Time for a few Pictures!

Okay, the full-on start of the soccer season combined with my realization that I have several books worth of material in notebooks to start putting into the computer have conspired to keep me from posting pictures like I should. In order to keep CB happy (yes, I do tease mercilessly sometimes, ask your sister) I need to post a lot of pictures to make up for the past few picture-less posts.
First, I need to mention that tonight we went to the DATA class selection meeting where we selected DS#1's courses for high school next fall. DATA offers a summer school PE/Health class to cover the required PE and health credits for Texas allowing kids to take more electives. Normally the cost is $225. Well, DS#1 is going to be playing soccer and getting PLENTY of PE Credits, but we thought about doing this anyway to get the Health credit and to allow him to meet other incoming students.

It was very nice of him to win the door prize of "tuition" for the PE Camp. If you check my lovely wife's blog, I am sure you'll see more about why she and I found this so funny.

Well, on to more pictures with brief (sometimes funny) comments.

This is a picture of DS#3 in his Mama's lap at Gymboree Play and Learn. I just love how much fun he is having here, and the fact that his mama didn't delete the picture before I could post it ;).

Okay, on to pictures with, um, captions...













BEEP!














MY BALL!


















Look! Dirt!











More Dirt!











Okay, these last few pictures of DS#3 playing in the dirt outside were taken this morning. We went outside to play and when Lolo (his maternal grandpa) came outside DS#3 started talking and playing so I grabbed the video camera and took some video. Then he started playing in the dirt and I snagged the camera and took some pictures of my dear boy playing in the dirt.

Sometimes I get so busy watching him play, or playing with him, that I don't take pictures. My wife is trying to "train" me to take more pictures. I guess by the time DS#3 is in college I will get it down.

OUCH!

Well, just a quick note. We know which days DS#1 is supposed to play for this season's cup play and it isn't pretty. Due to the Western Conference groupings we have only 6 games in the Director's Cup. Three of DS#1's games are scheduled during Spring Break here in San Antonio. He will miss those three games as will several other boys. Some families were making "driving" trips for Spring Break and are trying to adjust their schedules but it looks like those three games are going to be a bit difficult.

The team manager is going to do his best to move at least one of the games, but it is pretty unlikely. Next year DS#2 will be involved in Cup play too. This pretty much means that any Spring Break plans we make will probably have to be Sunday to Friday to limit how many games we might miss.

Soccer Season

Well, the season has started. DS#2 had games yesterday and today and next weekend both DS#1 and DS#2 are playing in a soccer tournament. Fortunately, the it is the same tournament and it is here in SA. If we are REALLY lucky, they will both play at the same field. Honestly, I don't expect to be that lucky.

DS#2 won't miss any games when we go on vacation during Spring Break but that changes when they get older. DS#1 has games with teams from areas throughout the "Western Conference" and different areas and school districts have different Spring Breaks. This means that the director of the Western Conference for "cup play" has stated that Spring Break is not a reason to cancel or re-schedule a game. This means that his team might have games where they end up playing with a short roster during their spring break. Of course, other teams are going to end up in similar situations. DS#1's team manager is working on the scheduling, DS#1 is not the only one gone during Spring Break so we'll see what happens.

I am glad that DD and DS#3 find ways to play and have fun at the soccer field, as we are there so much. DS#3 loves playing with balls so soccer is pretty much a hit for him, DD has a blast as well. Every once in a while she talks about playing soccer again, I think she likes other things quite a bit better, but once she is outside at the fields and playing around she starts to have fun, and then talks about soccer again.

It will be a busy week this week. I will try to post more pictures soon (sorry CB!). We have some nice pictures from the weekend but I happen to be on the wrong machine :(.

Supporting the Economy

Okay, let's see how many times I have to edit this to get the text to go with the pictures!
Remember the leak we had a little while ago? Well, we (okay, *I*) used it as an excuse to re-tile the "kids bathroom" with tile matching what we put on the floor about 5 years ago. My lovely wife took a quick picture after they tore out most of the old tile.













These next two pictures show how fantastic a job they did on fixing this up.

Unfortunately, the pretty, "kiddie" light blue paint and ocean border don't really go with the tile. It looked fine with the plain white tile, but just doesn't seem to look right now. I suppose we can repaint the bathroom in a more "grown-up" theme, but we can probably wait a bit for that.














I wanted to close with a picture of DS#3 on the windowsill by his mama's desk. I would take about a half dozen pictures to get this cuteness, I am guessing she only took 1. *Grumble*

Picture Time-2/17/09

Okay, it is time for me to post some more pictures. I guess it is "feast or famine" with me and the photos. I joined Facebook last night, really started figuring it out this morning. What a fun time waster.

