Tuesday August 30

SOCCER CHAMPS

Nate's U-12 Travel Soccer team won a tournament this weekend. This is the first time one of Nate's teams has ever won a tournament...so it was VERY exciting. Nate is in the back row (Number 12). They played 4 games over the weekend and won 3 and tied 1. Nate played some pretty good games as a defender and mid-fielder. He got stung by a bee right before the tourney and had a swollen ankle...but played well anyway. (Click on the picture for a larger version)

Minnow Races !!

Here's a fun activity for people of all ages: MINNOW RACES. I suppose the SPCA might have a problem with this because in our situation the minnows bite the big one the next day. But here's how it works. You buy several 10' sections of cheap plastic guttering and put end caps on both ends so they hold water. Fill gutters with water. Purchase a bunch of minnows and bring them home. Every person involved selects a minnow and puts the little fella in their own Dixie Cup to keep track of their very own minnow. Be sure to pick a nice name for your minnow like: Speedy, Jaws, Margarita, or something else.

We then set up a white board with a single-elimination bracket chart like the NCAA Final Four. Start out with two people who will race their fish. They stand at one end of the gutters and pour their fish into separate gutters. They then try to coax their fish to the other end of the gutter. Let the Cheering begin! You can coax your fish by tapping the outside of the gutter, but can't put your hands or fingers or anything else inside the gutter or in the water. We actually drew a "START" and "FINISH" line with permanent marker before filling the gutter with water. We put these lines about 2-3" inside each end of the gutter.

The fish will (hopefully) swim toward the other end. The minnows then go back into their owner's cups. Winner eventually goes on to next round. Loser gets flushed....I mean put out to stud. Since this is single elimnination, any loser is permanently out of the competition. Eventually you end up with one Grand Champion...who ultimately meets the same fate as all the other losers.

This is pretty good, clean, cheap fun. Let me know if you have questions.

Thursday August 25

KIDS BACK IN SCHOOL

Well, the second week of school is in full swing! Alex continues Marching Band...although future participation is somewhat in the air due to endurance issues. I think a decision will be made soon. Not sure if she can perform some other function in the Marching Band besides actually marching.
Nate likes the public middle school so far I think. Travel soccer is active again with practice 2 nights a week and games on the weekends. Chase is in Drama Club at school (one afternoon a week) and will probably tak piano again. No soccer this Fall.

Wednesday Aug 17

Well, no one reads this so this is turning out to be more of a diary than anything. All 3 kids are in school now and seem to be fine. Chase is in his familiar environment and doing fine. Nate is doing great so far. He has met some new friends and is okay. Alex is doing fine too. She is having consistent heart issues which is extremely frustrating for her. I am taking her to Riley Friday for an appointment. Need to mow the grass tonight and fix dinner. Chase is coming to my office after school because we still don't have after-school care figured out. I think we are getting close though. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for Nate to be in charge and Chase be there too...so we are having to hire someone to be with Chase from 3:30-5 most days. Whatever!

Things are just busy as usual...we'll keep you posted!

Adios.

Wednesday August 10

Would you like to comment?

Okay, so you would like to comment on some of these riveting entries in the Miller Indiana Blog. It is really quite simple now that I have fixed a few things on this site.

Near the bottom of any entry on which you would like to comment it will say something like "0 comments." When you click on this area, a new window will pop-up. In this new window you will see a box that says "LEAVE YOUR COMMENT." Type in your comment. Just below this area you will see a place to click next to the word "Anonymous." Do this and then below that click LOGIN AND PUBLISH. You may now close the poo-up window and you will be returned to the BLOG.

Please note that it may take a minute for your comment to appear in the BLOG.

I hope this helps. If it doesn't work this way please let me know!

Monday Aug 8

Well, we had a nice weekend. Summer break is quickly coming to an end so we are cramming some more fun stuff in these last few days. For instance, Sunday afternoon we checked off one of the things on the kid's summer list: take Molly to the creek. We walk from our house down to the creek and we all get in and walk up and down the creek a ways and let Molly romp in the water. It was a lot of fun and definitely a family tradition the kids will remember.

