In January:

• Kimberlie’s mother died

In February:

• Mackenzie gets kid-mono.  Between the two of us, we spent almost two weeks away from work, doing nothing but this:

  

In March:

• We went through a tough eating-out hiatus.
• T-ball.  Need I say more?

In April:

• Tristan learns to stick things where they don’t belong.
• Tristan has a major accident during a day trip.
• I went to the doctor (for the first time in 20 years).

In May:

• A house catastrophe.
• No raises at work.

In June:

• I ended up in 2 graduate classes during a 4-week summer semester.  Of course, I ended up with A’s, but it was a tough month.
• Mackenzie ended up sick (and very irritable) for half of our trip to Philadelphia.

And now, July:

• The cat chewed up my Macbook power cord.
• We lost our “free” cable and I my iPhone and digital camera went for a swim . . . in the same week.
• Ants seem to invade a different room of our house everyday.

Of course, there are things that have been happening (or not) all year:

• The stock market has really sucked for the last few months.
• I’m 31 and still not rich enough to retire.
• Publisher’s Clearinghouse still hasn’t knocked on my door.

Don’t get me wrong.  I still love my life.  But even number years just never work out for us.  2008 was equally as bad.  2007 and 2009 were fabulous.  Let’s hope I can make it through the next five months alive!

And yes, those are Silly Bandz that my kids are sporting in the first photo.

The kids participated in the one mile fun-run.  No, I’m not forcing my kids into my sport.  They WANT to do this.  I am happy that they are picking up on positive habits.  We know several kids who sit and play video games all day.

Tristan placed 3rd among boys 10 and under.  He ran the mile in just over 10 minutes.  That’s a lot faster than I was two years ago!

Mackenzie finished 4th among girls 10 and under.  She beat out girls three times her age!  She finished in about 14 minutes.

Here’s a picture with them sporting their finisher’s medals.  I regret that I didn’t get the pictures of them receiving their trophies at the awards ceremonies.  I wish I had brought my video camera so that you can hear the “AWWWWW”s when Mackenzie ran up to the stage to get her trophy.

After the fun run, it was time for my 5K.  I ran the race in 23:48 — a new personal record!  I was pleased.  Since I’m in a tough age group (30-34), I ended up 5th and didn’t get any bling bling.

Next, it was off to t-ball, which no longer has a “tee” as you can see above.  I’m still not sure what’s up with that.  I think maybe the ballpark lost all of the tees.

Here is Tristan getting tagged out on the way to first base.  It turned out to be a pretty good shot.

After lunch and a nice nap, we headed off to Downtown Macon for the Moonlight Miles 5K.  I’ve never raced twice in one day, but it worked out pretty well.  It was my first local night race and the only one I’ve done other than the Tower of Terror 13K at Disney.

Kimberlie isn’t great at getting good night shots, so you won’t see any pictures of me running at night.  My time was about 2 minutes slower because of hills and trying to avoid the Macon potholes at night.

We finally got home about 11:30 after a nice meal at the Waffle House (the only thing open).  Needless to say, we slept in this morning!

Somehow, right at 8:00, the clouds parted and the rain stopped.  We started the race.  I had considered trying for a personal record (PR) earlier this week, but my training mileage was literally cut in half this week due to issues that I might discuss later on this blog.  I’ve also skipped speed-work training for three weeks for various reasons. I decided not to worry about the PR and just get the race over with and go home and get back into bed. (I love sleeping during storms and I was convinced that t-ball would be cancelled.)

Somehow, I miraculously pulled off the PR, shaving 36 seconds off of my previous 5K record, set last Halloween.  I also got second place in my age group and brought home a trophy — the nicest trophy I’ve won so far racing.  When I got home and connected the Garmin, the computer showed that I had negative splits — which are awesome. (For the non-runners, that’s where your first mile is the slowest and each additional mile is faster with the final mile being the quickest.  It’s extremely hard to do.)  Needless to say, I was pleased!

I have two races next Saturday: Run 4 Missions at 8:00 AM and Moonlight Miles at 8:00 PM.  Remember, you can always track my Running Saga by clicking the link on the right.

