Happy New Year!

Having some fun with a blind root beer taste test.... Kroger won!

Cookie time!

Evey felt like baking on this otherwise lazy Sunday... look what she fired out!

Visit to Wheatfield

Boyd and I drove to Wheatfield Friday/Saturday... had to go pay our last respects to Junior, who was like a grandpa to me.

Glad I made the trip, the hugs I got from Mike, Marilyn and Andi made it worth the 18 hours in a car...

And an unexpected bonus: I walked into Larry & Mary's house just in time to watch the KU/Villanova game with them. Plus they had venison tacos for me!

RIP Junior, you were always great to me and my family.

Back from Universal Studios!

I just recently finished up the Golfdom Summit in Orlando... as soon as that wrapped Adro, Judy and the kids flew down to join me in Florida!

We took a Wednesday-Sunday vacation, though Wednesday & Sunday we're both travel days. We did both Universal parks (Studios & Island of Adventure), returning to Studios on day three.

It was a great trip, and a fantastic way to spend Evey's 12th birthday.

I'll have more details later... for now, here is a pic of us at Krustyland!

It’s not ripe

Ok so that wishbone wasn't ready yet, but the humor was!

We're drying it out for one more day...

Also! Watched Galaxy Quest... made mashed potatoes.... fixed the washing machine!!! Bought Mich Ultra...

Calling that... success

That tooth is GONE!

Boyd pulled his own tooth out at the Mexican restaurant a couple weeks ago. Got this nice photo of the kids to commemorate the occasion.

Adrianne, meanwhile, almost lost a tooth at the same place when she slipped on the wet floor there more recently. I wasn't there to see it, but Evey said she "thought mom might be dead!" That is some fall!

Adrianne is alive and well, but she is not real excited about returning to the scene of the fall...

Chillin’ in the garage

Mike and Jeff came up for a visit this weekend. We had a fun time chilling in the garage! Lots of college football plus a little foosball and Uno...

The weather was nice enough so we left the garage door open. Jeff wanted to know what I do with the garage tv room when winter hits. "I shut it down," I said. "I don't know if I could give this up!" Was his reply.

We also caught a couple movies... Nutcracker for the kids and Judy, Bohemian Rhapsody for Adro and I. We liked BR... interesting flick.

Happy Halloween!

Crime took the night off in Eudora, Kan... afraid to cross paths with BATMAN AND ROBIN... and their friend PANDA EVEY!

Happy 12th anniversary!

Wowsers... it was 12 years ago that Adrianne walked down the aisle and gave me the honor of her hand in marriage!

And for the first time... neither one of us really remembered our anniversary! Whoops!

Good news: in a way I feel like we celebrated our anniversary a few weekends ago when we enjoyed really good seats at the National. (remember I said I'd post the video eventually? It's still coming... soon.)

So we didn't do an amazing job celebrating our 12th anniversary... but good news, Babe: we're doing a great job enjoying our lives with two great kids, great jobs, a great house... 

I love you!!!

Venom... in theaters now! And in our garage...

Boyd got a new toy for his birthday... slime. He was so excited for it, but we made him wait. Finally, I helped him make it happen in the garage... it was kind of fun.

Then he forgot about it, and now it's been sitting in the garage for two weeks.

***

Evey's been playing some serious volleyball lately. She's the best player on her team....

But, oh man... are we ready for 7th grade volleyball!

I couldn't have coached her team (and Evey probably wouldn't have wanted me to) but she is ready for the next level of volleyball.

A good reminder: you get what you pay for. Evey got a nice $25 T-shirt.

*** 

Adrianne got sick and lost her voice. This may have been a delayed result from the National concert at Starlight, when it just DUMPED on us for three hours.

(I'll post a video, someday.)

Still... a fun experience!

***

Boyd with the line of the week so far:

Boyd: Dad... Maddox cries all the time at school; I know why.

Seth: Oh? Why, buddy?

Boyd: Because he has "mad" in his name.

Happy 7th birthday, Boydee!

Can you believe Boyd turned 7 on Friday???

Evey (age 11) and Boyd ready for some cookie cake.

We took it easy on his actual birthday... Boyd took brownies to his first grade class, opened presents at the house, a cookie cake from Grandma, then we ate pizza and had a movie night.

We watched the original Ghostbusters, and Boyd really enjoyed it. He and I were the only two to stay awake for the whole thing. I was barely awake by the end... a few days in Dayton, Ohio this week, and working off about three hours of sleep had me beat.