Saturday we participated in a cul-de-sac garage sale. We put out some stuff and made about $50. The remainder went to Goodwill. Nice to clear some stuff out....our garage is still packed for some reason. We celebrated by buying steaks and grilling out Sat night. We had enough leftover to feed us dinner on Sunday too! I made some osrt of quesadilla thing...I filled large flour tortillas with steak, refried beans, tomatoes, onions, cheese and folded the tortilla in half. Then I lightly buttered both sides and grilled them outside (on a griddle placed on the grill). They got golden brown and tasted great. We put sour cream and guacamole on them once they were on the plate. I'd like to add some green chiles to spice it up a little.

There is usually a four-square game every night (or what we used to call circle ball). It is fun because the kids are getting old enough now to have a pretty good game. Sometimes we also play cornhole which is fun. Here is what cornhole is.

Alex is back at marching band this week from 9-5. She has been having arrythmias lately which has been troublesome for her. We hope they go away....but we are not sure what is going on. She is really frustrated...which is understandable. She is a real trooper.

I have some meetings this week. I am really trying to slow down at church....right now I lead the Mission committee, lead the Major Gifts committee, and on the nominating committee, and am on the personnel committee. And there's the band too. By 12/31/05 I hope to be down to one committee and the band. I'd like to help some more at Cub Scouts this year and maybe marching band.

That's all for now. Keep in touch.

Thursday August 4, 2005

Hello again! Things keep hoppin' along here in Central Indiana.

Alex skipped Marching Band today to go to Riley Hospital because she was having some arrythmias. They did an EKG, bloodwork and put her on a monitor. Of course, her heart didn't act up while she was there! She returned to Marching Band in the afternoon. This week they practice from 8-6. Next week it is 9-5 I think.

Nate is exhuasted after Soccer Camp which runs 9-12 this week. It is consistently in the mid-90s here so it is a real workout on the field! Chase has it easy and has been swimming every day this week I think!!!

We are having a little garage sale this Saturday. We are only doing it because some neighbors are too. We aren;t very organized...but we'll get as much out as we can. Supposed to be nice weather.

That's all for now. Later!

Tuesday August 2nd

Well, we certainly had an interestiong weekend!

I bought a paint scraper this past week with the intention of scraping off some of the old wood on our storage barn and repainting it soon. So, Saturday morning I started to scrape and noticed a rotten piece of wood on one od the barn doors (not THAT barn door!!). Well, I removed the pffending piece of wood and found that I could put my hand entirely through the barn door causing a massive hole into the barn.

Well, being the incredibly smart dude that I am, I went to my files and found the company that originally built the barn and proceeded to find out how I could purchase 2 new barn doors and install them.

But No !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They don't make replacement doors so you have to BUILD YOUR OWN doors! Now this might not seem like a big deal to some of you, but I have never built and installed barn doors before. So, I did a little "Reverse Engineering" and figured out what I needed and bought the materials. (My barn looks something like this):

My old barn doors were attached with a "piano hinge" and I decided to modify that to look like the hinges in the picture. I also modified the look on the front because I didn't have a nice radial saw to make cool angles....I was using a curcular saw.

Nate was a big helper and learned a few things in the process....not the least of which was to wear shoes when doing work like this. A board fell on his toes!

The bottom line is that when Nate and I were done hanging the doors they actually closed and look great. I also repainted the barn with a little help from Nate and Chase. I only need to finish painting the front doors and the trim and the barn will be done! Yee-ha. So, my entire weekend was pretty devoted to those darn barn doors!!

Ellen and Alex were supposed to get back from Mexico around 7:30pm Saturday night. I kept getting updates from people and the last I heard was that their plane was not to land in Indy until aroun 2am Sunday morning. By the time they arrived at our house it was 3:30am!! They had a great time and did some very good work. We boys were thrilled to have them home though.

This week Alex is in Marching Band from 8-6. Nate is at soccer camp from 9-noon. And Chase is hanging out with some neighbors. Work continues to go well. Soon school will be starting up and things will get hectic.

Be sure to check out Alex's Heartwalk website...she is over $3000 already. Her goal is $15,000. You can check it out at Alex's Heartwalk Website.

That's all for now....hope you enjoy reading this.