Tonight Christopher had football practice from 5:30 – 7:00 and scouts from 7:00 – 8:30. So…Beth dropped him off at football practice and then I showed up a bit later, watched practice for a while and then pulled him early from football with just enough time to get to scouts. While I was watching football practice I read some old email and found out that scouts were encouraged to wear their favorite Minnesota sports team jerseys because there was going to be a guest speaker. So Christopher and I decided he would just wear his football jersey to scouts. The guest speaker turned out to be John Shevlin who played Minnesota Gopher football, was the team captain one year, and still has some college records. He gave a little talk to the kids and then they had a contest to see who had the best Minnesota sports clothes on. So Christopher goes up to the front of the room along with 10 other kids. The other kids had Vikings and Twins and Gophers jerseys and hats, but there was only one kid up there with an Eden Prairie football jersey, pads, and cleats 🙂 So they held a hand over each kid’s head and you’d make noise for your favorite. Christopher got down to the final two kids and then he blew away the competition. His prize…an Earl Battey bobblehead (he played for the Twins in the 60’s). Too funny.
Notice anything else in that picture? Hint – it lets me check another dream off my dream list.
I ran a 5k race Saturday morning. I normally run the Plymouth Fire Department 5k this weekend each year but the night before I decided to run a 5k at the Eden Prairie high school (because it was closer and I could bike to/from it). I ran the race, talked to a friend for 30 minutes afterwards (while eating sushi, salad and brownies as I mentioned before), and then we took off. So last night (Monday) the doorbell rings at our house and it turns out that I came in first out of the 40-49 year old males. Coming in the top 3 in a race for my gender & age is on my dream list (check that one off). I think this race is legit and counts – but maybe now I’ll leave that as a recurring dream that I try to achieve each year. I know older and younger people finished ahead of me but luckily none were between 40 – 49!!! I won $20 to a great local restaurant, a $50 massage, $20 at a sports store – sweet!!!
Remember how I said last year that I setup our new pool (10′ x 20′) and put the wrong sized boards under each support bar and that the weight of the water-filled pool overnight bent half of the bars? We took the pool down this past weekend…here’s the damage… 🙂 They still did their job (thankfully!!!).
The football player tonight at scouts talked about eating right, exercising and setting goals. He said parents are right when they say to eat veggies & fruits and play outside. He also said he never had a computer or Nintendo when growing up and that you should play outside. So we’re driving home and I was asking Christopher what he learned. I asked him what the football player said about Nintendo and video games. Christopher’s response to me was, “if you want to play them you have to play them outside”. I said, “What?!?!?!?”. He repeated his answer…and I believe (at least I want to believe) that Christopher knew the right answer and was just being funny. But I never know with him 🙂
After the scout meeting I had Christopher go up to the football player and ask him for a tip. So he asked to see Christopher’s stance. They both got in stances and faced each other. He then told Christopher to move his feet closer together, put less weight on his hand, get his butt up, flatten his back, etc…it was a fun moment to see them working together on that.
And finally, we went to another Friday Night Destruction at the race track recently. We went with some friends and had a great time. This time in addition to figure 8’s, flagpole and school buses they had lawn tractor races. It was insane how fast those things went on the straight-aways. Zooooooommmmmm!
Keep up the positive spirits and strength Dad!!! You’re doing awesome and are in our thoughts all the time (you and Mom both). You’ll be home before you know it so I hope you got through all the movies and books that you wanted to! 🙂
Hi David,
I’m sitting in dad’s room now on a very rainy Sunday. He was a little disappointed today that his neutrophil counts hadn’t started to rise and his platelets were down to 5 which means they could give him a transfusion today or tomorrow. But, these things are just as the staff expects, so hopefully the counts will go up tomorrow.
I laughed so hard at Christopher’s response to what he took away from what the Scout speaker said about playing outside. I think Christopher got your sense of humor!!!! I loved Christopher’s smile when he is holding the bobblehead. Your memory box looks great – can’t wait until we see it up close.
The kid’s drawings are hanging in dad’s room and make it look very cheery. Tell them thanks for sending them. I tried to get dad to call Colleen the other day to try to set up Skype with him.
Love, Mom
I’m sure those counts will start coming up soon (and then fast) – hang in there! I just had my annual fire fighter physical. My white blood cells are at 6.7 Thousand/uL and my red blood cells are at 4.66 Million/uL. It said the test for absolute neutrophils wasn’t done. Christopher still has a take two pictures – his first picture is typically with his lips together and him smiling. I just happened to choose the big smile this time. Try to call us again some time for Skype – we’ll give it a whirl. Take care!