With everyone exhausted from a long week, we went to bed.

Don't let this expression fool you... the next morning, Boyd
decided this toy was so frustrating he actually went to take a nap
after wrestling with it for a while!

The original plan for the birthday celebration was Worlds of Fun, but the rainy forecast caused us to call an audible... then, once the audible was called, Boyd decided that was really his No. 1 idea after all.

So we took our kids, plus Joseph and Thomas, Beaux and Ava, to Laugh Out Loud for 90 minutes of chaos. Now that it's over I'm happy to report that all the kids are accounted for and there were no major injuries... only minor.

Adrianne kept asking me, "are you alright?" because apparently I had the demeanor of

Pictured from left to right, Thomas, Joseph, Boyd & Beaux.

new Supreme Court Judge Mike Kavanaugh at his Senate hearing. I was fine. In truth, I was mad about the Jayhawks game (they just flubbed a play that could have made it close when I walked in) and random work stuff had been on my mind. Now, walking into Laugh Out Loud, it was sensory overload. But I made it through without yelling at any kids.

(OK, I handed out three stern warnings, but no yelling.)

Boyd got some really nice gifts... Lego Jurassic World sets are what he's into right now (he got four different sets)... and that's also what he's playing with right now!

Happy birthday Boyd! We love you and are so very, very proud of you.

Talkin' Tracks Season Two, Episode Six: Incredibles 2

Pretty sure I never posted this one, despite us filming it over the summer...

This concludes Season Two... sorry for the anticlimactic ending to the season... but I'm still calling it a success.

Less "on location" episodes, but a lot more guest stars.

And this year we did more movies than music... we'll see what season three brings.

Mostly I'm really happy the kids still do these things with me!

 

Road game!

Great night traveling to Gardner, KS to watch Evey and her team play volleyball! 

And the Pacific Ocean won, 2-1! Evey had a stellar performance, too! 

BIG NEWS

I haven't been around much the last month.... sorry about that.

It was for good reason... something major happened in my professional career... something that a magazine journalist might never experience in his/her career...

I was promoted. But it wasn't just a raise, or a new job title...

I was rewarded with the honor of being handed the keys to an additional magazine.

So to be clear: I'm still the editor-in-chief of Golfdom.

Me, moments before throwing a difficult root ball into the
Wakarusa River. Photo by Thomas Lervik Jr.

And now I'm also the EIC of sister publication Landscape Management magazine.

I'll try to give this some perspective, because I know that magazine publishing is somewhat alien to people outside the industry...

I've been leading Golfdom editorially since 2010, and it's been a good thing... we print 22,000 copies a month and we mail this magazine out for free to all qualified readers... we're 100% supported by our advertisers... and that's cool.

Landscape Management magazine, owned by the same company (North Coast Media) is in the same boat... their readership is 65,000 readers.

...and now I'm in charge of the editorial direction of both magazines.

Before you say, "Seth, how are you going to publish two magazines, when I know you're always running like crazy to get your one magazine published?"

More good news... along with the promotion, they've restructured things so I now have a team of editors working with me... to help me get both magazines published each month.

More to come... but yeah... I've been a little skittish for the last couple weeks because... because I'm now the EIC of two magazines! And I was already honored to be EIC of one...

Click here to see the announcement the company sent out to LM readers.

RIP Mr. Whipple, 2008-2018

Very sad to announce the death of Mr. Whipple, who had been a mainstay in the Jones household since Evey was old enough to giggle.

***

Mr. Whipple came into our lives as a cheap laugh for baby Evey... as she got older, the laughs got more expensive... and then Boyd came! Putting the laugh back at CHEAP.

Mr. Whipple would pop into our lives randomly and without much warning. He would typically ring the doorbell (or knock on the door) and then try to give everyone (especially Mom) a kiss. Everyone tried to deny this kiss, but eventually they would succumb to Mr. Whipple's good looks and boyish charm.

He had a high-pitched voice, unusual for a man of his size. Maybe the white foam beard had some type of effect? He would usually introduce himself with a "HELL-O! I'm MR. WHIPPLE!!! GIVE ME A SMOOCHIE!!!"

***

For years this stranger would invade our home and request a kiss (smoochie.)  I would always grow infuriated after the fact — where was this jacka$$ and where was I when this all went down?!? Strangely, we never were in the same place at the same time.

Turns out the kids would fight like crazy to avoid Mr. Whipple, but Mom would eventually relent and give this random man a "smoochie." Which would fuel my fire. At least the kids fought off this strange man!

