Evey at the range

Beautiful weather today. What was the high, 75? In late July? Crazy.

I took Evey to the driving range for the first time today. I was worried she might hate it, but she loved it! She hit a couple nice shots, too.

Pic from 2010

I found an old memory card the other day. Downloaded it, there's a bunch of pics from 2010. Like this one, from February of 2010. (I'm pretty sure I have posted this to the blog before.)

So Evey was 3 in that photo, right? And, didn't know it at the time, but that would be my last Golf Industry Show as a staffer for Golf Course Management magazine. So much has changed in the last 4 years!

***

Evey had the best weekend ever. Spent the night at her friend Adira's on Friday night... her cousin Marina's birthday party on Saturday afternoon... then swimming at Lupe's house with the Abasolos on Sunday!

OK, it was actually a pretty awesome weekend for ALL the Joneses...

***

Boydee has recently fallen in love with the 1970s TV show Wonder Woman.

His new move is to spin around a few times, then he says, "I'm Wonder Woman!" (It doesn't worry me at all, because I've seen the way he tries to hit on the aforementioned Adira.)

The other day, Boyd told Adrianne, "I'm Wonder Woman, and you're the bad guy!" And Adrianne said, "Ok." Then he scowled at her and shouted, "WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?!?"

***

Boyd likes jumping in off the diving board. I swim down to the deep end to catch him.

So he tells me he wants to go in off the diving board, I tell him OK. I left him on the stairs (MISTAKE), and scooted past Mike, so I could swim alongside Boydee as he walked to the diving board.

As soon as I scooted past Mike, I looked behind me to see where Boyd was. All I saw were his two feet, sticking straight up in the air. "Grab him!" I told Mike. Abasolo grabbed him by the life jacket and pulled him up out of the water. ("I'm your Godfather... and I just saved your life," Mike later told him.)

Boyd was crying and in a panic. Mom came over to help. Boydee was fine, but he did have a little mouse on his forehead. I was worried it was going to balloon, but it quickly went away.

So we get home. Boyd then tells us that his "favorite part" of the pool was when he fell down, hit his head, and was spinning around underwater.

Yup... that's Boydee. 

It's not even Mother's Day

But here are some of the best ladies on the planet, pictured.

(Well, minus the lady in red. I don't know her.)

((I'm not saying she's not nice, or that she's even mildly disagreeable. I just don't know her. Apologies if that's your grandma. Or you.))

***

Just got back from a few days in Cleveland. Good times. Fun to pop into the home office. The guys always take me out for good food, and then drinks inevitably ensue.

It occurs to me that there are a bunch of guys in Cleveland who work for North Coast Media, who probably have wives who hate me. Because I can imagine them using me as an excuse to booze it up. "I'm sorry, honey, Seth is the editor-in-chief of Golfdom, and he lives in Kansas! It'd be rude for me not to go out and grab a beer with him!"

***

See that margarita/beer drink in the pic with my mom? I had one of those in Cleveland. Because, what the heck?

But then I felt like this was not a masculine drink, so I drank it quickly. A beer and a Maker's Mark was next.

Interestingly, I woke up feeling great despite a smorgasbord of alcoholic beverages. Hmm... maybe the margarita beers is somehow medicinal? 

***

We're in Day 72 of Boydee being a holy terror. Tonight's stats: injuring Evey (1), thrown toys (2), refusals to eat dinner (2), kicking fits (3).

Evelyn has asked about moving out. I've asked her to stand strong. To learn self defense. And to pray.

"The Catch"

Evey, age 7, pictured this weekend in the backyard play area.

Just talked to my mom before the start of the Argentina/Germany game. She told me something that made me smile.

A week or two ago, Evey was feeling a little blue, probably sad that her brother was being mean to her, or something. She decided to write letters to both my mom and her Aunt Jessica. I read them both, we sealed them and set them aside for mailing. (Not sure if we ever mailed Jessica's.)

The other day my mom stopped by the house (and made us spaghetti, coleo and linguini salad... all excellent.) Evey gave her the card. I wasn't around when this happened.

Mom just told me on the phone that she opened the letter when she got home... and it made her cry. Happy tears. I guess there was a nice note to "Noni" and a drawing of the two of them holding hands. My mom said it made her day.

***

There is a joke here at the house between Evey and I, and it's about the blog post I have not written.

I will finally write it... today.

This was two summers ago. Evey was 5. I had one of those stress balls, a little firmer than most. A good ball to throw around at each other. It was solid black.

I was on the top deck in the backyard. Evey was in the yard. She was tossing the ball to me, I was gently tossing it to her, trying to get her to catch it. She wasn't having much luck.

We were about to go inside. I told her to go further up the hill in the backyard, farther away from me. One last try, I told her. I was going to throw it high...

I throw it straight up in the air, a pop fly, as hard as I could. I'm guessing the ball went 30 feet in the air.

Evey shuffled back, then forward, put her hands up towards her chin... and POP! Caught the ball, trapping it between her hands, her chin and her chest. I was shocked, and so was she.

This catch has become "The Catch" at the house, and Evey has been asking me for two years if I've written about it on the blog. Finally, I can tell her "yes." And now you know the non-story that is the Catch.

***

Went and saw Edge of Tomorrow on Friday. I thought it was decent.

I've been on a Tom Cruise kick lately, since I saw Oblivion. I thought Oblivion was surprisingly great... and it occurred to me that even though he's weird, he does mostly exciting action movies.

