Yeah...I Got A New Car

So my Honda Element was a great car.  It was durable, it was functional, it had character.  It did have shortcomings, however.  It was kind of sluggish.  The interior wasn't really functional with the cupholders hidden under the armrest and the lack of any storage bins whatsoever were annoying.  There was also the fact that the sunroof was in the back seat....which was great for the kids, but not so much for me.  It was an AWD vehicle too, but I really only used it a few times in its almost 8-year history.  It hauled a lot of stuff too, I must admit.  But now that the kids are a little older and my tastes a little more refined, I went on a quest for a car that truly fit me.

Now my history has been a little mixed.  My first car was a 1972 Ford Pinto that perhaps once went over 65mph with a tailwind.  Then came the original "Robo-Cop" and "MU Seekie" car, the 1987 Ford Taurus.  The transmission was a piece of crap and it barely survived my college years.  My 1993 Civic coupe was a fun little car, but it was, all in all, a $12,000 car.  Functional, but not really fun.  The Element came along in 2003 and suited me well (and some friends/students have told me "I can't imagine you driving something else!") but the time came to move on.

I started looking last year at Hondas again, but nothing really was a good fit.  The Accord was too expensive and also too big IMHO.  The Fit was way to small, and the Insight was cute, but I just couldn't see myself driving a hybrid.  The new CRZ looks amazing, but it was only a two-seater.  So after 17 years as a Honda driver, I started looking at other options.

My kids just LOVE looking for VW Bugs and playing "slugbug" and that's kind of what started me looking at the brand.  I knew a Bug was too cutesy for me so I dug a little further and found the GTI.  It's a hatchback. It's small, but not too small.  It's refined, but not too deluxe.  It's got four doors so the whole family can come along.  After doing some research I found that virtually NO ONE had a bad thing to say about this car.  From the crash safety people to Car And Driver to GQ...everyone liked this car.  I just can't understand why I didn't see more of them on the road.  Perhaps it's because two out of every three cars I see around Columbus are Hondas?  I see lots of Jettas and Golfs, but a very few GTI's...perhaps that's because it only suits certain people.  It was a fit for me the moment I sat in the car.

Anyways, after Maria's triathalon on Saturday, I went to MAG for a test drive and from the moment I sat in the front seat, I knew it was the car for me.  Carbon Steel Metallic paint.  Red trim.  Red and black plaid seats (an homage to the original), 200hp, and an electronics package that satisfies a tech-geek like me.

I've been driving it whenever I can, and even got the family groceries today...the trunk was *just* big enough.  Regardless, this is going to be my car for quite a long time, so I'm glad I did the work to make sure it is a perfect fit.  Wanna go for a ride sometime?

Student Council Representative

Yesterday was the middle school's student council elections. The middle school consists of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. For student council, there are three 6th grade representatives, three 7th grade representatives, and seven 8th grade members (four officers plus three representatives). Maria decided she wanted to run for one of the 6th grade spots. For the election, anyone could run if they filled out the proper paperwork. Twenty 6th graders ran for the three representative positions. Campaigning lasted for a week and each candidate could hang up three posters.

Maria got a late start on her posters since we were so busy last weekend with Sam's birthday and Aunt Evelyn's party that we didn't even get to Wal-Mart to buy the poster boards until that Sunday night. But she worked hard on those posters Monday and Tuesday evening, and had all three hung by Wednesday morning. Her campaign slogan was, "Maria Keller: The Key to New Possibilities" and her posters used both a piano keyboard and actual keys as the artwork. She also varied her theme slightly on all three posters, including "The Key to New Ideas" and "The Key to New Solutions." She came up with all of this on her own, but I did help with the coloring of the posters, which was fun.

The elections were held yesterday, and Maria was one of the three 6th graders elected into office! I think she's a little disappointed that none of her friends made it, so she'll be with a group she doesn't know as well, but I still think it will be a positive experience for her.

