Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Back To Warm Weather

After surviving the cold for the last 9 days, we were able to return to the warm weather of Texas. It seems that it was cold here while we were gone, but not now. Today it is just about 65 and the rest of the week looks like mid-70's. And so Chad and I have asked ourselves many times, why didn't we have Christmas here. Actually it is nice to go home and have the cold, because then the 40's and 50's here seem like a heat wave. Christmas was great, it was so good to be able to see everyone, well everyone we could. We have a feeling that next Christmas will be a little bit more hectic, but we have a whole year for that. It was a week of somewhat relaxing, or just trying to get ready for Christmas. We were lucky enough to get home for Kate's first birthday and I think she might be one of the only kids I know, who didn't basically dive into her cake. She wanted someone else to feed it to her. The rest of the week was spent visiting with family and a few friends who are still in the area.

It is nice to be home and have some time to relax. Tonight starts the Gulf Coast Tournament for basketball, both the boys and the girls, so we will be heading there for the next three evenings. We got a chance to see Pete yesterday after picking him up at the airport we went to eat dinner. It looks like it will be a quiet evening of football and cards on New Year's with Pete and who ever else is around. None of us even want to attempt to go out somewhere that night. And why would we when we can watch football for three days straight?

I am looking forward to January coming, Chad will be attending a baseball conference in Waco for three days, it is the last full month of basketball (we end on Feb. 4th), and I will be making another trip home by myself at the end of the month and will be able to catch a couple games of CIT while I am there.

I hope that all your Christmas' were great. We were thinking of still writing a Christmas letter, but I think that we are going to make ours always be an Easter letter. Have a happy new year.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Just Three Days

Just three more days and we will be home for Christmas. It seems like it has gone by so quick. This week is the week of getting everything ready. That started today with doing the laundry. I know that Chad won't be packing until Friday night, but at least then everything will be clean for him to pack. I just have to get through work tomorrow and the rest of the week will be a breeze. I had work and practice yesterday. I was nice and gave the girls today and tomorrow off. It is finals week and I have some pretty intense kids when it comes to school. So I figured we don't play until Friday, so give them some time to study and really finish everything before break. It was also nice to have a Tuesday off for real, I usually have to go to Concordia for Athletic Period, but with finals, I had a true day off. Chad was even able to come home at about 1pm. We went and did some Christmas shopping and he has just two more presents to buy. I am very impressed that he is almost done. I am waiting to finish mine until I get home, because I don't trust the airline that it will all come back in one piece. It is getting to feel a little like Christmas, but I am sure not as much as at home. It is in the lower 50's, so everyone is out in their hats, coats, and gloves, while we just walk around with a sweater on. We saw that in St. Paul on Monday it was the big 18 degrees. It was kind of nice to know that it won't be that cold. It is suppose to frost tonight, so everyone is outside covering their plants and pipes. The news makes a big deal out of having a frost, so it is kind of funny to watch all these people try to make sure their plants don't die.

This past weekend was not a lot going on. Friday was a boys game and Chad was nice enough to do the clock for them. Saturday morning I had a game. It was against St. Agnes (the DSHA of Houston) really. The coach was really obnoxious. All he did was yell at the refs and then he would tell the crowd to yell at them more. At half time some of my girls were complaining that they were swearing a lot, so I told one of my captains to tell teh ref what was going on. They didn't stop, so when I shook the coaches' hand I said, "there sure was a lot of swearing out there" he was this petty, that he came back with " yeah, I know I heard your girls". So needless to say I was pretty upset, it was just a joke to him. After the game I talked with the girls about how no matter what we do out there, we show more about who we are when we play and we do it with a lot more class then that team. Chad was a little frustrated also, so he was going to send a nice little email over to the A.D. I felt sorry for the girls on the team, to have to listen to their parents, who are adults, sink to the level they were at. So I told my girls to go tell their parents, that they are thankful they support them and do not act like those parents did. So now I am following that same advice, and thank you mom and dad, for not being those annoying fans in the stands, but instead to cheer us on no matter what.

