shawnwright.blog

We took family pictures today. The girls look beautiful as ever. I'm not super happy with how I represented the family this year. But what's done is done.

Here's a couple pictures of the girls from just before and then during pictures. I'll upload the finished product when they're ready.







UPDATE

Okay, here they are, the finished products. Just ignore the part that includes me.










As always, you can find these and many other pictures in the family album.

Labels: Darby, family, holiday, pictures, Shawn, Shelby

This morning, Shelby got to take part in a special school event commemorating today's historic anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She bought a couple raffle tickets on Friday, and she won the opportunity to "kick down the wall". The event was covered by KWTV channel 9, our local CBS affiliate, and is supposed to air during the 5:00pm broadcast.

Normally I try to only post 2-3 pictures per blog entry and then link to the photo album for the rest. But in this case, it seemed best to convey the entire event, though they will later appear in the album. If you come back later, I may also have a video posted, and maybe a link to the TV story if I can find it.


Here's Shelby on her big day.



Here's what the "wall" looked like. It is cereal boxes decorated with graffiti by the students of Shelby's school.



Shelby in front of the wall.



Shelby at the wall.



Shelby being interviewed by channel 9.



Shelby (partially obscured by the crowd) at a presentation by one of the teachers, who showed the crowed her piece of the actual Berlin Wall acquired during a school trip to Germany back in 1990.



Shelby kicking down the wall.



As the domino effect didn't go quite as planned, Shelby had to walk along the wall, kicking it down. Here she is near the end. You can see that the rest of the middle school kids have practically joined in the rally.



Here she is being interviewed at the end.



And one more interview, with the school's media department.



And there you have it, the Berlin Wall (or a semi-replica thereof) has been kicked down. By my daughter.




Update
Here's the video from tonight's newscast courtesy News 9:



And here's a link to the same video on the News 9 site, in case there's an issue with the one I embedded. Also, there's an associated story at News 9, though both in the story and the video they got Shelby's first name wrong.

Labels: pictures, school, Shelby

After the disappointing OU loss, we cheered ourselves up with some pumpkin carving.

Never the conformist, Shelby insisted on carving her pumpkin the old-fashioned way.



While Darby took a shot at a complex stencil.



More carving pics can be found in the album.

Labels: Darby, holiday, pictures, Shelby

Shelby and her mom worked on her Halloween costume tonight. I think it turned out great!











Keep an eye on the album for updates as more photos are taken.

Labels: holiday, pictures, Shelby

We got the girls' school pictures back today. Darby doesn't like hers and wants re-takes. Thoughts?


More pictures of Darby are in the album.

Oh, by the way, that's not Shelby's real hair in the back. She's wearing a clip-on hair extension thing she got for her birthday.


More pictures of Shelby are in the album.

Labels: Darby, pictures, school, Shelby

The girls and I had a packed Labor Day weekend, beginning Friday with a trip to the drive-in theater to see G-Force, followed Saturday by a day trip to the Wichita Mountains for a little rock climbing and hiking. The family album has been updated with a few additional pictures from the day trip, but this one is my favorite. The girls looking out over the valley, in quite reflection and relief that they had finally made it to the top (it was a much tougher hike than they expected).



Sunday and Monday we helped good friends move, which doesn't sound like much fun, but we had a pretty good time.

Labels: movies, pictures, trip, Wichita Mountains

Darby's softball team finished their spring season last week, with tonight being trophy night. They went 8-2 in their division to take second place, shy of first by only a game. Their overall record was 12-4-1, with the 2 additional losses going to upper division teams, and the tie going to an older team (14U vs our 12U team). Not a bad season looking back, and probably the most diverse for Darby, who played 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, and C during the season (mostly 1B and SS). The most frustrating aspect had to be our narrow loss to a division team we had beaten handily earlier in the season. Had our offense not slumped that game, we would have tied for first at least, and possibly would have done better depending on the tiebreaker rules.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Labels: Darby, pictures, softball

It took awhile, but vacation pictures have been posted to the family album. We spent a few days in Washington, DC and a few days in Philadelphia earlier this month.