And no, they didn’t cancel T-Ball.

10:00 AM: T-ball game.  Tristan batted twice, scoring once.

5:00 PM: After riding 1.5 hours in the car, then sitting through a long country wedding, Tristan dances with his sister at the reception.

7:30 PM: After eating a fabulous amish dinner at Yoder’s, but right before feeding a goat, Tristan kisses the goat.

Don’t worry, Sunday will be just as busy. We’ll relax next weekend.

Below are a few photos from the two games:

To my loyal reader(s), don’t worry.  This blog will not become a play-by-play of the t-ball season.  I’m just not that interested in it.  I have, however, included a short clip of one of his hits below.

I think I sent Tristan’s t-ball schedule to most people who might be interested, but let me know if I missed you and I’ll send it along.

I was just mad about having to fundraise for the little league organization because I don’t like asking people for money and I don’t like being asked for money.  I was also mad about the fact that we still haven’t received a schedule and the games start in 2 days.  I also exagerated some Lizella stereotypes to add humor to the post. Again, there is nothing wrong with the coaches or other parents.  They are just different than me.

I’m not making this apology post out of fear that one of them has read or will read my blog.  That’s very doubtful.  I just felt I needed to right a wrong.

Hopefully the next post will be more positive (and therefore not about t-ball). It’s also been a good while since I’ve included pictures and/or video.  Let’s see if I can change that.

T-ball should be a learning experience for kids who are interested in trying out a team sport or learning the game of baseball.  Unfortunately, it is not.

When it is 40 degrees outside and the wind in blowing 30 miles an hour, practices should be cancelled. Unfortunately, they are not.

There is no praise for the kids.  No “Good Job, Tristan”.  Nothing.  Just screaming non-stop at kids who don’t even understand the game.  One kid ran off of the field when told to “Run home”.  Tristan walked around in circles when told to play shortshop because he was never told where or what that was.  No explanations, just expectations.

The “coach” coaches a “kid-pitch” team as well, so he’s at the field at least twice as much as we are.  That’s how much these folks love little league.  For me, it’s just one of the “balls” that I juggle.

Speaking of balls, Kimberlie and I are the oddballs at practices. To fit in better with the other t-ball parents, I would need to do at least a few of the following:

• Get a blue-collar job.  So blue-collar that it would borderline red-neck.
• Trade my CR-V for something that consumes much more gas and has much bigger wheels.
• Get a trophy-wife who is a stay-at-home-mom or who works a dead-end job.
• Give up grocery shopping. Apparently all necessary food can be found in the woods.
• Preserve the unetible portions of said food and display them in my home.
• Grow facial hair and a beer-belly and get lots of tattoos.
• Start smoking and communicate using more colorful language.

I’ve discovered that little league system has been designed to nickle-and-dime you.  We paid $110.00 for registration, thinking that would be it.  It included the hat, shirt, and socks and I was to provide the pants, cleats, etc.  No problem.  Then they decided that they needed an additional $5.00 to have the letter put on the back of the shirt.  If every kid is required to pay that, why not just include it in the registration fees?

Yesterday, we were handed ten BBQ plate tickets and told that if we didn’t sell them all, our name would go on a list for everyone at the ball park to see. What???  If it truly costs $150.00 per kid to run the ballpark (for the entire 3 months of the year that it is operational), then charge us $150.00 up front.  Or give us an option to pay more instead of sell BBQ plates.

I told Kimberlie we should consider quitting now and we would only be out $35.00.  We paid $115.00 but we could then sell the $80.00 worth of BBQ plates and pocket the cash. She wouldn’t go for it.

Thankfully, I never had dreams of retiring early thanks to a professional-baseball-playing-son.

Yesterday was tryout day. We were concerned that we wouldn’t know anyone, but we ended up knowing four others:

Tristan’s best friend from his old day care (who he hardly sees anymore)
Tristan’s best friend from his current day care (who no longer goes there)
A classmate from Tristan’s preschool
A classmate from Tristan’s current kindergarten class

And to make it even better, we know (or have met) their parents as well.  Let’s just hope he ends up with one or more of them on his team!