This first picture is DS#3 looking a bit tired of eating his Mama's blueberry pancakes at IHOP.








Yes, we went to IHOP on Valentine's Day morning. Might not be romantic, but even DS#2 is willing to smile for pancakes.





The night before DS#1's good friend A stayed over so he came to breakfast with us too. He is such a good friend that all of the kids seem to love having him around.
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I am getting a kick out of convincing DS#2 to smile. He has a wonderful smile but truly hates to have his picture taken. Sunday I took the boys to Dragon's Lair a game store selling comics, board games, role-playing games, etc. The boys always like to pick up Magic the Gathering cards while they are there (they used some of their own money).


They were playing in DS#2's bedroom that afternoon when DS#3 woke up from his nap and he wanted to see what they were doing.






The boys got a big kick out of it even though it took him a little while to really wake up.




















I thought I would close with another picture of DS#2 smiling with his, um, "claws." Hey, he kept busy Monday morning and let some of the rest of us sleep. DS#1 stayed in bed until 10:00 AM on President's Day. Wow, he must be a teen-ager.

Whoops!

Okay, so I haven't posted for a few days. Worse yet, this is going to be a "picture-less" post. Wait, I shouldn't have said that, CB just stopped reading and went to another blog!

I tortured my child today! Wow, those computer programs that search the internet for "bad guys" just went "beep, beep, BEEP!"

Maybe I should explain.

DS#1 applied to 2 magnet schools, specialized schools "within a school," and he was accepted on the first night to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Academy) which is a very new school, but very well funded by a wide variety of grants. He didn't get a pick from the lottery system (I'll explain that in a moment) for DATA (Design And Technology Academy) and was pretty disappointed. Tonight, right before we left for soccer practice, the director of DATA called to let Anthony know that he was picked off of the waiting list and was he still interested? Wow. This definitely tossed a spanner in the whole "OH MY GOD MY SON IS GOING TO HIGH SCHOOL NEXT YEAR!!!" nightmare, um, decision making process.

First, the lottery. Both of these schools (there are links to their websites above) are basically college preparatory high schools at a "public school price" so there is a high demand. To avoid any bias applicants are selected on a lottery basis (ie. completely random numbers). The grant funding for STEM limits the geographical area so there are actually fewer applicants (and it is a newer school). DATA basically draws from the entire San Antonio area (larger if someone wanted to commute farther). Basically, STEM acceptance has a little bit better odds than flipping a quarter and coming up heads, DATA acceptance is a lot worse.

DS#1 honestly has parts from both schools that he is really interested in. He favored DATA, but when he got accepted at STEM he was very happy with it and it was pretty much set in his mind. The DATA call tonight mixed that up a bit.

This is where the torture comes in. Here we are blessed with a bright boy accepted at a major Catholic college preparatory high school and TWO magnet (public) high schools. So, we asked him what HE wanted to do. I mean, how brutal, he is 13 and we are dropping decisions like this on him. We sat down with him and talked about it for a bit. I told him that he could not make a bad decision here, we loaded the deck and gave him only aces. I told him that we felt he would do fantastic at ANY of these schools but that we believed he would do BETTER if he could help make the decision.

He chose DATA, a school that seems to be a slightly better fit for him (to me). He does like the engineering aspects of STEM, but he is very interested in the design and computer knowledge he'll gain at DATA. I am honestly in favor of either school, but DATA is more established and offers a broader range of "specialized" electives. He will still get all of the usual core classes and electives but these magnet schools provide electives designed to prepare students for college courses. These schools also promote AP courses and are designed to give students an advantage when applying to schools and for scholarships.

The battery on the laptop is about to die so I should probably go. I am sure I'll be talking more about these schools in future posts. Tomorrow I will talk to both schools, then I will have DS#1 talk to STEM to let them know he is withdrawing and to DATA to confirm that that is where he REALLY wants to go. This weekend he will have to write a letter to Central Catholic High School to let them know that he is declining that acceptance too.

Yes, it is torture, but think about it, later on, he can think about this as his decision. Yes, his parents "loaded the deck" but he still made his own choice. I like to think that it will count for something.

He CAN Smile!!!

Okay, I admit it, sometimes we have to torture DS#2 into letting us take a good picture of him. When he smiles the world is a shiny, happy place, he just doesn't like to smile for the camera. Here he is being tortured, um, having a picture with me (and with DS#1 sticking his head in too!).

I have been, um, "talking" to him lately because his class pictures came back on Friday and let's just say if you were to pick out one kid in the class that HATES school, you'd pick out DS#2. The worst part is, he LOVES school. SIGH.


