Oh There You Are!

I've been really bad about posting something here. Some of it is time, some of it is because I wanted to say something earlier but wasn't sure how to put it in words.
The past few months have been absolutely crazy and sad. At the end of December my father-in-law died. I'm lost without him! He was such an amazing man that not having him around has really crushed me.
As if that wasn't enough the young woman that we rent our OTHER house to was killed in a car accident in February. She was a wonderful, friendly person who will also be missed, especially by her 4 children.
Our two sheep had lambs and of the four lambs that were born, only 1 survived and we nearly lost the one mother. We're done with the tragedy. Let's move on to the GOOD stuff shall we???
So in recent news ...
EP did well at the the school science fair and ended up with a spot at the District science fair. We sat through the awards ceremony and as it was nearing the end still had not heard her name called for anything. Then she was awarded a microscope as a prize. There were only 3 of these given out so that was very cool. Shortly after that they announced that she was going to go to the STATE science fair. She had won a spot! She was ranked 27th of the 50 people that get to go to the State competition!
CE continues to play softball. She had to write a paper for her coach explaining the intricacies of the positions that she plays and then name 3 players who play(ed) that position(s). She did such a fantastic job the coach said she had the best paper and wondered how much of it I had done. Admittedly I helped find players, however, beyond that she did all the other research and wrote it herself. He also complimented her last night at practice too. He said, "I just love her! She always listens and does what she's told - without complaint - she works hard always and puts it all out there EVERYTIME!" She's a great ball player he says. We knew that! Just goes to show you don't have to be a fantastic pitcher in fastpitch softball to be a "great" player!
Hopefully all her hard work pays off. Come May it is gonna be one busy softball season!
Okay I know ... that's enough for now ... first nothing then this overload of stuff.
Hopefully I can get back to you soon and let you know what's going on more often.

Current Netflix movies: High Spirits, Bad Girls, CSI Season 4
Current Hobby / Fixation: Learning Japanese

Awesome job girl!!!!

We are almost done the XC season. Next weekend is the final meet. However, so far, the ultimate XC meet was this one!!!! To give you a frame of reference. Last year, at this very same meet, EP ran a time of 17:04.61. Now considering this was a solid 4 minutes off of her time at the beginning of the season, this was good. The fact
that she had run her best time and had taken 4 minutes off was fantastic. This year she has improved quite a bit ... oh yeah, hang on. The time last year allowed her to place 58th out of 82 runners. Okay, now where was I? Oh yes! This year EP has been trying to really push herself and improve on her running as well as her times and she has set herself the goal of keeping up with and beating the one girl on her team who gets first place. So how did it all turn out??? Well, hang on a sec, I'll tell you ... her time? 14:52.35 (which in itself is AWESOME, especially since her time goal this year was to break 15 minutes. Where did that put her? Well it was good enough to beat the girl on her team that usually comes first. Yeah it was only by 3 seconds ... but she DID it! So that placed her first on her team. So how does that compare to everyone else you ask? There were 83 runners, almost the same exact number as last year ... and she ended up 16!!!!! Freaking 16 out of 83!!!!! How awesome is THAT!!!!!! Way to go Mongoose !!!!!

Never A Dull Moment

AE and LE are moving out of their rented house into their newly purchased house. However, since they have to be out of the rental about 15 days prior to moving into the new one they are moving all their stuff into BL and JK's garage and then coming to stay with us. What we need are a few more people living in my house. With my brother living there even two bathrooms is not going to be sufficient, although if I can get ONE more male living in the house I'd be allowed to leave the seat up :)

BL was rear-ended by some woman last night, sufficiently smashing up the backend of their brand new truck. They have only had it for about a month or so.

While taking the trash out this past weekend I happened to look out in the pasture and see a bunch of little brown fuzzy things running around. No, they weren't Tribbles! They were, however, 10 little chicks. Apparently one of the hens has been stashing and sitting on her eggs. Apparently we didn't have enough to do!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention too that EP ran a 15:42 two XC meets ago. This was good enough to make her FIRST on her team AND placed her high enough in the ranks of ALL the girls that she got a medal (20th)! That rocks. This past weekend she ran a 16:27 on a very TOUGH course and got a ribbon for being 53rd overall. I know that sounds like it's real bad but when you consider there were 139 girls running, that's awesome. Even though she has not run this course before and about 1/4 mile of it was uphill, 16:27 is still her second best time this season too. She got 3rd on her team which means so far she has scored for her team every meet, and she wasn't that far behind the first and second girl. She has a meet tonight. It's a smaller meet and i'm hoping she does real well. Good luck EP!!!! Go get 'em!

Cool Running!

I was super proud of my daughter, EP, this past weekend. Her XC meet was late afternoon this time and gave us lots of time to talk about the course (she'd run it before) and talk about things she could do to help her time. Her personal goal was to reach the 16 minute mark. Last year on the same course she ran 19:26. Her best time this year so far was 17:19. It cooled down a little bit in the afternoon as a storm began closing in and the sloppy, muddy course was overcome by the large spikes her coach had put in her shoes prior to the bus leaving the school. Finally I had done all the coaching/pep-talking I could do. It was up to her. She got a really good start and had a decent time at the one mile mark. I went up into the stands to watch. I watched as the one girl who is always first on the team finished. I looked at the clock thinking she's not going to make her 16 minutes. There are usually 2 or 3 other girls that finish ahead of her. Then ... it happened ... she rounded the corner and headed for the finish! She was going to be second on her team! I watched her cross the line and hit the stop button on the stopwatch. I looked down at the stopwatch and immediately fumbled for my phone to call her mother. The stopwatch stared back.
16:38
Unbelievable!
Her coach saw her after she finished and went on and on about how she never expected to see her next and what an amazing run she had. One of the girls who usually comes in 2nd or 3rd asked her what place she got. EP told her 81 (there were 120 runners). The girl hesitated and asked again. She was just as shocked. She had placed 97th. EP had beaten her by almost a full minute.
Even the girl that comes in first on the team only beat EP by 50 seconds.
I know she will NEVER be in the top 10, okay i probably shouldn't say never, but the likelihood is well ...you know. But I have high hopes that at that rate she'll come in first for the team OR at least fractions of a second behind the girl who comes in first for the team.
I am one proud papa!

Survived?

The sheep went on a date. They are off to another farm to be bred. This means that EP no longer has any chores to do.

EP ran in her CC meet on Saturday and scored for her team. You have to be top 5 of the team to count. Her time this weekend was 17:19. If you remember her last time was 19:08 so she's running better already. I think she could have done better but I'm picky and very competitive.

CE seems to be doing okay at school so far. I haven't heard much but then the workload has been kind of light.

AE seems to have decided that they want a house and are putting in a bid on the house right next to her sister. If they get that house I sure hope they can get along being that close to each other. I'm not sure how BL feels about it.

The stupid water softener decided to act up so I have to get parts for it. The system it was using as drainage apparently isn't good enough any more and it has a tendency to shoot water all over the basement. I'll fix that sucker so it won't have any excuses.

I saw this on tv last night and I thought I'd share it with everyone. My brother's comment after the clip was over: "Nice house, nobody home."

This version has been subtitled. It won't help you understand anything but it's nice if you have the sound off.