I consistently wanted to fight Mr. Whipple, but he had always just left when I arrived on the scene (and with a fresh shave!)

***

Well, Boyd is now old enough... Evey is beyond old enough... Mr. Whipple had to come clean (but not Mr. Clean.)

I exposed the true identity of Mr. Whipple... it was me, all along! Only with a shaving cream beard.

The kids tried to pretend like they knew. So did Adrianne. But me and Mr. Whipple knew the truth!

Now, somebody... give me a smoochie!

How a new family tradition started, despite my upbringing

Dexter, Sylvia and Boyd enjoy some food off the grill.

 I know it's late August as I write this, but I wanted to make note of the awesome 4th of July we had here at the Casa de Jones.

Eudora does it up big for the 4th of July. There are multiple fireworks shows on each block. It's a fun spectacle that I've learned to embrace.

As a kid, I was taught to hate fireworks. Jess remembers it that Dad had a friend who hurt himself with a firework... I don't remember that story specifically, but I know that Mom and Dad hated the noise and the mess that it brought the neighborhood. And since I was on my own with my parents a lot, I took on their opinions on most everything. So to me, the 4th of July was of course about patriotism, but it also was about going to the late night movies with Mom and Dad so we didn't have to be at the house when the "war zone" started.

***

Our set-up. People walk by and are like, "Wow, you're ready!" They probably
think I've moved all the house furniture out to the driveway, but no....
this is just the garage furniture. The boys are playing air hockey.

You know what it took to turn me on to fireworks? People. If it's an excuse to get people together, I'm in. And that's what the 4th of July has become at our house: an excuse to get the family together.

The fireworks themselves still make me nervous, especially with a 6-year-old. Evey doesn't seem too interested in lighting fireworks, but Boyd and his cousin Dexter are, and that makes me nervous as hell. I try my best to be careful and tell the kids to be careful, and we limit what they can set off.

We have been in Eudora for nine years now. I think it was four or five years ago that we first started throwing our own 4th of July party. Previously our family would watch the show and go to bed. But now, we're one of the big parties on our block.

Turns out Rod and his son Ben are big into fireworks, and that lures them out, bringing Lupe along for the show. Judy will bring Virginia. This year the Vignery-Romeros came, Brent and Rosalina, bringing their three kids (including my Goddaughter Lydia.) And this year my pal Sean Lipford also came out. So this year we had about 15 people here at the house, including my family.

***

Rod tries his best with one of the ill-fated lanterns.

It was a scorcher this year! SO FREAKIN HOT. I was all excited to get the garage ready for the crew... but the heat was intense. As our guests arrived this year, a group stayed in the house to watch baby Lydia... and then after a while I declared that we should all go inside to enjoy some A/C. But no one budged, most folks just toughed it out to hang in the garage/driveway.

I had fans going and the A/C vent in the garage, it didn't do much. The shade was about all that helped (Adrianne has since bought for me a deluxe rotating fan that does a great job moving the air.) A group of us were sitting back by the kegerator, and I remember looking over at my pal Lip and the sweat was just dripping off his head. It was ridiculously hot, but the beer was cold...

To start the evening we had a group of guys playing with our washers game that Rod built for us... Ben and Brent Vs. Lip and I. The we sparked up the grill and got that going. Cheeseburgers and dogs were on the menu. Baked beans in the crock pot. It was all pretty good but it was a lot of work in the heat. I think next year we might buy a 10-foot sub sandwich or something and avoid the grill.

***

As the sun went down we started lighting stuff off. Small stuff to big stuff. Lots of sparklers. A few smoke bombs. No bottle rockets allowed in city limits, that's like the one rule (sorry, Rod!) A few of those giant lanterns. For some reason they didn't work for shit this year, maybe it was too hot or the wind wasn't strong enough? Hard to say, but Rod and I ended up having to stomp on the neighbor's lantern at one point, and one of ours almost crashed into our house and our tree before barely floating away (there are a few unused lanterns in the garage right now, based on their poor performance.)

Virginia was chilling on the couch soaking it all in. As the evening gets late and the beers are flowing, I like to play a little Vicente Fernandez for Virginia... after all, what's more American than diversity?

I've got a lot of tequila here in the garage thanks to my father-in-law. We did only a few shots that evening. The most memorable was with my neighbor Dan. I went over to his party and said hi and invited him over for a drink... he later came over with one of his party people and we did a toast to good neighbors and then kicked back a smooth Don Julio Blanco. Or was it Tres Genaraciones? As you can imagine, things were getting foggy at this point.