Labels: Philadelphia, pictures, trip, vacation, Washington DC

We've been practicing for awhile now, but tonight was the first game, and certain schedule mayhem awaits as the season progresses.

We got off to a great start. For forty-five of the seventy minutes we were in the lead. But a series of "rookie mistakes" allowed the opposing team to run-rule us in an inning, giving them the lead. Even so, we pulled back to within one run with less than ten minutes to play. And with five minutes to play, daughter number one was at bat with the bases loaded. She did get a hit, but a play was made on the force out at home, preventing the tying run from scoring. In the end we lost by that one run, but all the issues we had can be fixed, so there's not too much disappointment for a first game. We're supposed to play in a tournament this weekend, which has a four-game minimum, so we will be all softballed out in less than a week.

The weather was very uncooperative and unspringlike tonight. Somewhere in the upper forties I believe with a 20+ mph wind. Though we were all bundled up, it was still darned cold.

Also of note, we actually had batting practice for an hour before the game. At that time, our ONLY pitcher (eek) was still at a track meet over an hour away. So who was going to pitch in her stead? You guessed it, daughter number one and her six weeks of pitching lessons. Boy did that make her nervous, and boy was she relieved when our pitcher arrived about five minutes before game time. We warmed up her pitching arm between at-bats at practice, and it was promising but spotty, though it would have been interesting to see how it would have gone for her, nerves aside.

Update
2009 softball pictures will be added to the album as the season progresses. In the mean time, there are tons of pics from the 2008 season.

Labels: Darby, pictures, softball

(Update
Some photos have been uploaded to the album.)

Intro
I've been back from Toronto for a little over a day, though I'm still crazy tired. The trip was probably not the best idea given the times, but it seems to have been worth it looking back from this short distance.

Premise
After my 2006 inaugural World Baseball Classic experience (see game summary, trip summary), it seemed a no-brainer to attempt to attend the second WBC. However, it was not without its twists and turns.

I went, in 2006, with a like-minded sports-loving friend and all was right with the world. It was in Phoenix, a town I enjoy, we participated in tons of great sporting events, and I got make the short trip to Tucson to see my ailing grandmother for what turned out to be the last time. With minor exception, looking back a few years, it was a really great trip.

Prelude
The intent was basically to do it all over again this time around, only the WBC folks decided to mix it up on us, having the first round of the classic in cities outside the United States. This became known as the first problem. While we could have caught the second round in Miami or the semis/finals in San Diego/L.A., there was a bit of risk in not fulfilling what I felt was the key goal of this endeavor... seeing Team USA. I mean, I'm all for seeing some great baseball games, but in less than a month, I'll have a number of options in that regard within a few hours drive. Why make a long plane ride if you're not going to see Team USA? So, given that Team USA COULD have lost in the first round, the only logical choice seemed to be to pack for Toronto.

The second problem this year was that my previous WBC travel partner became decidedly unavailable (though later quite the opposite, however not in time to join plans already in progress). So I had to find a new travel partner that understood the merits of making an international trip to see a baseball game. Not an easy task in my part of the world (college football country). But I did convince a close college friend, who has attended a number of ballgames with me in the past, that this would be a worthy trip.

There was a third problem as it turned out, in that my friend wanted to bring his wife. I don't mean that to sound like "it was a problem that he wanted to bring his wife". It's just that I knew his wife wasn't as into sports as he and I, and so the problem became a fairness issue, or how to balance the trip out with non-sports activities.

So I created an itinerary that was reasonably well balanced, I thought, with the WBC game, an NBA game, and a trip to Wayne Gretzsky's restaurant on the one hand, and museums, shopping, and a theatre show on the other. Well, you know what they say about best laid plans. Which is not to say the trip wasn't rounded and excellent. It just didn't quite go according to plan.