Weird, But in a Good Way

Ben and I have been discussing going on a Disney Cruise during spring break for a couple of months. I finally bought the 2011 book on Friday (I was waiting for the new edition to come out), and started reading it yesterday. Today I started looking at available rooms for the cruise and week that we needed - we are very limited as far as our dates go. We knew we wanted the 4-day Bahama cruise, but what we didn't know was that Disney is putting a new boat in the water for the Bahamian cruises starting in January. That means lots of people want to cruise on it soon. And spring break is really popular. So when I got online to look at availability, the cruise we wanted was very full. We needed to book very soon. So I called Disney right away, and most of my evening has been taken up with planning. We ended up in a more expensive stateroom than we wanted, but it was either that or splitting up with one adult and one kid per room, with no guarantee the rooms would even close to each other.

When I got it booked, I posted it on Facebook. About an hour later, I got a Facebook message from Kathy Holthouse - she's married to Ross, who shared an apartment with Ben at college. All four of us were in the band together. And they booked the same cruise last week.

So Kathy immediately called me, and we compared info. We don't know our Deck number yet, but we are in the same type of stateroom and I think we'll be one deck above them. Even better, their daughter is Maria's age, their son is Sam's age. They've met a few times - the girls hit it off, but Sam doesn't remember Ryan. Anyway, the kids only stuff is broken up by age - 5-10 yrs old, 11-13 years old, and 14-17 years old. So I was a little worried about Maria and Sam being separated when the did Kids Only stuff - but now they each have someone they know who will be with them. Kathy and I are each arranging to get in touch with Disney tomorrow so we can be at the same dinner table each night.

We just can't get over how weird this is - Ross and Kathy and us seem to be leading somewhat parallel lives. We didn't keep in close touch for many years after college, but they have been coming to Ben's birthday parties the last two years. This would be one of those cases where Facebook helped us reconnect. Anyway, the parallel lives part - we have kids the same age, we both have the same kinds of cars, we both like to vacation at Kiawah Island and Disney, and they even have the same furniture as we do. They both work at the same place too - they both work at P&G, Ben and I both teach at the same school.

But we're looking forward to this vacation even more now. But we have to wait a while - we leave six months from tomorrow.

GOAL!!!

Sam had an awesome soccer game on Saturday. He was in the zone, and stayed with the ball for most of the game. This level plays 6 on 6, and we have 7 players. But one got sent home for having metal cleats on (only plastic are allowed). That meant we had no subs, and each player had to play the entire game. They did some switching back and forth with defense and offense, which helped the boys rest a little bit, but they were still exhausted by the end of the game.

Sam was in the mood to play. I'm guessing the 10:45 game time helped - our other two games have been at 8:45 and I have to wake Sam up to go to soccer. This week we had a lazy morning before the game. The weather was also perfect - a little cool if you were sitting and watching, but perfect if you were running around the whole game.

So here's the highlights of the game (please remember I have limited knowledge of the game of soccer and pretty much any other sport).

The teams were fairly evenly matched, but our team kept the ball on their half of the field for most of the game. We had several shots that just didn't go in. The score was still 0-0 in the middle of the third quarter when one of their players broke away form the pack and scored a goal. I was afraid our team would become discouraged since they had played so well but just hadn't managed to score. Soon one of our players (and one who usually does not score and can't really run) put a shot in and tied the game 1-1. Then the third quarter ended.

Sam was on offense again during the 4th quarter, and he and all of our boys were looking pretty tired. But the ball still stayed down at their end most of the time, and mid-way through the 4th quarter Sam took a shot and it went in the goal. There was much cheering since this goal caused the blue team (who had yet to win a game) to pull ahead. Sam was pretty pleased with himself, and as always, looked to the sideline to make sure we were watching. Then soon after the kick-off, Sam pulled away from the pack, handled the ball down the field himself (there weren't any other blue players caught up to him yet) and scored again. It was awesome. Now we had a more comfortable lead (3-1), and the game was almost over.