So lately I've watched Valkyrie, Jack Reacher, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and now Edge of Tomorrow.

Edge of Tomorrow was Groundhog Day meets Independence Day. I love time travel movies. And it was interesting seeing the Groundhog Day twist on time travel thrown into a sci-fi movie.

Overall I'd say it was a good flick. There was once I was actually on the edge of my seat. And the bad guys looked pretty cool.

(Of those other Cruise movies, I'd say Oblivion was the best, followed by Ghost Protocol and Jack Reacher. Valkyrie was good in its own way, but it's based on a true story, and the topic -- a failed attempt on Hitler's life -- is hard to enjoy in a 'hey, I'm having fun watching a movie!' way. And that's the mood I've been in for movies lately.)

***

Boyd, armed and dangerous. Mostly dangerous.

Boyd has been relishing in his terrible twos lately. His favorite victims are his sister, our sleep schedule and world peace.

He's all boy, though, that's for sure. Just likes to smash, throw, hit, yell, etc.

We took him to Lupe's pool yesterday and that's the best he's ever done at the pool. He can't swim but he does like to jump in off the diving board. Once he jumped in off the side when I wasn't there to catch him. He was wearing a life jacket, but Adrianne had to reach in and fish him out.

He won't be this age forever, so we're trying to enjoy it for what it is. But I know Evey, for one, is looking forward to Boydee version 3.0.

***

Boyd's room is all comic-book themed, which warms my heart. Adrianne found a lot of these oversized classic Marvel comics covers for wall art. Boyd knows who all the characters are. I think it's cool that I own half of the actual comics that are hanging on his wall...

One of the comics is Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos # 13, which, as you know, is famous in comicsdom as the first time Nick Fury and Captain America ever met.

Bucky, Cap's sidekick, is on the cover. Boyd likes to ask me who the little boy in blue and red is on the cover... I tell him, 'That's Bucky.'

Boyd now knows who Bucky is, at age 2. I didn't know who Bucky was until I was probably 10 or 11! (Because as you also know, Bucky was dead for most of the last 60 years... until Ed Brubaker wrongfully brought him back to life as the Winter Soldier a few years ago.)

Boyd has a Captain America shield. He'll tell me, "Dad, you be Captain America, I'll be Bucky!"

Terrible Twos or not, that's pretty darn cute.

Garage Sale Weekend!

I'm so happy with the results of our 4th of July weekend...

It was a garage sale 4th of July weekend at the Joneses. And we sold a ton of stuff!

That's me with my old Space Invaders game. My mom bought this for me back in 1987 or so, from a barbershop that was going out of business. I kept it for years and years, finally I said goodbye on Friday... but not before playing it one last time and taking a pic with it. This was my first arcade game. You never forget your first.

This sight warmed my heart. My two kids playing Shinobi together. Shinobi is my favorite arcade game EVER (Double Dragon and Galaga coming in 2nd and 3rd) and it's been encased in junk for the last couple years... was finally able to get it unearthed on Saturday, and it's playing great, I'm happy to report.

We had a wildly successful garage sale... and we cleaned out the garage... and we didn't set off a single firework!

The garage sale on the 4th was all Adro's idea, and it was a hit. Tons of traffic all morning. We almost sold all our stuff on that one day alone.

On Day two, Adrianne put out a bunch of the kids clothes, and then went crazy too. We were going to close at noon, and at 11:58, a mom with 6-month-old twin boys made us an offer on the entire lot of Boyd's clothes. We haggled a little bit and then settled on a price we both liked. Next thing I know, I'm loading boxes of clothes into her SUV! Win-win, baby!

We sold a couch... a bed frame... a bookshelf... a recliner... a couple lamps... clothes... an arcade game (NOT SHINOBI) and gave away an old mower, TV, printer and stereo receiver.

Most exciting is we cleaned the garage really well and got it back into operational shape. The Impala is back in, Shinobi is on and ready to be played (don't even worry about bringing quarters) and the bins with Christmas, Halloween, etc., are all clearly labeled and organized.

My hat is off to Adrianne, who did most of the work, and my mother-in-law Judy, who babysat the kids AND cleaned the house/did laundry while we were outside working the garage sale. Thank you ladies, well done.

Evey and Boyd helped as much as they could, too.

One funny moment from the garage sale: I lit a citronella candle to try to combat the flies. Not very effective, but I had to do something. So we're done, and cleaning the garage. I turn around and see flames shooting about two feet straight up off this butcher block table we have in the garage. "Fire, babe, FIRE!" I shout. I ran to it and saw it was mostly one large piece of paper burning.

I grabbed the paper, ran outside and stomped it out. Nothing else on the table caught, thankfully. Adrianne forgot the candle was there and set a piece of paper right on top of it.

I told her that my favorite moment of the garage sale was when we didn't burn the house down.

Evey and Grandma are home!

We're so excited that Evey and Judy returned to the Casa de Jones after a week in Des Moines, helping babysit Sofia.

Welcome home girls! We missed you so much!

Evey grew grew grew while she was gone. She said the worst part about being gone was that Dad wasn't around to be the tickle monster, and Mom wasn't around to watch "The Little Couple" with.

The best part? No bedtime!

Evey was super-excited to see her brother, too. She said, "Wow, Dad, he grew! Are you sure that's my brother? His head got even bigger, it's like (name withheld's) head on Boydee's body!"

Welcome home Evey and Judy. Evey, nice job being a good girl and representing your parents well while being away. That's exactly what we want you to do!