Before getting into the trip details, I must note that there was actually a problem four... my friend did not have a passport. And there was some uncertainty as to whether he could get one in time. Fortunately, he was able to do so, averting a trip planning crisis.

Adventure
Thursday morning I hit the road for Dallas. It was decided early on that, living in different parts of the country, we would all meet-up in Dallas and fly to Toronto together. I don't disagree with this plan in retrospect, but the three plus hour drive with road construction threatening to delay your trip doesn't exactly relax you. Traffic delay and parking uncertainty overcome, I made it through security in short order and met up with my friends with great anticipation of a remarkable trip ahead. Aside from long waits in airports, the Dallas to Detroit to Toronto flights were mostly uneventful. Well, there was the incident involving beef jerky, but that's mostly just embarrassing and revealing of my ignorance, so we can skip that part.

The customs line in Canada was not too bad, though I thought the Canadian border agent was noticeably less nice to me than he had been to my friend's wife. Not that it made a difference. It took us no time at all to find a cab to take us to our hotel, though I did feel like the driver took a longer route than necessary, having studied the map a little ahead of time. The cab fare was our single biggest cash expense of the trip. Almost everything else we paid via credit cards, as was recommended on many travel sites.

The hotel, a Holiday Inn, wasn't particularly fancy, but it would do fine. After we checked-in, we got situated in our rooms and then met for dinner and to discuss the itinerary for the next day. Dinner in the pub and grill attached to the hotel hit the spot just fine.

The next morning we met downstairs and began our short walk to a breakfast place down the road. Called "Over Easy", the food there was quite tasty with hearty portion sizes. Breakfast concluded, we walked across the street to visit the Royal Ontario Museum.

We spent a good four to five hours at the museum, which resembles New York's Natural History Museum. As far as content, the ROM seemed more thorough in some areas than the NY NHM, but less thorough in others. I realize this is an unfair comparison, but I've been to both and so can't help but compare. Following our visit to the ROM, we walked back to the hotel for a short break before catching a subway ride downtown.

The plan called for a touristy visit to the CN Tower, Canada's largest structure, and one of the largest structures in the world, followed by dinner and an NBA game. Unfortunately, I didn't buy Raptors tickets in advance, which turned out to be a poor decision. I was trying to keep the agenda somewhat flexible, and I thought for sure in a city like Toronto with SO MUCH to do, they surely wouldn't sell out a basketball game for a team that wasn't in contention (sure, we sell out our very non-contending Oklahoma City arena quite often, but we just got the team, so we're still so darned excited about it). While I did have a plan B, it was based on a fairly narrow time frame, which also turned out to be problematic.

Well, the CN Tower portion of our day went quite excellently. Having been atop the Empire State Building (yes, even the 102nd floor), and as splendid as that was, I have to say the CN Tower experience might be just a tad better. I mean, wow. The views were spectacular... the city, Lake Ontario, the glass floors, etc... just amazing. Well, okay, the glass floors were just plain scary, but they added a dynamic to the experience not achievable in New York. You should have seen my reaction when trying to step out onto the glass floor when someone else jumped on it, making it shake. Did I mention I'm not great with heights?

We followed our tower observation with a meal in the aptly named 360 restaurant. Very much like the former "Nikz at the Top" restaurant in Oklahoma City, the 360 rotates, giving you a 360-degree view of the city and lake while you enjoy your high-priced meal. The atmosphere was remarkable and the food was excellent (also like Nikz). But we couldn't linger too long because we had to execute plan B following my NBA miscalculation.

The plan involved enjoying a show at a local mystery theater. Unfortunately, as we left CN Tower, we were notably behind schedule and needed to walk a significant distance to make the subway (I led us in the wrong direction, north instead of east, meaning we had to go to the St. Andrews station instead of Union Station costing us valuable time). Looking back on this, we should have just caught a cab and we would have been fine I think. Though it didn't take us long to figure out the value of cabs. When we finally reached the subway, we noticed how impractical it was becoming that we would actually make it to the mystery theater on time (thus keeping it a mystery in a sense). So we began discussing Plan C. Trouble is, I hadn't written a Plan C, so we were having to make it up on the spot.