***

I spent more money on fireworks this year than I've ever spent in my life.

Lip took this photo of me and posted it on Facebook. Yes,
that's the Impala in the background. I pretty much parked it in
my yard to keep it from getting hit, as a lot of cars come by on
the 4th. I yell "fire in the hole!" whenever I light a firework,
then run. But the kids were mad at me that night, saying
I wasn't running but slowly walking away. Old age.

Dad especially would laugh at people who dropped big bucks on fireworks. "Nothing like setting your money on fire," he would say. So as you can imagine, I thought of Dad as I handed over my credit card to the guys at the fireworks stand, $150 worth of hell in my hand basket, money waiting to explode.

One of the boxes was called "the Mother Load." Another was "Shark Attack!"

I hid these two boxes and as the table of fireworks dwindled, people saw the end of our party coming. Rod and Ben said goodbye. "Wait, give me five more minutes!" I said. The mother load was next.

I came trotting out of my office with these two boxes in tow and proudly told everyone that it was the grand finale. This moment was worth the $50 I spend on these two boxes alone. The actual fireworks were just extra. Everyone was pumped to see what these boxes had in them.

I considered setting off both of them at the same time but Lip convinced me to do one, then the other.

The show was pretty good! They went off for oh... I don't know... two minutes or so? The sky was on fire above our house. It was a fitting end to a good party.

***

By then, moms were tucking in kids, moms were tucking in moms and Brent, Lip and I were chatting it up by the keg. Sylvia was asleep on the couch. All the burgers and dogs were long gone. It was a heck of a party.

As always, you're invited next year. We've got plenty of room, and I seem to be willing to buy more $hit to light on fire each year. (Sorry, Dad!)

First day of school!

2017

We've been faithfully taking these photos every first day of school for the past seven years... now I just need to take the time to find them all and post them together!

Here's last year's edition, along with this year's!

2018

2018

2017

Talkin' Tracks Season 2, Episode 5: Top three Marvel movies

The kids welcome Danny P. to the garage to talk about their top three favorite Marvel movies.

Sponsored by: Goldfish

Chillin' with Lydia

Bub took the rest of the afternoon off swimming on Saturday to hang with his cousin Lydia!

Well, it may have also been a little because his eyes were burning, but still... cute!

***

Grilled steaks tonight. I thought I had the recipe figured out... but alas, these steaks turned out bland. 

Back to the drawing board.

***

Was in Colorado the last couple days. Saw some beautiful scenery! Stayed in Grand Lake, Colo. Got in 18 holes of golf. 

It's beautiful there, but I'm happy to be home, where the air is filled with actual oxygen.

***

School has started back up! I'll have photos and a full report soon.

First impression: it was weird dropping off Bub and not having Evey jump out with him. I told Evey this as we drove away in the truck. 

Her response?

"Oh Dad, he'll be fine! ...I get four choices at lunch!"

The karma police nabbed Evey right then as it turned out, her class is the last group to lunch... and the four choices were down to one.

Chicken nuggets or chicken nuggets?

Talkin' Tracks Season Two Episode Seven: The Meg

The Meg!

Went and saw The Meg last night! Boyd was excited, enjoyed it. Evey cried 9 times... Adrianne liked it. We all gave it 7s, across the board. 

Silly fun!

PGA Championship week!

Home from four days in St. Louis at the pga championship... good to be home. This is my publisher and I on No. 18 green last Sunday.

Going to be a fun tournament!

Locker looks good!

The Three Amigos

Errands ran with the kids yesterday:

Kohl's
Lunch w/ Mom @ Culver's
Say hi to Rick (Rick's)
Bank
Another bank
Game Stop (LEGO Star Wars & Dance 2017)
Dillon's

All in three hours? Nice job, Amigos.

Talkin' Tracks Season 2, Episode 4 — Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

The weekend that was, 7/13/18

Boyd chasing waves on South Padre Island. 

I've got a photo from our week in South Padre here with this post, but instead of writing about vacation, I thought I'd write about the weekend that was...

***

I was in-between issues so I tried to get a bunch of "catch-up work" done... it made for a long week.

I barely left the house all week. I also got an ear infection. So I was in kind of a weird place all week.

The Amazin' Asian (Greg Nunn) texted me Friday afternoon to see if I was around and wanted to grab a beer. YES INDEEDY, I said... and I met him out Friday night.

