June 2024

The momentum of Jared's birthday quickly flowed into June with his last piano recital.  He played the Order 66 Theme and Interstellar to a once again awed audience.

Jared has spent the last 11 years taking lessons from Kathy (and this year Ben too).  She is more a member of our family and a friend than just a piano teacher, which is why Jared is not completely ending his professional relationship but switching modes to start Voice lessons.  Jared feels a command of singing is a talent missing from his theatrical resume.

Backing up to June 1st, Bricks and Mini-Figs grand opening was a huge success and Jared is absolutely loving his new job.

Swim season is going by fast.  Titus is swimming with the 18 yo. this year so its quite a size difference on the starting blocks in many of the tournaments but Titus is a fighter and holding his own in the water, out of the water and at the recent shaving cream party.

This month also renewed the kids love of golf.  They've been having fun on days off and all going golfing together; which is doubly nice as it gives Chris and I a little alone time at home.

June is Lance's 2nd anniversary at Hendrick and so he got spin the wheel at the company luncheon and make a little extra cash.  He also enjoyed a company sponsored lunch a different day at a yummy Italian restaurant that apparently has pretty waitresses.

Amber and I continue to work at the barn to pay for Big Furie's rent.  Some early mornings there are so peaceful and beautiful.  We won't talk about the bad weather days.

The Starlight Ball was this month as well and boys were looking rather dapper and as always had a marvelous time.

The kids finished off the month with a tour of Brick Universe a traveling Lego builder show at the downtown convention center.  I love how all my kids truly enjoy spending time together enjoying each other's passions.

May 2024

After 15 years of coaching Chris is retiring from baseball as Titus decided he'd rather play tennis going in high school next year.  My four boys have had a great time working together the last three years on Titus' Middle School team (Chris and Lance coaching with Jared in charge of scoring/game changer).  That said, I do think it will be a relaxing break for Chris to just sit back and cheer Titus at tennis.

As it would happen, Chris had a number of chances to do just that this month with Titus finished out JTT, then participated in the Tennis - Cinco de Mayo and Bring the Sting tournaments. He gets better every tournament.

Jared attended the TKD Black Belt Testing this month to cheer on his former students.  His presence was greatly appreciated.  The staff and masters even invited him to go out to dinner at the Korean BBQ restaurant after the tournament.  It was a really great time for Jared catching up with old friends.

Lance on the other hand decided to make new friends this month by joining Men's League (He's sporting his Ranger's T-shirt to his first practice).  At the try-out he was universally voted on to the team.  The guys are really excited to have him and he's excited about the team and getting more field time.

Now that Baseball and Tennis are done for the school year, its time for swim team to start for Titus.  He is always on the move with something (personally I think its an important thing to keep boys moving).

This was one of those years where we have a ridiculous number of cicada hatchings.  They practically covered the roads at times, so I decided to make use of them by collecting them on our walks and feeding them to the chickens who went wild for the extra protein snack.

As a special treat this year we went with the McLambs to the Greensboro Science Center in celebration of Jared's birthday.  It was an absolutely beautiful day and the butterfly encounter was very friendly.  After (of course), we had dinner together at "Wicked Burger", every ones favorite restaurant in North Carolina. However, this was a bit of a bitter sweet trip knowing with weddings in the horizon this would probably be the last time our two families would go on an adventure together in our entirety.  Own families have been doing live together for over ten years.  If you could only stop time.

On his actually birthday we of course had spice cake and a favorite meal.  Tomorrow grand opening of "Bricks and Mini-figs, Cary" where Jared will start working.  This is truly a dream job for Jared working all day with Lego.  Praying this will just the beginning of wonderful new opportunities for Jared and his various career aspirations in the new year.  Happy Birthday my caring, beautiful, extremely creative and talented young man!

 

April 2024

April was a busy month of change for Lance.  Two close friends that worked with him at Hendrick, moved on to other jobs.  Leaving Lance and their dad behind at Hendrick.  In the spirit of moving toward your long-term career goals, Lance drove all the way to Ohio and then to Pennsylvania for baseball tryouts. This was a great growing experience and a new adventure of traveling on his own.  In between tryouts he even got to attend a Cleveland Indians game.

While Lance was on his road trip, Amber and Titus worked to get somethings done in the train room for him.

In the same spirit again, Jared interviewed for a job at a Lego reseller called "Bricks and Mini-figs".  Of course, they loved him and he will be a part of their opening team.

Titus and I went on adventure to a Gardening Club Azalea Sale at the fairgrounds.  We had so much fun filling our cart with unique new azaleas and rhododendrons to finish off the backyard with more color. 

Amber focused on riding Thor.

At the end of the month she even entered him in a small barn show.  Numerous people at the barn thought for sure he was going to go race-horse mode and kill half the kids in the arena.  Thankfully, they were wrong. Though he was a big confused when everyone lined up (he even looked behind him to see why they were racing) Amber kept him behaving himself the whole time. 

There was no FIAR field trip this month so we planned our own field trip with friends to the WRAL Azaela Gardens.  Such a beautiful place. 

Finally, we celebrated Frank's birthday with of course lasagna and spice cake (There's a trend going here).

March 2024

It was a rainy day for Cars and Coffee but that didn't keep the guys from Lance's work from going.  I think it's neat how they all meet-up ahead of time so they can ride up together (Lance's Audi named "Plurp" is in the lead down below).

Next, the sun came out and weather warmed up for FIAR field trip to the Durham Museum of Life and Science.  This has always been one of our favorite museums and this trip did not disappoint.

It's very convenient that each of my kids was kind enough to be born in a different month.  March is of course Lance's month with the blessing on St. Patrick's Day.  This year his birthday fell on the day of an English Country Dance full of friends to wish him exuberant well wishes in his next year!  However, the most important part of every birthday for Lance is lasagna dinner and spice cake.