Plan C became the let's just walk back to the main entertainment district and catch a movie plan. Seemed reasonable enough. It was a Friday, Watchmen had just come out, what a nice fall-back. So, we got off at the next subway stop, walked probably about as far as we did going from the CN Tower to the subway, and we got in line for tickets. We new we were too late for th 7pm showings, and that we'd have to wait for 9 or 9:30 showings, but we should also have accounted for the possibility of sell-outs. Ugh. As we were in line, we saw the marquee message that read "The next available showing of Watchmen is 11pm". There was nothing else even showing until 9:45, and we weren't sure that one was worth the wait. So, Plan C was turning out to be as much a flop as A and B. We stepped out of line and went to the book store cafe next door to contemplate the evening.

Not much discussion was needed before we determined the details of Plan D. It was stunningly simple and at that point the most value we could achieve without further spinning our wheels. (Technical note: Much of this aimless bouncing about would not have occurred if I had been able to use my splendid smart phone... but U.S. mobile providers have criminally high [IMHO] international data roaming rates, and so I was very much lacking in the actionable intelligence gathering abilities I'd come to rely on in the states.) Plan D was to, in fact, head the heck back to the hotel and get some sleep because we were bloody tired anyway. At the time I was disappointed with this plan (because hey, I don't sleep anyway), but once I got back to my room, I enjoyed it quite a lot. And this time, we caught a cab, so our trip back to the hotel was quick and without further walking.

Our last day in Toronto started out with another breakfast at Over Easy. We had plans to try another place, but decided we liked our previous day's breakfast enough to do it again. Then we hit the subway (once we found the darned station... you know, in New York subway stations are VERY obvious... in Toronto, not so much... or is it just me?) to one of the bigger malls in Toronto to do some gift shopping. We just spent an hour or so walking around the mall and making our selections as we didn't want to stay too long, have travel issues again, and possibly miss part of the game, which was the reason for the trip to begin with. So, we got back on the subway and headed back downtown.

Lunch plans called for a trip to Wayne Gretzky's restaurant. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Trouble is, pretty much everybody else going to the game thought of that as well. This time I had plans B and C prepared as well, and we did have to go with C, as B was just as packed. My friend's wife had the excellent suggestion of Plan D (skip external lunch and just get hot dogs at the game). Being men, we ignored that plan and stuck with Plan C. And then it started to rain. And we had window seats and so we saw how wet the people were getting walking to the game. Wonderful.

After scarfing our lunch, we headed to Skydome (yes, I know it's called the Rogers Centre now, but to me it will always be Skydome), getting plenty wet and wishing we had listened to the wife. Thank goodness for domed stadiums. And we arrived at the stadium early enough to catch the tail end of batting practice and to take plenty of pictures.

We had decent seats (35 rows from the field, between third and home). But the lower-bowl was a packed house and I started to wonder if the more spacious upper bowl might have been a better option for comfort purposes (attendance was in excess of forty-two thousand, much more than 2006). There were some obnoxiously loud and drunk Team Canada fans behind us (many in the section agreed they were too loud and annoying, so it wasn't just us), and to the left of us there were a couple of French Canadians that I'm sure were talking about us in French, concerning our American flags and frequent cheering for Team USA in a Canada-friendly crowd. Also, they got up every ten minutes to get a beer (where did they PUT all that beer they drank?), though they couldn't go at the same time. Seemed like every five minutes one of them got up to go get something else.

ANYway, this was about the game. And the game was quite excellent. Unlike my last WBC game, which was a Team USA blowout, this game was close the whole time, with USA victory not assured until the last out of the last inning with a full count. You can't ask for better baseball than that. As a bonus, I got to see three 2008 World Champion Phillies (Victorino, Rollins, and Stairs -- though playing for Canada) perform well, AND I got to see my childhood baseball hero Mike Schmidt coaching third base. What was decidedly less exciting was the fact that I blew an opportunity to get autographs from Victorino and Stairs following the game because the game went longer than expected and I made dinner reservations much too soon afterward. Oh, and did I mention it was still pouring outside?

