Schools Out for Summer!!!

Hey everyone, I have been really bad about keeping up with the blog, so I'll try to catch up now. School is out effective last month - yeah! I've got so much free time now I don't know what to do with myself - down to one job for now. I do miss the kids though, and the extra money. Oh well, good for self preservation.

Alex competed in track this spring with the discus. He qualified for districts, and placed 12th overall for our group. Not bad when he was seeded next to last based on his throws during the season out of 30+ athletes. He was frustrated as he did so well in junior high, where he received several medals, but now he is competing against everyone up through 12th grade. He is hoping to do better next year. He also started working at Dickerson Park Zoo the day after school let out. He is working for guest services and has put several hours in there. He works anywhere from the Cafe to the Giraffe Deck where people can buy crackers and feed the giraffes to the food trailer in our Asia area. He'd like to be able to work more with the animals eventually, but this is a great way to start. He's trying to save some towards a car since he'll get his license in December (can't believe he's old enough - where has the time gone?).

Renan has left us and gone back to Brazil. We didn't see too much of his his last 6 weeks he was here. Once he graduated he was off traveling, visiting St. Louis, Chicago and New York City. He had a blast. We are going to miss him. It was a good experience overall for all of us and hopefully a good one for him. If he sends me the pictures he promised I'll get them posted to the blog.

Ski is doing good - still working hard. He has quite a bit of leave time accrued so he'll be taking off almost every Friday through September. We haven't made too many plans this summer so no long breaks.

I'm doing good too. Like I said, down to one job for the summer. I have been volunteering more at the zoo since I'm usually the one that takes Alex to work for now. With working three 12 hour days each week, I have a little more free time.

Well, hope everyone has a good summer. I'll post more pictures when I can and try to do better and keeping in touch. Our computer has crashed several times these past couple of months so that has kept us out of the loop too. Take care everyone!

Tiger Basketball over - now track begins!!

Well, the season finally came to an end. Our Everton Tigers had a great season. The varsity team finished 20-8 and took 2nd in districts. Alex got to play some on the varsity team - he started on JV but they lost players one by one until he was the only one left. Unfortunately he didn't get a lot of play time, but he did learn from the experience. Hopefully he will get more play time next year if he continues to play.

Now we are starting the track and field season. Alex is competing in discus this year - his coach is hoping he will run some, but he doesn't seem too interested in that. We will see. They have ten meets - he and Renan missed the first one because we didn't get back from Chicago in time (that's another story). They will start with their first meet on the 30th. I'll post more as we get results.

Not sure at this point about baseball. We don't think there will be enough for Alex's level, but that is still kind of up in the air.

Everton Tigers hit the web

Friday night, February 6th a local TV station, KY3 came to visit our school to tape our basketball game against Bradleyville. A portion of that video was posted on a website KY3 hosts call http://www.ozarkssportszone.com/. Here is a link to the video, http://www.ozarkssportszone.com/Story.php?StoryID=117.
Alex is the one in white with a white t-shirt on. He got to play several minutes on the varsity team that night. It was a great game.

There was also a great article written by a gentleman at http://www.ozarkssports.com/ about our game vs. Chadwick (http://www.ozarkssports.net/in-the-gym/). He really caught the great spirit of small towns during basketball season. There is nothing like basketball night in Everton. Go Tigers!!

Basketball is here

Well, it's basketball season in Everton - the town comes alive. Our team is doing pretty good this season. Alex started off on the JV team, but unfortunately we lost two players for various reason so Alex and the other JV players may get play time with varsity. The girls are also playing - Alex's girlfriend Mandi is playing for the girls. We are proud of how good they are doing.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Hi everyone. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and wishing you a Happy New Year. We had a quiet day together - the best kind. We definately miss our family during this time of year. We did get to talk to everyone, which was nice. I've attached a copy of our family picture. The guys are halfway through their Christmas break. Counting down and enjoying their time off.

Howdy everyone

Hi there. It's been awhile since I've posted anything so I thought I would take a minute to catch everyone up.

We are all doing good. School is back in full swing. Alex and Renan are both doing good in school. They are both gearing up for basketball. Practice starts November 10th. We should have both a JV and Varsity team with full schedules. Alex hurt is ankle in gym yesterday and it is pretty swollen so of course he'll "have" to take it easy for chores this weekend!

Ski is keeping busy with budget and stuff at T-Mobile. He is doing great there and continues to enjoy his job.

I'm still at 911, and also substitute teaching. I can't believe its my fourth year now! I really enjoy both.

That's it for now. Take care everyone. More to come....

A Day On The Links

Yesterday we decided, since Ski had a day off, to go play golf. We asked Renan if he played golf - he said yes. However, on the way to the course, while discussing what we were going to do, we discovered that when we asked Renan if he played golf, he thought we were talking about miniature golf! Well, needless to say we found out this was Renan's first attempt at "real" golf. He was a good sport and tried his hardest to knock that little ball up and down the course for nine holes. We had lots of fun and he took the teasing gracefully. Ski and Alex battled as usual for bragging rights. We hope we can get Renan back on the course again sometime - maybe we'll even throw some miniature golf his way! P.S. On photo above, Alex was not miserable, he just hates getting his picture taken!