Everything American - Baseball, Scouts and Climbing Trees

This past Saturday was opening day for baseball. Michael is now in the pitching league. Kinda scary to watch 8 and 9-year-olds pitch to other 8 and 9-year-olds. In Mike's game on Thursday night the other team's pitcher hit one of their teammates in the head when up to bat, thank goodness for helmets. Mike looks like a real baseball player. He plays center field and is a great hitter.


Wednesday night was advancement night at cub scouts. Mike earned his Wolf.



Davey Tree Company came in today for my class, Landscape Management to discuss urban tree care. During the lab portion we climbed Pin Oaks on campus. Here I am fully harnessed and limb walking.

Beautiful Weekend

I am behind in my blogging and I will try to get caught up.

These were our family Easter Sunday pictures. I twill get the rest of our Easter pictures up this coming week.



Yesterday we had one of the best weather days of the year. It was high 70's without a cloud in the sky, this is quite rare for WV in April. I spent the entire day prepping where we had our pool the past year for our new trampoline. I regraded the site, mulched and put together the trampoline. It only took me 3 hours to put it together with help from 6 children (our 4 + 2 neighbors). The last posted movie is a POV movie where I am shooting it so you can see what jumping in our backyard is like. I had a hard time getting the kids to come inside at night, as seen in the last picture, they really love the trampoline.

While we were working, a biplane flew over the house. We seem to get a lot of unique flying machines over the house here in Morgantown. We have had Apache Army helicopters (flew so low I could have touched it if I was standing on our roof, they were practicing maneuvers for Iraq), a chain of about 10 CH-47 Chinook Army helicopters (the big dual blade types), and the Goodyear Blimp all fly over our house in the past 4 years.


If the rain lets up this week I will be spreading more mulch. I am in the process of making rain barrels (seen in the picture) for our downspouts. I am trying to control the water going out into the yard but also save money for our garden as well. I am redirecting some of our downspouts to my main collection tank (not shown) which is a 275 gallon tank.

Missing Teeth and Birthdays

I love looking at Jeanette's (Jen's sister) blog in AZ, see how warm it looks while we are in a snow storm today! Anyway, yesterday was Dan's 3rd birthday. He had a blast! He finally understands what a birthday is all about. He spent the entire day telling everyone, "I is the birthday boy!"


We had a family party for Dan and we went out for dinner. Jen made a cool racetrack birthday cake. He had a bit of trouble blowing out the candle which was hilarious.

Jen and I gave him a bike for his birthday and we made him close his eyes while I brought it into the room so it would be a surprise. Jen took the next picture of him opening his eyes seeing the bike. He really loved his new bike.




Jen also found this really cute policeman hat for his birthday. He also loved his new bubble mower.



Sam lost another tooth yesterday. We are not sure how he is going to eat anything that requires him to bit. He is currently missing his top two front teeth and he just lost one of his bottom with another bottom one that is loose.

March Madness

Today was catch-up day, not ketchup day but catch-up day. I took 11 undergraduate students to Los Angeles for a landscaping competition and got home at 2 AM yesterday. I am a bit behind in my blogging so I will attempt to sum up the end of March. It has been a crazy month for us and it seems to be getting crazier by the minute. This month was Michael's birthday. He had a class party at the skating rink this year. It was a blast skating with the kids. Jen and I even held hands while we skated together.

Right before I left for California we had a blast of warm weather so we had our first outside picnic. We bought some KFC and enjoyed eating on the deck.


We have signed everyone up for baseball and t-ball this year. Even Dan is getting in on the action this year and practicing his batting.



With the warm weather, we were able to get a start on our big outside project, backyard makeover. We put in a new stone patio and we are going to lay sod and reseed the lawn. We are also putting in rubber mulch around the playset. When it is all done it is going to be amazing!



Yesterday we took the kids to see Monsters vs Aliens. The kids seemed to like it, me, not so much.

Spring has Sprung

Today the Crocus were in full bloom. The first sign of spring. We should have daffodils blooming in a day or two. Today Becca went to work with me for daddy daughter day. We went out for lunch and worked hard in the office. I was behind in my coloring and Becca was able to get me back on track.


The close up of the Crocus blooms is with my Sony DSLR camera which I love.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Dan and Mike were left out because the characters were mostly women.

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Derby Time

My brain is finally back online. This past week has been crazy for us. Work was hectic and the family was sick with the stomach flu. This past week had many nights with very little sleep. Luckily we had a reprieve mid week for our Cub Scout pack pinewood derby. We allowed siblings to race so Becca and Sam made a car. Becca's did the best in our family. It was a purple truck covered in flower stickers. Dan did not make a car, he enjoyed watching the race. Everyone had a great time!