The original plan called for walking to dinner. With the length of the game and the rain, we opted out of that plan rather quickly. However, catching a cab outside of a building with thousands of people exiting turned out to be far more difficult than anticipated. We ended up getting rather soaked again before we finally got a cab. Fortunately, we made it right on time for our reservations.

Dinner at an acclaimed Italian establishment, was excellent, and the desert was WAY larger than I expected. And I hate wasting perfectly good cheesecake. But once again my planning didn't turn out so well, as we finished dinner much quicker than expected (unlike the previous night), and so we had quite some time to wait before the next item on our agenda, a show at the (in)famous Second City Theatre, where many greats of comedy got their start.

Of course, that show required another walk in the rain as there were no cabs to be found. Did I mention that I gave my umbrella a good hard look before I left OKC, but though surely I wouldn't need it? Well, even with all weather crud on the trip, it all turned out to be worth it, as Second City was amazing. As a huge fan of sketch comedy, I had long wanted to get a live look at where SCTV came from, and at the very beginnings of many SNL players' climbs to the top. And SC didn't disappoint. It was a completely amazing and funny show, and I am reasonably certain I will someday see some of those same stage actors on my TV set, whether in SNL or some other hilarious endeavor. If you're ever in one of the SC cities, don't miss an opportunity to catch a show.

Not unexpectedly, it was still raining after the show, so we caught a cab back to the hotel. Considering we were being picked up by an airport taxi at 6am, AND that we had to spring ahead for daylight savings, there really wasn't much time for sleep, so, after setting up a wake-up call, I had to hurry up and pack so I could get at least SOME sleep. Even though I don't do that much, the trip was starting to catch up with me.

The trip to the airport the next morning and the trip back through customs and onward to Dallas was unremarkable (though we finally got a big enough plane to stretch out in, oh, and we think we saw the mini-me actor at the Detroit airport), as was my drive back to OKC. But it had been about fourteen hours of traveling of some sort, so I was very much like a zombie upon my return. I picked up the kids from their mom's, got some to-go dinner, and went HOME. It was SO nice to be home. Though there are some things to miss about Toronto.

Conclusion
While I didn't get to know her as well as I would have liked, Toronto, in my experience, is an excellent place to visit. Very New York-like with plenty of international flair (it's a VERY diverse city). With its close proximity to the U.S., the lack of language barriers, and the general similarity of most things (except money, metrics, and temperature), Toronto is a fantastic alternative to Europe if money and time are an issue. I'm eager to bring the kids back during a future summer so we can do all the kid-friendly things I skipped-out on this time around.

Labels: baseball, pictures, sports, Toronto, trip, World Baseball Classic

Sixty-five miles from home on a three-thousand mile round trip and a belt breaks. Good times.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Update
Our Thanksgiving in Philly was actually quite excellent. More pictures from that trip have been uploaded to the family album.

Labels: holiday, Philadelphia, pictures, trip

Yep holiday picture time.

Update
The results of this session have been posted to the family album.

Labels: holiday, pictures

Six friends were taking an RV trip over the Independence Day weekend to Milwaukee for a concert and asked if I wanted to go. Nah, I said. But then I checked the Milwaukee Brewers schedule, noticed that they'd be in town the same night as the concert, and decided to join them. I doubted there would be another opportunity like this for me to see Miller Park. And I'm glad I went, as it turned into a decent little adventure.



The first leg of the trip, we stopped at a couple wineries in Missouri, and stayed overnight at a Springfield, Illinois campground. The second leg got us all the way to Milwaukee, but we were running so behind that I got dropped off by the RV in front of the stadium just in time for the game. The RV then proceeded to the RV park to "connect" before everybody caught a shuttle to the concert.

