Coaches...

All of the kids have come up against brick walls in their individual sports. It hasn't been easy proving themselves down here in Georgia. After all, they are Yankees. However, at least two of the kids have followed the things we have always taught them about succeeding in life and sports and those principles have paid off for them. What have we taught them? We've taught them that first of all you show up on time for every single game and team activity. That you show your coaches and team mates respect. We've taught them to support their team mates even if they're playing your position and you're warming the bench. We have told them that at every practice and every single game you give 110%. That you push yourself to do your best without exception. We have taught them that they don't let their team down. Whether that team is your family or your sports team. We taught them to be a good sport and tell the other team good game whether they won or lost. At the end of every game and practice we would ask them if they thanked their coaches. And the most important thing we taught them is that hard work pays off. In the past my kids have been blessed to have great coaches that not only coached with these same principles but seemed to live them in their everyday lives. Unfortunately, one of my kids is learning a different set of principles this year. He's learning that it doesn't matter when or even if you show up for practice. It only matters who you know. He's learning that hard work doesn't pay off that knowing the right people pays off. It's sad to watch a group of adults take everything you have taught your child and destroy it. To take the sport that he loves the most and turn it into pure torture. To take his future dreams and crush them. They held a true athlete in the palm of their hands and let him fall to the ground. But what is worse? Watching them take his confidence and self esteem and step on it leaving him feeling worthless. So, coaches and even teachers when we lend our children to you we have high expectations for you. We have spent our lives doing the best job we can to raise good, contributing members of society. Be a role model for these kids. If not don't do the job.

I always tried to remember to thank the coaches that worked with our kids but in case i missed you. Thank you for giving up your evenings and weekends to spend with my kids. Thank you for standing in the pouring rain and freezing cold so the game or practice could go on. Thank you for guiding through their individual sports with encouragement and helpful critiquing. Thank you for always rewarding hard work and dedication because when you did it encouraged more hard work and dedication. It earned you respect. Thank you for biting your tongue when you wanted to scream at them. Most importantly, thank you for being a role model. It takes a strong person to be a role model to today's kids. Lets face it, it isn't always the most fun way to live life. There's a lot of pressure that goes with having those kids look at you as their role models. It required you to not always say the first thing that came to mind. It meant you congratulated the other team even when you felt as though they played unfairly because you knew the kids were watching and learning not just from the game but from your actions. You're pride and commitment made wearing those royal blue and white uniforms mean something. They were proud to wear them and be seen in their uniforms. Their teams may not always have won and some seasons they might even have lost every game. But a losing season with a coach that is a winner in life is a win regardless of the score of the game.
I am dedicating this post to all the coaches from Etown. We miss you all and appreciate the life lessons you taught all four of our kids. I will try to name them all but I will probably miss some of them.
Rockie Wilkinson
Eric Heisey
Brian Schoenenberger
Dan Shutt
Mike Laverty
Jeff Quinn
Chas Alessi
Ronnie Quinto
Amy Longenecker
Scott Fitzgerald
Coach Troy(I forget his last name)
Chris Rich
Heather Prichard
Debbie Dice
And I'm sure there were many more coaches and volunteers and moms and dads that helped out. Thank you to all of you. You all became like family to us and we miss that feeling the most.

A Week of Firsts...

Well, since I have four kids I'm pretty sure you know that I'm talking about that "first". I did have a much more interesting post all ready to go but somehow that one got deleted so we'll just go with a newsy update for now and I'll redo the other one later.

So the first thing that I experienced for the first time was a red ant bite yesterday. I feel fortunate to be able to say "a red bite ant" instead of many. I was standing in the grass watching Kirsten's softball game when I felt something crawling on my foot. I looked down and saw an ant crawling on my foot. Since it was only one and I didn't see an army behind it I figure I just brush it off and be done with it. WRONG! Those little suckers pack a powerful punch. In case you've never r experienced one it is a lot like a bee sting only it hurts for about an hour. I am so glad it was just one I can't imagine more than one! I just keep thinking if it were a little kid with multiple stings how awful it would be!
Well, I recovered from it but not after a sufficient amount of whining. Hey! Ya gotta work it for what it's worth! Us moms don't get sympathy very often!

The second first happened right after that and it was Zach's first touchdown as a Grizzly. So proud of that kid for sticking it to his coaches! I wanted to jump up and down and yell! HA! I'll full y'all in a little later on why that was such a big deal.