Last but not least, what were the Brewers thinking trading Podsednik. I told Chad that this will give everyone something to talk about on Saturday. I bet that it wouldn't take even an hour before Joel brought the subject up. We will see most of you this coming weekend or in the week ahead.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Defroster or Air Conditioning, I don't know which one to use

This state is confusing. One day I need to have the defroster on to make sure that I can see out the car windows and the next day I need the air conditioning on, so I don't fry in the car. I wish it would just stay at a normal temperature. All this weather stuff makes it hard to get into the season of Christmas. There is just something about listening to Christmas carols when it is 75 degrees outside. Today it cooled down a little bit, but that is because it rained last night. It is in the 60's. We seem to have this pattern. It is cool, a warm front comes through, it rains, it cools down and then we start all over. I am not complaining though, considering it is like 30 up north.

The weekend was pretty uneventful. Varisty had a game on Friday night, so we went to that. Chad had detention duty on Saturday morning. He made the kid pick weeds for 2 hours on the baseball field. Then we didn't really do anything that night. Sunday brought church and football. It was nice to not have too much to do. This weekend I have a game on Saturday morning, it the the early childhood christmas program on Sunday afternoon and also the CLHS Christmas Concert on Sunday as well. I am suppose to be able to go back to work on Friday, since we go to the doctor on Thursday. It has been nice not being at work, but at least I just will have Friday and then 2 and a half days next week. Then it is already Christmas break. It is kind of hard to believe, that we will be home in less than two weeks. It will be nice to have a longer break, not so much for me, but for Chad. It will also be nice to have days off at the same time.

Basketball is going, we are now 3-2. We won on Thursday night. We play two more away games this week. We have the big ONE home game all month long and it is a Saturday game, so there really won't be anyone there. I was lucky enough to have Paul (the A.D.) let me get digital scout for doing stats, so I ordered that last week, so it should be here by the week's end. I am excited, since I have to do the varsity stats, this will make it a whole lot easier for me.

The duty of laundry is calling my name and so I must get to that. I hope that everyone had a good weekend, even after that devastating Green Bay loss on Sunday.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Ice On The Car In Texas??

I wasn't sure I was in the right state when I went outside yesterday morning. We woke to a cool 40 degrees and even some ice on our windshield. Not enough to have to use a scraper, but enough that we had to let the defroster do it's work. It was a little weird to be that cool and to not have snow on the ground or even have a winter jacket on. Most of Texas were wearing their parkas and hats, while Chad and I were still in just pants and long sleeves. As the day went on, it did warm up to about 65. As I ventured out to basketball practice I was back to wearing shorts and a sweatshirt.

Some of you might be wondering, it was Wednesday yesterday, didn't you have to work. Well I had the day off, and it looks like I will have the next week off. There is fifth disease going around the kids in the early childhood center and it can be harmful to me, so I was at the doctor yesterday getting my blood drawn from the nazi blood lady. I have had her each time I have gotten blood drawn and she moves very quick, doesn't say much and isn't going to let you whine about it hurting. So I have to wait for the blood to come back to make sure that I am immuned to fifth disease and given the okay to go back to work. Allison who works in the room next to me, also had to get some blood drawn to see if she is immuned and she is not able to return to work until after the new year. So there is lots going on at the early childhood center down here.

Basketball is going. We had a game on Tuesday and won by 21, game tonight, that isn't going to be that easy. Yesterday for practice I had 6 girls, because the other ones just had too much homework. What happened to the times, when you learned to manage your time and be able to play sports and get your homework done. So let's just say that I wasn't in a very good mood for practice and it wasn't an easy one for only being an hour and 15 minutes.

Things here are not beginning to look like Christmas, so it is a little hard to get into the season, but we are hoping that once back in Wisconsin there will be some snow on the ground and cold weather to make it feel a little more like Christmas.