While some may question making such a trip for a ballgame, I can say unequivocally that I have no regrets. Not only is Miller Park a beautiful ballpark, it was a great game, won by Prince Fielder in the bottom of the ninth with a game-winning walk-off RBI-single. Good stuff.



I caught a taxi back to the RV once the game was over, with a few hours to myself before everyone else returned from the concert. The next morning we packed up and hit the road for home (so yes, a very quick visit).

You can see a few pictures from the trip in the album, or if you'd like to see more pictures of the ballpark, you can find them in the picasa album.

Labels: ballpark, baseball, Milwaukee, pictures, sports, trip

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of my move to the now-no-longer-new place. My that was quick. And there are still many things long overdue to be done. The one thing I have been pretty diligent about is taking sunset pictures. So there are roughly a years' worth of them in the picasa album for your viewing pleasure. I am in debate as to whether I'm going to keep taking the pictures, take them but far less frequently, or just say one years' worth is plenty and be done with it. What do you think?

Labels: pictures

While Darby's first independent league softball game was on Tuesday, her first school team game was tonight (technically the school team played their first game on Monday, but Darby was at practice for her other team). She didn't have as many defensive opportunities as at the Tuesday game, but her offense was solid. She did ground out once, but she also had a solid RBI single, drew a walk, and scored a run (from first) on a triple by the following batter. Unlike Tuesday's game, Darby's team won today, though we definitely need some help at pitcher. Thought we might walk-in the tying run for a minute there.







The album has been updated with these pictures.

Labels: Darby, pictures, softball

Darby had her first softball game of the Spring season tonight, and though they lost, they had an excellent game defensively, especially Darby. The coach essentially said she was the defensive player of the game at shortstop, and it started right away. The very first pitch resulted in a grounder straight to her, which she charged, and zinged to first for the first out of the game. It was the most textbook play I've ever seen her make, and it really set the tone for the game.

She had several other good put-outs, including a nicely caught fly that looked for sure like it was going to get by her. Also she had a nice diving stop that saved extra runs from scoring.

The only scary moment was a missed fly that hit her in the chest. It so barely missed her head that every parent in the crowd gasped because we all thought it hit her face first. But she bounced right back up like it was nothing and got back in the game.

Overall it was a very impressive effort. I think all the extra practice the last month or so has really paid off.









The album has been updated accordingly.

Labels: Darby, pictures, softball

Noticed how slim some of the trip photos were in the album, so I added probably a couple dozen pics where I could. Also, a couple of trips that weren't previously in the album were added.

Labels: pictures

We're a few weeks into Spring softball practices, and this week, one of Darby's two teams asked her to be their backup catcher. She's played catcher before, years ago, and then again for one game this past winter/indoor season.

So this morning, following regular softball practice, the team had pitchers and catchers practice, and Darby did pretty well (better than expected). If she can keep with it, it will further improve her value to the team (which has become more competitive for positions this season). Maybe it will also further her options as she develops over the years into high school and college.

Here's a picture from the album.

Labels: Darby, pictures, softball

New Fall family pics received today. Some of you can look forward to these in your Christmas cards.




Additional poses are in the album.

Labels: family, pictures

So I've been gone for awhile. What's it to ya? I'm not even sure I'm back for good yet, so hold your tongue.

I have no good excuses. But the last time I blogged it was at the end of the school year. And tomorrow begins the next school year, so we'll just say I was on summer vacation for lack of a better reason.

I wrote many a blog entry over the summer, but didn't post for various reasons I'll not get into now. I may back-fill some of those blog entries, but I'm not making promises for the time being.

So, here's a brief summary of our summer...


Softball Camps and Clinics
Darby participated in a softball camp in June. Says she learned a thing or two. She also participated in an NCAA softball clinic.



Baseball
Darby played on a co-ed baseball team that experienced a "make-up season" instead of make-up games due to all the rain in June. There are photos in the album in addition to the below sample. She got to pitch quite a bit, and hit a couple homers of the inside-the-park variety.