It was great catching up with Greg. He took a big job with Walmart in Arkansas. It's not that far away, but I wonder how often I'll see him now that he's not in Derby. It was great to catch up.

What was going to be an "early night" ended up with me taking an Uber through the Burrito King drive-thru at 1:30 a.m.

***

Saturday morning I woke up with enough time to fire out a deluxe-o breakfast* for the family, then chill out for an hour or so before we headed to pick up my truck, then off to the theater.

I watched Serena Williams get thumped at Wimbledon (surprisingly, as I thought I was going to watch her make history... kinda like the night I thought I was going to watch Hillary make history... but with less of an impact on the world.) Then we loaded up and went to Rick's to retrieve my truck (thank you family, sorry for taking you out of the way.)

We dropped the truck off at the house and then were on our way to see SOLO. Boyd was sound asleep when they picked me up at the house. We drove for 20 minutes to get to Olathe Studio 28, then Boyd woke up and asked Evey... "Did I miss the movie?"

He thought he slept through everything. He was relieved to hear we had not yet arrived at the theater.

We did the dine-in theater, which was kind of fun. Kids got cheeseburgers, me and Adrianne got chicken fingers (random detail. Sorry, I've been drinking.)

The surprise of the weekend for me was how much I enjoyed SOLO. I thought it was really good, with a lot of twists, some great action and a few cool tributes to the original movies. Chewy was great, so was Solo. Great characters, cool sci-fi ideas. (How about the train heist? What a cool sci-fi twist to a cinematic classic!) (And the first meeting between Solo and Chewy? Way better than I expected.)

Here's my ranking of 2018 movies I've seen in the theaters so far:

5. Ant-Man & the Wasp
4. Jurassic World
3. Infinity War

The kids and I at the Action Figure Museum in Oklahoma,
on the way home from South Padre. The museum was bette

2. Incredibles 2
1. Solo

Yeah, I just ranked Solo # 1. And I stick to that. It was fun! It wasn't predictable (cough, cough, Incredibles 2). It wasn't depressing (INFINITY WAR!)

I still want to see the new Mission Impossible, the Clock in the Walls (or whatever), The Meg (if Boyd wants to see it) and that Bohemian Rhapsody movie, if it's out in 2018...

We came out of the theater and it was clear we missed a storm; the temperature had dropped 20 degrees and everything was wet. We drove home and talked about the movie... what we liked, characters we disliked, best scenes... it was fun! (This moment ranked # 1 for both Evey and I when we discussed at dinner tonight.)

Home, then chill. Adrianne cleaned Boyd's room, while he did his best to find ways not to help her. We wrapped the night up with me falling asleep on the couch while Boyd was watching Batman: The Animated Series**.

I had been struggling with that ear infection all week... Saturday night was the first good night of sleep I've had in a week. And wow, I needed it.

***

Sunday morning the family went to church while I hung out at the house.

(The story from church was that the Jones family sat in the front row of the pews and eye witnessed a little baby make a fool of himself and then, after the parents gave up on controlling him... he ras to the front of the church and dropped a load in his diaper for everyone.)

I recorded the World Cup final, to be watched at my convenience...

Brandy and Holden came over and Brandy gave me and Boyd haircuts while Holden and Evey hung out. Adrianne started working on Evey's room...

I watched the WC game, it was pretty good. A couple nice goals. We were rooting against Croatia, because Adrianne had a Croatian professor who was a jerk back at UT-PanAm. So I was on board with France, because F that guy.

Not much else to report beyond that. Evey's room might be clean by now, I don't know. I worked on re-alphabetizing my comics, which is good fun, and a total waste of time probably... but it's a good thing.

OH! I saw a jogger face-plant up the street. After about three minutes of watching the kid just lay there, I decided to be a good samaritan and drive up the road to see if he/she needed help. By the time I got there, the teenage jogger was moving again... and she decided, rightfully, it was better to limp home than trust the weirdo in a beat-up truck who asked if she was OK.

Kinda awkward. But I thought the kid might have really been hurt.

Well, that's my weekend report for 7/13/18. It was a good weekend. Low-key. Just the way we like it.

*The best breakfast I cook, in my opinion, is eggs over medium with breakfast potatoes, bacon and tortillas. It's also the messiest/most time consuming breakfast. I mean, I can scramble eggs in about 5 minutes... breakfast burritos are fun because they're so easy. But the Daddy Special # 1 is a mess to make... and only me and Boyd will eat it! (I make the girls a separate order of scrambled eggs so they can ruin their own breakfasts.)