The final score was 3-1, and our Blue Team won their first game. It was pretty exciting, and we were pretty proud parents (and sister). Now let's see if he can keep it up.

Outdoor Education Pictures

I've had a lot of questions about what Maria and her classmates did for three days and two nights at Outdoor Education a couple weeks ago. And all I know is they hiked, did lots of teambuilding types of activities, had campfires, learned about nature, that kind of stuff. On Friday, one of the Dads who was in Maria's group (groups were made up of boys and girls) gave her a CD containing about 40 pictures from the experience. We were so thankful, since Maria did not have much luck with her disposable camera (the only type they were supposed to bring), and we had no pictures of the kids, only pictures of nature (some were pretty good, but still, not the most memorable parts of the experience). So I've included a few of the best pictures here.

Interim Reports

We have two wonderful, hard working kids. Can't ask for more than that.

Sam's interim is simply the print-out from Progress Book. This is the first year he has letter grades in the main subjects.

Sam's 8th Birthday Party

Yesterday we celebrated Sam's 8th birthday. The official day isn't until Wednesday, but we had both the friend and family party yesterday.

We started with a friend party at Field Sports Ohio. The kids got to play on inflatables for a half hour, followed by a half hour of an organized field sport (Sam chose baseball), and then cake and the opening of gifts. Very few parents replied to the RSVP request, so I was afraid we would have a very small group. I was expecting 8 kids, 13 showed up. Thanks goodness I had 12 favors ready, and Maria went without (Sam's theme this year was Mario). I was really glad that only two kids didn't come, but some response on their parents' part would have been nice. The kids all had fun, but 8-year-old boys sure are wild. I'm so relieved I didn't try to host them at my house!

Afterward, we came back home for the family party. Both sets of grandparents joined us, and the weather was perfect for being outside. Sam got to open his family gifts, and then we ate pizza and had ice cream sundaes (since we already had eaten cake at the afternoon party). Sam got plenty of cool gifts, including LEGO sets and games, a new camera, and a Nintendo DSi that we has been wanting for quite a while.

All in all, I think Sam had a blast and it was another successful birthday party. And I'm glad I have quite a while until we have to start planning another party.

Another Soccer Season Begins

Sam's first soccer game was Saturday morning. This is his 5th year of playing two seasons a year, fall and spring. He started when he was just turning four in the middle of the season, and he has really some a long way. Especially when you consider he spent a lot of time that first season hanging from the bars of the soccer goal - yes, during the games too. Saturday I thought, "Boy, Sam is playing a team with some very big kids on it," and then I realized that Sam is that big, too. I am just used to seeing little boys playing soccer, but he is growing up.

This year we had to decide if we wanted to keep Sam in a recreational league, or look into moving him up into a more competitive traveling league. The traveling leagues can be unorganized, expensive, and are a much bigger time commitment. However, the recreational leagues are still coached by Dad of the payers, some of which have very little, if any, soccer playing experience themselves. And if Sam wants to be a competitive soccer player, we wonder if we need to move him into another league for some more experienced coaching. But we decided not to for this year, mainly because we just didn't know if we could swing that kind of schedule in the fall with Ben's working schedule, and also because Sam is still young, and we were not sure if his heart is completely into soccer - he didn't seem to enjoy it much last spring. But he very much wanted to play this fall.

Saturday he had his best game ever. He scored one of his team's three goals, and he showed his experience throughout the game. His brain was in the game, and he made some good decisions, passed to teammates, and just had some really good plays. Ben's favorite was when he had a throw-in and waited patiently until a teammate ran down the sideline, giving him the perfect person to pass to. My favorite was when he jumped up to block a pass from the other team with his chest, and then took the ball when it landed at his feet. He ended up playing defense a lot of the time, but didn't get bored or inattentive when he wasn't right with the ball. And his team gave up three goals (and didn't score any) during the third quarter when Sam was not in the game.

Needless to say we were very impressed. And we think we made the right call on which league to play in, since he seemed pretty evenly matched with most of the other boys. It would have been nice if we had pictures or video of any of this, but we didn't bring our camera to this game (it started at 8:45 - we're lucky we all got there on time). Hopefully we'll get some on film next week.

