Christmas 2017

Party weekend... for the kids

Weekends tend to be filled with kid-centric activities. Either it's a soccer game or a kid's birthday party or both (#suburbialife). But since we're on a break between soccer seasons, it was purely kid birthday parties... three to be exact. And what do you eat at kid parties? Pizza and cake. So this entire weekend they were fueled by cheese and sugar. But I'm okay with that since each party involved a lot of physical activity and each were really fun ideas. Good times.

Life without my wife

On Wednesday night, Lynn took off to Los Angeles (for her brother's graduation) and left me alone with the three boys. So for four days, I got to experience life as a single parent.

Mornings were a bit hectic trying to get their lunches ready and everyone out the door by a certain time for school... on top of getting myself ready too! And in the afternoons, I had to wrap up my work to rush back to pick them up from school. But we had a contingency plan in case I couldn't make it, thanks to our dependable neighborhood friends. Overall, it wasn't too bad.

Random weekend pics

Watching the sunset.

Thanksgiving break (finito)

Every year I've cooked the Thanksgiving turkey a different way (last year was a spatchcocked turkey) and this year I experimented with a slow roasting method (low and slow). The meat literally feel off the bone and it was fairly effortless. Not bad, this might be a keeper.

It was the usual Thanksgiving affair, lunch with the in-law side of the family and dinner at our house with our family. And I overate as usual... blah. 😑

Thanksgiving break (so far)

Tuesday night we attended a playoff game of the other (often forgotten) Houston professional sports team, the Dynamo. And not just any playoff game but game one of the Western Conference finals. The atmosphere was awesome but it was essentially over within the first ten minutes. Seattle scored early and a Dynamo player got a red card, forcing the team to play short-handed for the rest of the game. Oh well, the kids still had fun though.

This pretty much sums up my life...

World Series champions

The Astros won the World Series! But you already knew that. That was the best series ever (a totally non-biased opinion). So many ups and downs. One aspect of the game that I like is that it's not over until it's truly over. Two outs and two strikes in an inning... it's not over. Down a few runs in the 9th inning... it's not over. It's really nerve-wracking... but that's what made it great. But the best part, the whole family really got into it.

Family of monsters

Tyson the Tiger

This past weekend Tyson attended his first Cub Scouts pack meeting where he got his first badge! Also at this meeting was the Raingutter Regatta, where each scout would race their boat, i.e. race the boat their parent(s) built. It was a double elimination tournament and each bracket was separated by age group (Tiger, Wolf, Bear, Webelos). With his awesome boat and the power of his lungs, Tyson won all of his races and placed first for his group (Tigers)!

Pumpkin patch

Wild and crazy kids.

I joined the dark side

I'm almost ashamed to admit this. I did what I said I'd never do. I bought a minivan. I joined the dark side. (queue Darth Vader music)

Wednesday night Dynamo game

The Houston Dynamo only have a couple home games left and are fighting for a playoff spot so the boys' soccer club came out to support the home team. Elliot probably had the most fun, going up and down the steps and through the row of seats (it was fairly empty). Andrew was MIA since he wanted to sit with his friends on the team. The drawback was that it was on a school night (Wednesday) so we had to leave early and guess who got ultra sad/mad. Jacob (again). We should've known better... with him, you gotta stay to the very end.

My little cub scout

One day after school, Tyson takes out a crumpled piece of paper that was tucked away in his shoe and said that he wanted to do this. This was the cub scouts. Apparently a recruiter spoke to all the kids at school and made a huge impression on Tyson since he kept asking to join. I've never had any intention of putting the boys in cub/boy scouts. I've always associated the group with pedophilia. Why else would grown men want to hang out with young boys? Call me stupid but that's how I felt.

Superstar kids

Andrew and Tyson are superstars... Marlin superstars. In previous years at their school, they had "student of the month" which was only one boy and one girl chosen from each class. But this year with a new principal, they now have "superstars" which are 2-3 students selected from each class. In my opinion, that dilutes it... doesn't seem as special. Nonetheless, the two boys were part of the September superstars.