** I used to watch Batman: The Animated Series after school everyday, in stereo surround. It was such a cool series at the time. I still remember the stereo system Mom and Dad had at the time -- it was a funky Aiwa stereo that did OK... and since I got home at 3:15 and they didn't get home until around 5-ish... I would listen to that cartoon LOUD! I hear that they're going to upgrade B:TAS to high-def soon. It needs it. Funny how bad the colors look with modern day TVs. But I think the animation and the stories still stand up today. So it's cool that my son wants to watch this series... he doesn't know it, but he's got a guy sitting right next to him who would watch the whole series in order if he wanted to....
 

Talkin' Tracks Season Two, Episode Three: Best Summer Music

Talkin' Tracks is back! This time with our pal Sean Lipford as the special guest star!

2018 South Padre trip: best moments

(Note from Seth: I wrote this last week, and I'm just now getting to posting it. Sorry for the long absence!)

We’re back from a weeklong vacation to South Padre Island. It was a nice trip, but it’s even nicer to be home…

We left last Saturday morning and drove to Austin (on the road from Eudora at 7:15 a.m., pulled into the Fairmount Hotel in downtown Austin at 7 p.m.) Then we returned Friday morning (left the beach at 8 a.m., arrived at Abasolo’s house at midnight… then left Saturday morning at 8 a.m., home by 11:30 a.m.)

I might go into some detail later on the vacation… but for now, here’s a recap of our lunch conversation here at the house, when I asked everyone to recall their “single favorite part of vacation.”

Adro: She refused to give one favorite, but instead three. They were 1) Watching the new Jurassic Park movie at the South Padre theater… 2) the dolphin watch, particularly when two dolphins chased the boat… 3) sitting in the water on the beach.

Evey: Her favorite moment was when we were at South Padre Island Brewery together for lunch on Wednesday… it was a return trip, and we re-ordered the good food from the day before. It’s possible I was a little, uh, fun-lovin’ at the time, as I started my day at the Kraken to watch the Mexico/Sweden World Cup game, and I was yelling at Boyd about eating all the cheese curds that we ordered.

Boyd: Interestingly, Boyd’s favorite moment also came at South Padre Island Brewery… the same lunch, when we ordered a bunch of, what he calls, “cheese turds.” The day before was the first time him, Evey and Mom ever tried cheese curds… Boyd was a BIG FAN and wanted to eat a thousand of them.

Seth (me): I thought everyone’s top moment would be the same, but clearly the South Padre Island Brewery had a more profound effect on the kids than I thought it would… my favorite moment was when we chartered a boat and took a “dolphin watch” tour that Adrianne arranged… two dolphins playfully chased our boat, and even shot water out at us and slapped the water with their tails. The dolphins — big ass dolphins —  were damn near within arm’s reach.

The joke I made to a co-worker was that if I knew the kids enjoyed breweries so much, I could have saved a lot of gas and hit one a lot closer to Eudora! But it was pretty sweet, I think Evey enjoyed it so much because it was our family together... and Boyd thought those "cheese turds" were really funny, and really tasty.

Talkin' Tracks Season Two, Episode Two: The Greatest Showman

Incredibles II week!

We are so excited to be heading out to see the Incredibles II this weekend! We bought about 100 movie-themed juice boxes to celebrate.

Somehow Dad's cold Dos Equis amber snuck into this photo too...

Sheer terror!

Well, that's the look I was going for, at least...

Silly photo taken at Shawnee Mission Park, a few weekends ago.

Writing from the Irish Pub at Chicago Midway. I've been in central PA the last three days at a work meeting/retreat. Pretty good stuff. Company is doing great. My presentation was a home run, got a lot of compliments.

Hard to believe tomorrow is June 1. This year is going by fast.

Heading to Mulvane this weekend to celebrate Mike's 40th. When my kid brother turns 40, I guess that means I've gotten old. I'm taking him to one of the finest golf courses in America to celebrate... I think that's a fitting way to toast my best friend since 2nd grade.

I'll stop by Mom and Dad's graves to put some flowers out. First visit there in a while. I won't drive by our old house, no way.

I need to get a golf lesson in, FAST.

Also: if the Cavs win Gm 1 tonight, the boss is closing the office tomorrow.

LET'S GO CAVS!!!

Happy Memorial Day 2018!

Evey, Ava and Bella (I think Bella?) rocking the chalk art!

The leading scorer for the Blue Blazers!

Allow me to introduce to you the LEADNG SCORER for the K/Pre-K Blue Blazers...