Maria's Outdoor Education

For the last two and a half days, Maria has been away on a trip with her entire 6th grade class. They call it "Outdoor Education," and they bus all 72 6th graders (and their teachers, bless them) two hours north to "Nature's Classroom," a place north of Mansfield that specializes in running short programs for this age of children. I've heard about Outdoor Education for years - as a 9th grade teacher, I have heard many stories that start "Remember in 6th grade at Outdoor Education..." I also know the 6th grade teachers consider it a great program and actually enjoy going, and feel that it really allows them to bond with their students.

For a lot of kids, it's their first time away from home in a situation like this. Not for Maria, who has braved two years of 4-H camp, so at least I didn't have that to worry about. And they slept indoors this time, which is a huge improvement over the 4-H camp cabins.

The kids were supposed to leave on Wednesday morning, and return at 2:00 Friday afternoon. But there were some storms in that area Tuesday night, and as the kids were loading the bus, the school received a phone call that the camp had no electricity and the kids could not arrive until power was restored. So the kids went to their classrooms and waited. They watched movies, played games, and waited (I was so thankful I was not one of those teachers!). They had lunch and recess, and then around noon finally heard that power was restored and they could leave for camp. Then they decided to inform the parents. I had heard at lunch that they had not been able to go (I was surprised I hadn't heard yet - Ben and I are under the same roof as Maria all day), and was really hoping they wouldn't have to cancel the trip. Unfortunately, because the school buses had to run their afternoon routes, they weren't able to take the kids to camp until 5:00, but at least they got to go. I did run down to see how Maria was holding up before I left school that day, and she was fine.

So they were off, and in the last two days I did hear a couple of updates from teachers who went but didn't spend the night. It didn't hurt that Maria has charmed her teachers (we've heard, unsolicited, from two of the three teachers about how great Maria is, how she is so polite and positive and what a good student she is) so these teachers volunteer information to me when I pass them in the hall. And although we missed her at home, I was never worried about her. Curious, but not worried.

Maria (and the rest of the kids) returned this afternoon, tired and slightly sunburned but in good spirits and full of stories. I was so glad they had perfect weather - highs in the mid-70's and no rain. She had a rough time with the flash on her disposable camera (the only kind they were supposed to take), so she's a little disappointed although she still had several good pictures of the outdoors. And I'm sure she has some memories that will last a lifetime.

Labor Day Weekend at the Stullers'

Saturday we traveled to Curtice, Ohio, as we do each year to celebrate Labor Day weekend with the Stullers and about 60 other friends. This year was a blast as usual, although the weather was pretty chilly making swimming in the pond an activity only for the truly adventurous - otherwise known as kids who don't seem to feel the cold. Sleeping in the tent was very cold Saturday night as well, with the lows in the mid-40's.

This year marked the start of a new tradition - the first annual "Wayne Manor 5K." Andrea came up with the idea, but Ben helped with organizing racing numbers and T-shirts, which were a big hit. (We were shorted one T-shirt - Maria's - so she's wore my shirt and I went without. Maria should have her shirt by the end of this week.) No one told G.J. about the race, and surprised him with the plan on Saturday night. He was a good sport, though, and ran the race in a complete Batman outfit. Both Maria and Sam ran the 5K, which is a long distance for kids their age. Maria had been training for a couple of weeks, and jogged about half the distance. Sam jogged some, but also walked a lot. I tried to stick with him so he didn't get lost - making my time extremely slow. Ben won the race in 23'43", Maria did it in 40'42", I finished 43"02", and Sam in 46'07". We really praised the kids for finishing the race.

All in all, another awesome Labor Day weekend, but now its time to get back to real life and ready for fall activities - mainly Saturday morning soccer, Ben's crazy busy weekends spent at football games and Saturday competitions, and Of course Sam's 8th birthday in a couple of weeks.