not a whole lot of new stuff to put on the blog.  The kids are doing well with school.  The balancing act with cheer and baseball is working well.  The double headers the kids have are tough to take.  They only play 6 innings but 12 innings of 8 – 10 year olds playing baseball is brutal.  They try but an 8 year old pitcher can burn quite a bit of time off the clock.  Luckily there is a 7 run mercy rule.  Watching 7 kids get walked in with an out or two thrown in takes about a year off your life.

Cheer isn’t too bad as I watch the game behind the cheerleaders in between cheers.  Sam watches me to make sure I am watching her.  I love watching football in person.  I don’t get the strategy most of the time but they play with all they have to give.  Sam is getting better each game.  The contrast between practice and games is funny.  She is all business at the games.

The dogs are doing well.  Candy seems to have gotten used to her smaller foot.  It never really slowed her down much. They are both at Lucky Puppy now and loving it.

Now that Lindsey is watching the kids in the morning they are getting out of bed earlier.  Poor Lindsey.  They talk her into making breakfast, this morning I believe the request was waffles.  If it was me I would just roll into the couch and shove them out the door when it was time for school.

Oh well, I am going to go and try and remember what it was I was supposed not to forget.

Chris Re-deploys

So for many people September 11^th was a day to remember, a day to mark a tragic anniversary, or a day to thank a fireman/policeman/vet.  For the Weisenberger’s it was a day to rush to baseball with an overlapping football game, a quick trip to grab lunch, and a quick run to the airport.

Chris spent the last few days freaking out, helping Sam with her family day project, working on the Randolph directory, shopping for the kids’ school clothes and some laundry.  She wasn’t packing.  She packed tiny bits at a time.  Friday she was able to get a box together to send to herself.  This alleviated a lot of the crap that she would have had to put in a suitcase.  Saturday night the bulk of the packing chore came on full.  I don’t blame her for procrastinating.  I am not a packing fan myself.  I always feel like I am going to forget something.

Chris was able to take a later flight so she could run around with us in the morning and see the kids’ games.  We dropped her off around 3:20 for a 5:20 flight.  She told me The check in desk was empty and security was not a hassle so she was at the gate reading.

Back to “Bachelorhood”

The kids’ jersey numbers ended up like this by total accident.  This was not staged.

Jason is in the middle

Vacation - Day 4

Saturday was supposed to be a day we took it easy and hung out.  Chris doesn’t understand “taking it easy”.

We went for a hike on a trail that the campground folks told us was really cool.  It was a trail that led to Hawk Falls.  We took the dogs thinking they would like the outdoors and could use a long walk.  We were hoping they were still a bit tired from their time at the dog sitters.  If they were it sure didn’t show.  They loved the trails and people.  Abby loved the people a bit too much.  She is a bit forceful in her like of people.  When I got them close to the water it was tough to get them out.  They loved trying to bite the white water as it rushed over the rocks.  Just letting the dogs splash around seemed to be enough to keep them happy.

When we came to the end of the trail there was a large waterfall that dumped into a deep pool which flowed to a second waterfall that also dumped into a deep pool.  This was very attractive for the amateur daredevil (guys).  Jason saw this and handed over his shirt and shoes.  He started at the small waterfall jumping in and freezing.  The cold water did not slow him down a bit.  We then noticed some teenagers, young 20’s, jumping off the large waterfall.  Jay was all over it.  He asked some kid how to get up there and before we knew it he was following them up the side of the hill out to the rock face.  He waited and listened to others give advice, watched a couple of people jump and then went for it.  On his first try he was a bit over cautious and slipped.  He compensated and made the jump with no ill effects.  No ill effects to him.  His Mom and I almost fell over.  You can hear us on the video gasp.  He got the hang of it and jumped about 500 more times.  Sam and I got bored.  I had both dogs and they wanted to play with the people.  Unfortunately they play rough sometimes and they were very excited that they were in the water.  Those two things were making it very tough to keep the dogs in check.  On the way out of the park we found the upper path that led to the top of the falls.  The older folks were jumping from up there.  Jason said he was going to jump from there next time.

The next morning we broke down our tents and headed home.  The drive home always feels longer than the drive there.

They were loving the river.

Aren't they cute!

A view of the falls.

Vacation - Day 3

As I previously mentioned we brought the dogs.  I have an 18 month old Sheppard-Husky mix and a 5 year old Lab-Retriever ex-PAWS working dog.   They are both very energetic.  Chris found a no kennel boarding place for them near where we were.  This helped since we couldn’t take them rafting, which they would have loved, or with us on Friday.  We went to Hoboken, New Jersey and visited Carlo’s bakery.  Yes folks, Hoboken, New Jersey.  Not too many folks will tell you that that is where they went on vacation.

We surprised Samantha since somehow Cake Boss became a show she just loved to watch.  Chris looked online and found that folks said to get there early as the wait can be 2 hours or more.  We shot for early in the morning.  We still stood in line for two hours.

When we were able to get inside it was a take-a-number organization kind of place and it went pretty well.  Chris and Sam picked out a small sampling of items and they were fairly reasonably priced.  Sam also got a t-shirt.  She was so happy.  We walked around to the alley and saw a couple of the workers loading up boxes into a van for delivery. 

We went back to the van to take off.  We were headed to the teardrop memorial to 9/11.  Afted removing the parking ticket from the window, we were off.  (Street parking is not allowed during certain hours for street sweeping)  We were headed to Bayonne, New Jersey to see the Tear Drop memorial.  It was a very cool memorial.  Tough to find, which is too bad because it is so interesting.

We went back and picked up our pooped out pooches and headed back to the camp site.  We had Chinese takeout, remember my fire skills were lacking, and had the Carlo’s treats for desert.

Not bad, but not two-hours-in-a-line good either.

Sam is so excited to be here!

Organized Chaos

Sleepy Dogs

Carlo's treats

Vacation - Day 2

On the second day of or camping adventure we went rafting.  We went with Jim Thorpe river Adventures on the Lehigh River.  They were fairly mild Class 2 rapids as this was the first time for the kids and they aren’t old enough for the faster water.  It was a fantastic trip and a good time was had by all.  Since we were camping in the boonies we had no idea where to eat.  We needed to pack a lunch for the rafting trip.  We hadn’t seen a store anywhere.  We ended up stopping at this little hole in the wall sandwich and doughnut shop.  Breakfast and lunch, check!  Those sandwiches were awesome!  Really good and they held up well to the beating they took as we rafted.  The first half of the day we were the project raft.  Always in the back and getting stuck.  After lunch we became super-rafters and somehow missed the rocks and navigated our way through the rough parts without incident.  We ended the day on a high note and took the bus ride back to the raft place.  We took showers, and were off to the campground to attempt to build a fire.

Scouts or not, I suck at building fires.  We got one going well enough to make some smores and heat a couple of hot dogs.  The rain and wetness may have had something to do with it but fire just wasn’t our thing on this trip.

The first set of rapids.

Jason got hot.

All smiles!