BOYD ATTICUS JONES!!!

***

OK, maybe I should qualify. The team went 0-6-1. So, being the leading scorer on a losing team is, well... 

He was the leading scorer, still, right???

***

OK. Fine. Full disclosure.

He had one goal. We scored three goals all season.

STILL! It was a good goal, and the first goal of the season. It was a corner-pocket rocket. 

We scored three goals all season, and Boyd scored the first. So he tied, three ways, for leading goal scorer.

NICE JOB BOYD!

***

Our team was crap this year. Not gonna lie.

I thought the team looked good early on. We had a couple big kids, we looked fast.

Then league play started. 

Oh, my, damn.

We got rolled in the first game. Second game too. We got rained out a lot. Those were our best games.

We scrimmaged a team mid-season and destroyed them. 

It was a scrimmage.

The best we did was a 1-1 tie. And we had three penalty kicks in that game. 

Regretfully, I gave the first PK to a kid who was "playing hard" and didn't give it to Boyd, even though he had the strongest leg on the team. Didn't want to show favoritism. 

I told Adrianne at halftime... if we got another PK, Boyd, "the Rifleman" in my book, was taking it. She didn't say anything. (We're both really sensitive to other players' feelings.)

Sure enough we got another PK. HERE WE GO, I thought. I lined Boyd up, told him to get it done.

He missed the sweet spot of the ball and the goalie made a save she couldn't help but to make... by standing still.

We got another PK. Gave it to the girl who drew it, who was a really good player last season.

She missed it wide. A sophomore slump all season. Thankfully, there was no drug testing in our league.

I don't know. That's possible, right? Flintstone Vitamin Downers?

***

S'all good. Season is over. I look forward to the next season. Boyd shows some promise, even though he's a little tentative. Definitely the strongest kid on this year's team.

My Evey Jones? She'll attend 6th grade next season. 

It occurs to me that... if she asked me to coach soccer, volleyball, whatever... I probably can't... because she's middle school now.

That's kinda sad for me. Maybe it'll make me appreciate the Saturday shellackings better.

But Evey is a 4.0 student. Creative, artistic, studious. 

It's all good if she doesn't need Coach Dad.

I'll be Cheerleader Dad.

The weekend that was, May 18-20

The Joneses take in a paddleboat ride at Shawnee Mission Park.

We had a great weekend here, hope you did too!

I arrived Friday night after a few days in Minneapolis. Hustled home from the airport and picked up the family at 7 p.m. and we ran out the door for CHINESE BUFFET! Boyd wanted it to celebrate the end of kindergarten, but now they're closed on Tuesdays so we missed them last time (this is like the opposite of Taco Tuesday... No-Chinese-Buffet-For-You-Tuesdays.)

It was amazing and we stuffed ourselves, because yeah, BUFFET!

I was pretty wiped out on Friday so as soon as I got home, I got cleaned up, watched the two-episode Modern Family wedding episodes and then zonked out.

Saturday morning the kids, Adro and Judy got up at 3 a.m. for some reason... oh yeah, the Royal Wedding of Harry and Megan. Turns out the festivities didn't start until 5 a.m., so everyone just kinda fell asleep in the living room waiting.

I got up at a normal time and whipped out a bad-ass breakfast (eggs over-medium, breakfast potatoes and bacon with toast.) Then we headed out to Christopher Lipford's graduation party at Shawnee Mission park.

I've never been to that park. Turns out it's awesome! They even had paddle boats for $10/half hour, so we jumped in one and paddled all the way across the lake. 

This was amazing... when we first walked out to the dock we saw a sick fish swimming sideways in the marina. Then we went to the car to get cash... on the walk back to the dock, 500 yards away, we saw a blue heron.

Adrianne says, "that fish needs to get better fast or that blue heron is going to get him!"

(You know where this is going, right?)

Then we're halfway across the lake and really close to said sick fish. It's like we alerted the blue heron to its presence. And he took off, and we're all like, "UH-OH!" and instead of a straight line, it made like a J-turn and NAILED the fish right in front of us. We all screamed/cheered at the horrific/fantastic sight. 

It really was pretty neat, how many times do you see that so close? Adrianne actually voted this her favorite moment of the weekend.

Then we came home and relaxed in the garage... got a few games of Uno going. I didn't win any. Oh, I also worked for a little bit, wrote Golfdom Gallery because we were going to press Monday morning. And we watched the storm blow through... a big shower, with a little hail. We all watched with the garage door open. This might have been my favorite moment of the weekend.

