Celebrations!

The last few weeks have been full of celebrations.

June 17th the group that organized the ballroom dancing classes a few years back, held an "English Country Dance".  Lance and Jared were thrilled to have more opportunities to dance.  The weather was rather crazy that night.  At home Chris and I were out for a walk with the dogs when this terrible wind storm kicked up.  We were of course at the opposite end of the neighborhood, trees were swaying dangerously and by the time we got back to our end of the neighborhood we saw our neighbor had a big tree down over the road and Amber and Titus were running toward us telling us the power was out.  We hoped the storm had missed the boys.  We would later learn, it hit them as well and they lost power too.  However, they just took off their cowboy hats and jackets, moved the dance outside and still had a marvelous time.

This storm was a short doozy, power was still out come morning and the contents of the fridge were in danger so we started up our generator for the very first time (with the help of Grandpa Frank who always has extra gasoline around, we found out the hard way the siphon we bought for this emergency wouldn't work on Bruce because it has anti-siphon technology.....UGH).  Once we got the generator running and food was secure, we headed over to clear up the trees for our neighbors.  They had the one down in the road and another was across their front porch blocking the entrance to their home.  A chainsaw and six able bodies with big clippers made quick work of the mess.  Then Lance and Jared cleaned up and went to their friend Nathan's last ballet performance.  Not to be left out of getting into air conditioning, Chris and I took Amber and Titus to their favorite restaurant, Alpaca for lunch. Power finally came back at 2:30pm.

June 24th was Emma's Graduation Party.  As a gift we printed out all the pictures we could find of Emma with our family over the last eight years, what a walk down memory lane that was for everyone that night.  Ironically, Amanda had decorated with pictures as well. Emma had an actual record player with old big band music to add to the reminiscent atmosphere.  Finally, to top the night off her brother Connor made a surprise visit, getting leave from the Army to come home for the week.  After the official festivities were over and things were calming down I took Emma and Amanda for a ride in Big Red.  They both like "Vroom" very much.  Then Chris took Tim for spin (or at least a fast straight). 

June 26th we spent the morning working on the backyard project.  The ponds were leveled and a lot of the rock was placed (We have literally 3 tons to put down).  Chris used some of the rock to fix his french drain up front (its looks and works much better now).  In the evening, we went to Sofia's Graduation party.  It was our first time out at their new house.  What a charming group of people, some were even old friends we forgot we had in common, everyone (kids and adults) had a marvelous time late into the night.

July 1st was the last graduation party of the season, Will's.  It was across the street at TCC and Jared had a blast, playing games and eventually marching home in formation with Will and some of his friends. The rest of us stayed home while Lance checked out Sofia's car for her.  Amber was enjoyed the girl time with Sofia.

In between all this celebrating...

our family joined a new community pool,

Amber continued to advance in her riding,

Titus flourished at TaeKwonDo, 

Lance had fun learning at Hendrick and playing baseball.

Jared had a huge reason to celebrate....one long awaited.....after five years of work!!!!

Shake it Baby!

Sunday, Lance played his first collegiate baseball game.  He is playing for the "South Wakes Shakes" this Summer.  He is so excited! He even bought himself pink batting gloves to match the uniforms.  Things were a little chaotic, he started out showing his willingness to serve by being the 1st Base coach during the first half of the game.  Then in the 7th Inning they put him as catcher, and he showed them how well he knows his craft.  He had quite the cheering section at the end, many of our friends had come to cheer him on.  Grandma Mary was hysterical heckling the other team each time they struck out with Lance at the wheel.  Amber was adorable when they got to run the bases after the game with all the players giving kids high fives and she bear-hugged Lance for a second before finishing her run.  Kids were even asking for his autograph after the game, he had worked on a special one with a baseball in one "O" and a smile in the other;  and the kids absolutely loved it.

Small world moment, there were two kids there he hadn't seen since middle school ball, one was on Shakes with him and the other was working in the stadium.

Tuesday, Jared shot outdoor archery for the first time since 2019, since he's aged over that time his distance increased to 50M.  Good news is he didn't loose any arrows.

Titus' coach is the GM of the Dodge dealership, and at practice one day he asked Lance if he was interested in working for him. Took three weeks to create the job, do background and drug testing.  Then Wednesday Lance got his first taste of corporate America. He had six hour orientation with HR at Hendrick Automotive.  They put him through the whole show, personality test and all.  He was very pleased to find out how conservative the company remains and that Mr. Hendrick is a christian and very involved with the company.