Kingfisher
The girls spent two separate weeks with their grandmother in Kingfisher. The first week was rainy and indoors. The second was outdoorsy, but Shelby took a nasty spill off her bike. Guess it's good they got all that out of the way before Kingfisher ended up underwater.

New York
We took a trip to New York City in August, which was quite an adventure. We visited four of the five boroughs, took many subways and buses, went to both a Yankees game and a Mets game, and spent a lot of time in Central Park, among other activities. Additional pictures are available in the album.



Philadelphia
After NYC, we went down to Philly to visit family, friends, and landmarks. We went to the nations first zoo, fully experienced Six Flags Great Adventure, BBQed with friends, and spent a good amount of time in the historic district re-visiting Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and other sites. Naturally, we also took in a Phillies game. Additional pictures are available in the album.



Got Hitched
Okay, so this is a complete fabrication. Pick your jaw up off the floor. But in all seriousness, I did meet someone rather unexpectedly, if you can believe that. I'm quite fortunate, and things are going rather splendidly in that regard, but I'll not be going into that much here or now.


Well, that covers most of the highlights. Hopefully this will not be the last you hear from me in awhile. Trying to get back into the swing. Bear with me.

Labels: baseball, Darby, New York, Philadelphia, Phillies, pictures, softball, trip

For some time, I didn't get many opportunities to go to Shelby's fencing rehearsals, which are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Until just last week, Darby's piano practice was on Tuesdays, so I'd take Darby there, while Shelby went with her mother to fencing. And then on Thursdays the girls go with their mom for a couple days and I usually take care of things I can't do while with the girls.

Since Darby's piano lessons were moved to Mondays recently, I've been able to attend fencing the last couple weeks, and also as the girls' mom was out of town this week, I attended tonight, which was cool because I got to see her test, which I don't get to see very often. She tested on a new skill they recently learned (called "circle six") and passed, giving her a second stripe at her current level.



I've also updated the photo album with a few more recent fencing pics.

Labels: fencing, pictures, Shelby

Could you ask for a better Monday morning than having your daughter puke in the car on the way to school in the middle of heavy stop-and-go traffic on a major highway?

I didn't think so either, and that's what I got! How awesome is that?!?

Out of the blue, the previously healthy Darby yelped out, "Daddy, I think I have to throw-up!"

So there I was trying to avoid cars, reaching under my seat where I keep some plastic bags for muddy shoes or other such emergencies, and then trying to hand one back to her while she had both hands over her mouth making yack-heave sounds like it's coming any second...

Well, we made it. Mostly. Shelby yelped out in disgust because apparently Darby missed the bag slightly and got a little on the seat, but she was too busy yacking to pay much notice to anything else around her, including my incessant griping about the poor timing (like literally a minute sooner and could have pulled off at a gas station or something). Almost the entire rest of the time we were on the highway she was gagging and heaving into the bag. And that's EXACTLY the kind of soundtrack you want in the morning, let me tell you.

So we got to the school to drop Shelby off and I looked at Darby, who had as big a look of relief on her face as I've ever seen when I ask her... how do you feel? She says fine. I say, like how fine? I mean, I need a no crap answer, do you feel fine enough to go to school or are you staying with me? She says she can go to class. I say are you sure, cause I don't want to be driving back here in an hour. She says, really, it's out of her system, she feels fine. So... she heads into the school (having already cleaned-up and what not). I head to work with what is quite the sigh of relief as well, thinking also that that is the end of that.

I get to work. Sit down at my desk. Begin the arduous login process. And my phone rings. It's Darby. Daddy, I just can't do it, she says. Can you come get me?

Ugh.

I just get done packing my stuff back up and the phone rings again. It's Darby's mom. She offers to pick-up Darby. The first good news all day. I unpack, and begin the day semi-anew.

Darby never puked again the rest of the day. Just a headache and some initial queasiness. I asked her when I picked her up after work if it may have been due to anxiety about getting braces, as we had an orthodontic appointment later in the day that has since been canceled, but she insisted it was not that.