Sunday, the family went to church. It was perfect out, so I took the dog for a walk. Then I came home and wrote my column for the new issue (an essay on a longtime superintendent who will be retiring at the end of June... perfect for the June issue, eh?) I wrapped the column just in time for the family to come home, then we all went to Kash's birthday out at this beautiful home with two private ponds in Eudora.

It was raining but we still went out and fished. Boyd caught maybe 10, 12 fish. A couple big bluegill! I took photos and will share them later.

After Kash's b-day it was Virginia's b-day at Paisano's. Yup, I ate again. The Marco Polo, chicken fettucini alfredo with vegetables. Excellent!

And then Evey got sick at the table (she felt like she might throw up.) Ten minutes later, I got sick at the table (my stomach felt like it would EXPLODE.) We hustled home.

I got violently ill, then took a long shower, said a prayer to the stomach pain gods, then got my laptop and proofread copy until I fell asleep.

It was an awesome weekend, even with the rough ending. Let's do it again next weekend! (Minus the explosions.)

School’s out for summer!

That's a wrap on the 2017-2018 academic school year. It went by so fast!

Photo is Evey accepting her 5th grade certificate from her teacher, Mr. Stadalman.

Boyd will be a 1st grader and Evey enters 6th grade and middle school! Holy cow! I must be getting old.

Lervik asked me if I felt like I had a 6th grader... I said no, I feel like I have a 10th grader!

Happy Mother's Day Adro!

Cousin Melissa visits

Hello blog! How have you been? Lonely, I'm sure.

 ***

Been on the road a ton lately. That's why I haven't been posting. I'm down an editor and I'm on the road every week. In the last three weeks I've been in D.C., Cincy and Philly. And I've got more cooking. I added a day trip to St. Louis today, and I've got Minneapolis on the horizon. 

It's all good, though. I knew busy times were coming, and we were kinda prepared. I shut down travel earlier this year while Judy was on the road, and now it's payback time, baby.

But vacation isn't too far away, either.

***

Photo is from a recent visit by Cousin Melissa. A pleasant surprise, always good to see Cousin.

***

The Cincy trip was for the annual TOCA awards ceremony.

How did it go? Well, it was a little bit of a butt-kicking. Only 7 awards. Last year we won almost twice that.

Ouch! But hey... it had to happen eventually.

Looking forward to comeback time, baby!

***

Boyd got a new bike this weekend. I would have taken a photo but I was too busy clutching him by the armpits to keep him from falling.

Yes, he's trying to learn to ride. I think Evey was older when I taught her (remind me to check the blog to confirm), but Boyd is excited to learn. So I thought we'd give it a try.

Next time we go out we're leaving Sis at home, because Boyd was too easily distracted by Evey riding her bike. Apparently BJ doesn't realize the danger involved in wrecking a bike... Hopefully he learns the not-too-painful way.

***

Only three more days of school left.

What, huh?

(Seriously, the kids get out about two weeks sooner than the Johnson kids do!!!)

Recent photos from my phone

Craig and I in front of the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. 

Evey, Boydee and Marina enjoying some of my birthday fried ice cream
at Salty Iguana at Olathe. Sorry to catch y'all with your moths full!

Did you know Evey plays guitar? Here she is in the 5th grade
musical program strumming along!

Pic

Stay-home snowy April weekend

We talked about it Friday night. Boyd really wanted to have a movie night. Me and Sis wanted to work on eBay.

We negotiated. We would have a "stay home" weekend and not go to the movies (I was going to take BJ to see Rampage) and instead have a movie night at the house.

It turned out to be a really fun weekend!

***

Our soccer team got smoked again, 3-0. It was frustrating. At least Boyd managed a shut-out as goalie in the fourth quarter.

We're going to change our tactics this Saturday. Keep a kid back home on defense at all times. Maybe that will help.

It was cold out for the game, maybe 34 degrees. Miserable.

***

We rented two movies: Coco and Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Coco was really good! We had already seen Spider-Man, except for Mom... so it was a movie weekend downstairs.

***

Evey posted some more stuff on eBay for me, while I worked on reorganizing my comics in the garage. We also listened to Radiohead, Soundgarden and Interpol.

This was my favorite part of the weekend. Evey is fun to hang out with.

***

Made enchiladas today. Been a while. They turned out solid, too! I made some chicken enchiladas (as well as cheese, of course) -- I think Evey kinda liked 'em!

Home improvement