We spent some time today at the San Antonio Livestock Show (just not the "Rodeo" portion). We always seem to find a way to miss out so today we decided to go ahead and just go. I won't say it was a "hit" with the kids but they did enjoy different parts. The big boys enjoyed the CSI Live show that the picture at the top was taken at and DD enjoyed some of the playing around too.





I showed a bunch of pictures of DS#3 yesterday so I am not putting one up of him staring at new chicks in one of the displays. He did get a bit tired but he certainly seemed to soak it all in.

Quick Pictures

Well, I am trying to upload a few pictures. Right now they don't seem to want to get published.

Basically, it is all about DS#3 and trains. Yesterday (Friday) morning I got out the full set of wood trains and train tracks and sat down to play with DS#3. I tried this about 2 months ago and he didn't care to grab more than two trains to run off and play with. This time he played for several hours. I had a feeling he'd be more interested this time as he has gotten very attached to the trains he pulled out before. I tried to take enough pictures to get some good ones, but as soon as he notices the camera he starts using his "cheesey" smile. He actually let me take some of these because he got more interested in playing than in me taking pictures.












I am glad he has found something that entertains him for a decent period of time. I mean, particularly with him trying to give up naps lately.


Yes, he did fall asleep on the bottom step like that. DS#2 came into the office to call us out to see what happened. AFTER my lovely wife took some pictures I carried him upstairs and put him in bed. Oh, and, yes, that is a train in his hand (James for you Thomas fans).

Sigh, Sick People and Stress

Basically the past few days have been a collection of stress and sick people. First, Friday afternoon this leak was discovered in DS#1's bedroom. A leak like this can be 2 things, a leaking water line (very bad) or a leaking drainpipe (still bad but usually easier to fix. I couldn't find a source for the leak in the upstairs bathroom so I knew I would need a plumber and that there would be holes in the ceiling and probably elsewhere. They came Friday night between 8:30-9:00 PM. And, sure enough, it was a water line leak behind the tile of the tub. This meant that in addition to this wonderful hole in the ceiling, they were going to have to go through the tile to actually fix the leak. That would be noisy so they came back Saturday afternoon to do that. They actually made a pretty small hole in the tile.

I already have estimates for the repairs and I actually decided to replace all of the tile in the bathroom, making it a bigger and more expensive job, but it is something I have been thinking about for a while.





Saturday, DS#1 felt awful, as in throwing up awful. He went back to school Tuesday morning (I suspect he powered his way through so he could go to soccer practice last night). Here he is trying to rest with the help of DS#3. I am guessing this is some sort of flu-bug.







Meanwhile, DD, DS#2, and DS#3 were all about playing. DD introduced DS#3 to the joys of chalk. Yes, he is a mess isn't he? But he is a happy mess and everyone is outside so DS#1 can rest.














DS#2 loves to go to the greenbelt area where a number of kids play in a "fort" that some of them built. Enough kids play there that it turns out there can be a few arguments here and there. I marched out to the green belt Saturday afternoon to try to snap a picture of him. He hates having pictures taken, but I thought that if he was doing something he enjoyed he might not hide as effectively.

Now we are back to "sick people." I am sick (have been since yesterday) and DS#2 has been home from school all week. I am hoping he can go back tomorrow. Then again, he has helped keep DS#3 entertained this morning so I could get a bit of rest. DS#3 has a runny nose but nothing else, however last week he was pretty miserable, I am starting to suspect he started the whole thing.

Wow! We live in TEXAS!

Okay, tonight was an elective "show" at the public high school that we feed into here in San Antonio. This includes "PE Athletics ." Well, DS#1 wants to play soccer so I wanted to talk to the soccer coach, who wasn't there-I communicated with him via email and he said he'd be there, but, whatever ... I talked to a woman in charge of one of the girl's programs and she told me that she was "sure" that he required all of his players to take "PE Athletics " every year just like she did for her girls. Well, PE Athletics takes up TWO periods of the day. This means that a student trying to get a "distinguished" high school diploma (you know, a diploma that says "I want to go to college") is essentially forced to take some summer school classes. Maybe I'll go through the breakdown in another post.

Did I mention that the high school we feed into has one of the top athletics programs in the state? Did I mention that there is a "school choice" program where some students can choose a different high school within the school district (if there is space)? I honestly have doubts that DS#1 would make the team. The sad thing is, with the present structure, I would almost hope he doesn't. The scary thing is, he'd probably be borderline, ie. be able to make the team, work his butt off, but warm the bench.

I'd better stop before I go off on a real rant. The basic fact of the matter is that this school clearly draws a real line between jocks and "not." There clearly isn't much space, at least at this school, for someone that really wants to be involved in athletics AND still do well in school. I find that disgusting.

Okay, enough boring rants, next post I'll have some pictures.