Hmmm. I don't know. Psychosomatic responses can be quite powerful...


The only other good news of the day was the receipt of school picture proofs. The photo album has been updated with the proofs for those interested in viewing, and they'll be updated with the actual versions in a few weeks I presume.


Update, 28 May
Replaced the proofs above with the actual pictures, which the kids just brought home. The album has been updated.

Labels: Darby, pictures

We finally held Darby's family birthday dinner this afternoon, effectively concluding her 11th birthday festivities. Her choice for location was the "OG" (Olive Garden), which is always tasty, but I wasn't particularly keen on their refusal to take reservations on weekends. So, I had to show up thirty minutes early to get a table for 14. Other than that (and a small screw-up on my part with invitations) all went fairly well and the food was very good.



I updated the album with a few pics from today's activities.

Labels: birthday, Darby, pictures

After postponing Darby's 11th birthday party because of what I refer to as a "warmth wedgie" (above, and in other words, we canceled it for nothing), we finally held her party today (a mere sixteen days late). Though not without having to gasp at the fact that it was snowing when I looked out the window this morning. Fortunately, it was just a flurry, and the party went on mostly with out hitch.



I've posted a few additional photos in the album.

Labels: birthday, Darby, pictures, snow

I must say, if there were ever a better use for a ballpark in December (aside from Fall-ball for those with the privilege), I haven't seen it. The last couple years they've been converting our downtown ballpark into a snow-tubing facility, and while it's not a cheap adventure, it's quite a lot of fun. The manufactured snow-hill slides you right into second base (and I have to wonder if that was by design), so I can't say I've ever slid into second in such style.

The girls had a blast, though Shelby was frightened to tears (literally) at first because of the height of the hill. I sort of guilt-tripped her into going through with it, but she led the way on subsequent attempts since she liked it so much. We continued our tubing fun for more than an hour before walking a half-mile to the Botanical Gardens to check out the Christmas lights.




The whole deal (and more) is part of OKC's "Downtown in December" events, which I highly recommend. If you live in the area and haven't partaken, shame on you. You can catch more pics of our adventures in the album.

Labels: Darby, OKC, pictures, Shelby, snow

I picked up the pictures we took a couple weeks ago tonight, and I must say that I'm disappointed in myself. While the girls look great, I look half-asleep in the family photo. Can't believe I didn't notice that when we were ordering.



Anyway, I've updated the album to include the new photos, including more poses. This time around I ordered electronic access to the photos as well, which allowed me to also post in the album a copy of the photos we did not order physical copies of.

Several days ago I bought some Christmas cards (the girls picked the designs), and I have already addressed them. So for family wondering when the heck they're going to get their pictures, I'll be putting them in the cards this weekend, so they should be heading your way first thing next week.

Labels: family, holiday, pictures

So the girls had a good time at their church "Fall Festival". We spent a good couple hours at the church before I dropped them off at my dad's so that I could head to that Halloween party. The party was... interesting to say the least... but for the second day in a row I didn't get home until 5am, which is very un-Shawn-like.



There are more pics in the album.

Labels: holiday, pictures

Shelby had her first fencing tournament this morning. It was in Tulsa, so we got up early and headed up there with plenty of time to spare once we got there (though not without trouble on the way back). Shelby was pretty excited about the tournament all week, right up until she was facing her first opponent. There was only one other kid there that was Shelby's size, so she was pretty handily defeated by the clearly more seasoned fencers. By the time she faced the kid her size, she was pretty discouraged. She fought hard in what I think had to be the longest bout of the tournament (~10 minutes... usually they're around three or four minutes), but she still lost. She lost all six of her bouts, but I think she got some valuable experience and will do better next time.



I also posted some photos in the album. I was very fascinated by the way the suits and swords get wired-up for scoring.

Labels: fencing, pictures, Shelby, video

A couple weeks ago, we had some family photos taken. Well, this evening, I picked them up, and now they are posted to the album. For the most part, I like how they turned out.

Labels: family, pictures