Happy Birthday, Mom

As you may have noticed, I am about 3 months and 30 thoughts behind in keeping with this blog. My mom's birthday was last Tuesday so I thought I'd dedicate this one to her. No, I'm not late in wishing her a 'happy birthday', just late in letting you know about it.

As you may not know Mom has always liked music. She would always play the piano for us kids and make up songs with our names inserted as if they were written just for us and all of us brothers learned to play an instrument or two.

Growing up in the 70s, people liked to buy electronics combined with furniture and they were so heavy, they could not be moved unless absolutely necessary. Our home was no different as we had the 'living room stereo/picture frame holder hutch" It was about 6 feet long, 3 feet tall, and seemed to weigh 800lbs. It was terrible if you lost a toy behind it for it was not readily retrievable without multiple brother help. This magnificent piece of acoustical furniture featured a state of the art 4 button, 8-track player with 6 tape storage, in the middle was a large vertical radio with a 3 inch dial to smoothly run the arm up and down the dial, and on the right was the record player.

We had many fun times with that old stereo. I can remember having many records with the likes of: Eternal Echoes, BJ Thomas, Elvis, Tom Jones, Grease soundtrack, Star Wars-Empire Strikes Back Soundtrack, Statler Brothers, ABBA, Lowell Lundstrum, Johny Cash, Burrel Ives, and Anne Murray. Ooohhh...Anne Murray...any time that smooth, alto voice would grace the halls of our house, Mom would be heard singing along. It was remarkable at how much mom would sound just like Anne Murray.

So here's to you, Mom. Anne Murray from 1973. Thanks for the memories and Happy Birthday..last week.

Your #1 Son.

What a Summer!

Tennis Lessons, Bible School, 40th Anniversary Celebration, Black Hills vacation, fireworks, fun on the lake, weddings, birthday celebrations, four-wheeler rides, jet skiing, lemonade stands, fishing at the river, golf, swimming pool, play time with friends, camp fires, horse rides, s'mores, corn on the cob, visits with cousins, bike rides, baseball games, lawn mowing, overnight guests, ice cream cones, lazy mornings, laughter, story telling, hard sleeping, and some nights of tucking kids in a little too late, but what sweet memories.......

It's Looking to be a Great Start to Summer!

Number 9

Jake turned 9 today. Mom made a delicious, 1 millionth scale, replica Twins Metrodome cake. (Don't check my math...it sounds good and it's close enough) And with Jake turning 9, we had a convenient candle for every player position. He had some friends over after school to play Wii, baseball, eat pizza, and of course cake. To end his baseball party, we gave him two tickets to this Friday night's Twins game against Seattle. So if you aren't doing anything this Friday night, you can tune into FSN and watch for Jake and I as we'll be 20 rows up behind home plate. Not sure if we'll get back again this summer so we'll be taking this one a little slower as this is the last year with the Twins playing in the Metrodome. A lot of good memories, over the years, attending games and two world series in that place.

Jacob's also been playing Spring soccer. Every game so far, Monday's and Saturday's, has been blistering windy cold...and it's Spring! His Fall games last year were warmer than this Spring. The girls have been trying to tough it out watching from the sidelines under blankets and coats but sometimes don't make it and head back to the car with mom. Dad, of course, can wait it out and then has to defrost, when it's over, back home. His soccer ability seems to be taking after me a little bit in that his finesse sometimes involves blasting the other kid to the ground while trying to clear the ball out to the other end of the field. He got a little worried because the ref gave him a pre-warning, warning that if he knocked a kid down again he was going to get a warning. I told him that was alright because you gave that kid a pre-warning, warning too and next time he may back off of you. He seemed fine with my logic.

Baseball practice starts next week....here we go!!

Grand Prix

Jake had his AWANA Grand Prix event this evening. He took 5th out of 12 in the racing and won a Best Overall Design Award.