Thursday was Lance's first real day on the job and he absolutely loved it.  The guys were great and so excited to have him there.  He was taken under multiple wings, learning a bit about lube (his official title is "Lube Technician") and then about tires.

Friday, was game two of the Shakes season.  Went a lot like the first game and Lance filled the stands again with fans.

Saturday, we went to the wedding of a friend.  Everyone looked amazing and I totally didn't get a picture of us all but the boys got this one of "Da Boyz"

Tonight, was game three.  He got tattooed up by some blocked wild pitches.  Turf does not absorb any energy like real dirt.  More fans again tonight and I ran the bases with little Anna.

Five more to go!

Evolution of a Vette

When we bought Big Red in December we knew it needed a new clutch; we gave that task to a friend and month later we had him back ready for us to take on fixing everything else.

It started with simple tasks like headlight motors, then on a drive Chris wisely realized something was not right and when they got home he realized the harmonic balancer was slipping and needed replacing.  Had Chris not checked it out, it could have destroyed the engine.

This was a much bigger task, they had to take out the radiator fan, the steering rack, drop the sub-frame and move various other items in the way.  It took a lot of elbow grease, quite few days, and a blow torch but in the end they had success.

Now they could move onto the big fix they wanted to do.  A brand new Borla Atak exhaust.  With the x-pipe installed by the previous owner it makes the most beautiful sound I've ever heard from a Corvette.

Then it was back to simpler fixes, like repairing the seats, and adding details in and outside the car like black lettering for contrast on the Corvette logos.

So for now we are done modifying Big Red and just enjoying our V8 therapy.  He's sounding amazing!

 

Rabbit Rabbit New Habits

This week we started back doing a lot of things we'd had a break from for far too long.

Jared and Titus started back archery (after taking three months off for baseball) and it's outdoor season (which we haven't been able to do since 2019).  However, they started back doing indoor, partially to get back in the groove and partially because Titus needs his blue pin before he can do outdoor plus Jared needed to buy new outdoor arrows.  Wednesday was pin night and Titus earned his White JOAD pin (only two left).  Next pin will be harder but I know he can do it because he accidentally earned this pin using a 40cm target instead of the bigger 60cm target ;-).

We stopped Taekwondo 19 months ago.  Titus missed it terribly, it was so awesome to see Titus back in his dobok this week (Though he did need a new one as he had outgrown his old one by about 6 inches).  The instructors were just as glad to see him; as he was to be there, its always great to be somewhere where you're truly wanted.  When they did their breaking Master Ko waited to call on Titus till the very end.  He apparently wanted him to do his breaking alone (other kids were called in groups).  It warmed a mother's heart to see Master Ko's confidence in Titus has not wavered, and it was incredible to see how well Titus did considering the long break.  (See the Video Below)

 

Amber had an eventful ride on Friday, Scout decided to have Amber do a "horse planned dismount".  Rather than being scared, she thought it was a thrill and got right back on.  Kendall treated it the same and only instructed her on what to do different to avoid a repeat.  The horses were all really in a mood, another girl was thrown twice and more violently, not sure what was in the air but thankful all were fine in the end.

Friday night, was season end pizza party for Titus' Dillard Drive Dragons.   Titus played Wake County Club Ball this Spring, it's more competitive than Rec Ball but the biggest appeal for Titus was possibility of being with same kids for the next three years.  Thankfully, its a really great group of kids and coaches.  Jared was the official GameChanger guy and Lance helped coach whenever he wasn't playing.  The team was never skunked because in every single game Titus not only hit but scored (frequently he was the only run).  Beware of the little man!  He did some awesome saves in the field as well, one time I swear he had springs in his shoes, he jumped so high to catch a ball at short-stop.

 

This morning, boys went to "Cars and Coffee", it was Lambo Day, and Jared fell in love....which inspired Titus and Chris to do some more work on Big Red, task today was fixing the electric seats.  Isn't he pretty...

This afternoon we acquired a third dog.  Did I scare you?  It was an emergency thing we have a friend's dog for a few days.  But I thought the Medium, Large, Small photo was pretty funny.

Tonight we were entertained by Jared's beautiful performance at his piano recital, he hadn't had a formal recital since June 2019.  Miss Kathy had him as the last performer of the night and he simply blew them away with his beautiful music.  He said it was great how the professional piano just sprang back with every touch (See Video Below).  

Nice to be busy again.