After doing much research last month, we have addressed two issues with Thor's wardrobe.  He now wears Scoot Boots to protect his front feet from rocks and he has a Figure-Eight bridle that is more comfortable on his face and doesn't rub the sensitive part of his chin (the site of an old injury). Don't they look splendid!

February 2024

February beings each year as Mighty Titus Time!  Can't think of any better way to start February!

His big gift this year was a remote control model plane.  He'd been practicing for you over a year on his flight simulator and was ready to apply what he learned.  Through a local model plane flying club we were able to arrange for him to have a lesson or two flying on a gentleman's plane and get some tips on what to buy for his first plan.   Then that same gentleman met us at the air park to assist as needed his first time flying his new plane.  No surprise, Titus had it mastered in no time and was moving out of training mode, into trick mode by the end of his first flight.  He definitely has the flying bug!

As a surprise for Titus' birthday Lance finally put The Book to use and made a "Potato Gun".  The kids operated it like an old fashion cannon team and amazingly it flew much farther than anticipated (ie. it's possible our neighbor may find parts of potato in their backyard over an acre away, not saying they will just saying its possible).  Then to finish out his birthday week, Lance arranged for him to sit in a new Shelby Mustang, his current dream car.

This months art project was chalk pastels recreation of "The Little Red Lighthouse".

2/9 & 2/10 was two nights of English Country Dancing for the boys.  Men were short so they did their part to make sure the ladies had a partner both nights.

Titus decided to take a break from TKD focus more on tennis (which started again this month).  He is so athletic he can do well at any sport he chooses.

2/14 was Thor's 5th Birthday and the first day of Amber and I working at the barn in exchange for his room and board.  We are still learning a lot, many of our thoughts and plans have gone awry in the two months we've had him but we are moving forward, learning and making adjustments as we gain new knowledge.  For instance, at the end of the month we got to pay a veterinarian to each us how to put a diaper on his foot after he stepped on a rock.  Now we are increasing our understanding of how to avoid a repeat, as that caused him to be lame for 10 days (though homeopathy helped shorten that significantly from the vets original estimate).

Since Jared has took a break from teaching at the dojang, he has been focusing his talents on creating a new board game (complete, with custom pieces and board) that we all had fun test playing.

The end of the month was Grandma Mary's Birthday.  Always a good excuse for Meatloaf, mash potatoes and spice cake!

B-Yong, where Lance catches for college and the pros, changed its name this month to Octane Baseball but thankfully everything else is the same. Just a great group of guys who all love baseball.

Finally, we finished out the month with a community service project, long awaited for by the entire neighborhood.  With the help of Frank's truck, the boys got The Kathryns long abandoned Gran Am out of the ditch at the end of their drive way.  The Kathryns were so thankful for their help that they insisted the boys could keep whatever they got for it.  At first the boys tried to clean it up.  Unfortunately, since The Kathryns had no idea where the title was and it had a lot of mold damage, we ended up just selling it to a salvage yard but it was still a good learning experience figuring that whole process out and the cul-du-sac looks quite a bit cleaner now.

January 2024

A little.... okay a rather large addendum to December 2023.  On December 26th, due to an unexpected opportunity we could not refuse, we bought Amber her first horse.

His name is Valiant Thor and he's a four year old dark bay Off-The-Track-Thoroughbred.  We have no idea what we are doing, but the seller described him as a lovable big dog, they were right and we believe temperament is key, training will come.  Amber is completely in love and it definitely goes both ways.   He's a lot of horse for a 12 year old little girl but we believe she is up to the task of turning him into her dream jumper.  Her reputation of keeping a sticky-seat will be of key importance in the coming months as he's very, very fast.

It was only five days after the new year before the boys were out partying again.  This time is was "Game Night" at the Lyons.  A group of 20+ get together at their house and play all kinds of games long into the night.  Frankly its wonderful.

Then this month's Cars and Coffee was American Muscle, so Lance begged Chris to come and show off Big Red.

Mid-month was Pro-Day at B-Young.  Lance was the catcher of the hour making all his pitchers look great.  Hopefully we'll see them all playing pro someday soon.

Titus decided on his own to cut up the big Oak Tree that had fallen in our forest and turn it into a bench for my birthday.  In his attempt to keep it all a secret (working on it while Amber and i were at the barn) he neglected to tell anyone he had gotten stuck under a larger part of the tree at one point and messed up a rib (silly boy).  He's all better now and the bench is absolutely gorgeous!

Keeping in the theme of surprises, Lance called in some favors and took me on an adventure for my birthday to test drive a Mercedes.  I have always loved the idea of a Mercedes, especially the ones that bounce and it was a lot of fun to actually get to take one out for a spin and be treated like one of the elite :-)

Next-up was to get Lance a passport so that no matter what baseball league wants him he'll be ready.  It was quite a process of driving around to different location but in the end its done.

On 1/27 Jared did his first trial dance, where he is the official caller.  It was with a select group of regulars (who pretended not to know what they were doing) and it went extremely well. This will be a great way for him to have fun and make a little extra money.  Afterwards, the group went to talk, eat and hang out at I-Hop.

Traditionally, we do a 1st Day Hike each year.  This year we were a titch late and did a 28th hike to Hemlock Bluffs with both puppies in tow.  It was a beautiful day to look amazing!

 Speaking of the puppies, it appears that Oliver and Khan have reached a territorial truce.

In the continuing sit-com coined by Jared "The Adventures of Valiant Thor"....Amber and Thor continue to grow together, we were blessed to find her a saddle within a few weeks of getting him and they have been riding regularly ever since. We found out he has a very sensitive chin and had to take off his nose band, making him an English horse with a western bridle.