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!!!)