The third thing that happened was Kirsten was offered a spot on a travel team! Take that Etown travel team coaches because not only was she offered one but every team she has tried out for has offered her a spot. And softball down here is soooo much bigger than in Etown! At least one kid isn't going to be the victim of small town mindsets!

And the last thing that is happening is that I am making boiled peanuts for the first time. My kids and my dad both love them and they are ridiculously expense to buy already made so I figured I'd do it myself. It isn't too hard really you just buy green peanuts, which would be the hard part for you northerners because I never knew there was such a thing until I came down here. Then you boil three quarts water and 1/3 cup salt. Then put the peanuts in to boil for an hour and a half. I'll let you know how they turn out. I hope they taste like the real thing!

Arm Farts

That title got your attention didn't it? Well, while I was at Kirsten's softball game I left directions for Lauren to supervise Cole doing his homework. Well, the homework was finished but the supervision must not have happened. He had to write each word in a sentence. One word he had to use was "try". The sentence he wrote? "Try to arm fart it's easy!". While we all thought it was hysterical I'm not sure if his teacher would have seen the humor in it. Especially since she doesn't know us very well yet. We changed it to "Try to eat sausage.". I know boring right? Oh well we are the newbies so we have to make a good impression for a little while.

Kirsten had a softball game again tonight. It was disappointing because errors by several players lost the game for the team. Something as simple as calling the catch. Hello! We're in high school you learned that in U8!!!

Thank you cards

Got a little crafty today!

The majority of my scrapbooking stuff is still in safe keeping at Bill's mom's house so I can't exactly scrapbook but making cards just takes glue, scissors and paper so that's what I did today. We have so many good friends that need a hug and thank you that I decided to make some cards just for that purpose. It was nice to have something to do because I am starting to go a little stir crazy in this big empty house! I guess I will finish up our Christmas cards tomorrow. Might as well get a head start right?

Tonight Kirsten has her third softball game of the season. So far they are undefeated. Looks like we will be going into post season play. Zac has off football tonight which is a nice little break in the middle of the week. Lauren has started her competition cheerleading squad so now all that is left is to get Cole going in something. He wants to try soccer so I guess we'll give that a try!

Too Many Toilets!

I spent the day cleaning this big ole house. I feel as though I may see toilets in my sleep tonight. I managed to get most of the floor cleaning and toilet scrubbing done but only one shower and one tub. I think next week these kiddos are going to learn the fine art of toilet scrubbing. Zac actually had a good idea. Right now we haven't made a final decision on which kid will be sleeping where permanently. Almost all the bedrooms need painted due to too many rooms with Gorky colors so we may do so rearranging of rooms. So, Zac's idea was that whoever keeps their bathroom cleanest gets to have their own. You wouldn't think that would come from Zac because typically his would be the messiest but he has been doing a great job keeping his neat and clean. I'll leave it to your imagination to try to figure out who's was the messiest to clean! Anyway....it took pretty much the entire day to clean this house from top to bottom. Won't do it that way again unless I have to. It's much easier just to clean a little each day.

We lost power tonight for about three hours. One of the big "selling features"of this development was that it had underground utilities. Well, underground utilities do ya no good when those wires connect to wires that run through the woods! Lauren called me on the way home from school to say that there was a tree down on the wires and it was smoking. So by the fire department got there it was fully engulfed. When I called to ask how long until the power came back on thy told me that the priority was putting out the forest fire then fixing the wires could commence. Hmmm...seems like a good idea to put the fire out first! It was then that I realized that our development is completely surrounded by very dense woods. Make that very dense DRY woods! Okay now I have forest fires to add to the list of things that can kill you in Georgia...scorpions, poisonous snakes, black widow spiders, tornados(happen quite frequently I'm told) and forest fires!9. This must be why everyone though it would be such a great adventure huh?

I think I may have found my first friend here in Georgia. I would tell you her name but I honestly can't recall what it is! She lives in the same cul de sac as us and home schools her son. Coke and her son T have been playing pretty nicely together lately. She just moved to Georgia from Mississippi last year so she can relate to all our struggles. She gave me the scoop on some of the neighbors. It was nice to be able to sit around and talk about "mom" stuff with someone. I miss being able to escape to a friends house for a few minutes of laughs and wine or coffee depending on the time of day. She and I are the only stay at home moms on our street. And are ya ready for this she has three kiddos with another on the way and she SCRAPBOOKS!!!! I was so happy to find out someone that scrapbooks almost jumped up and down. Granted, she's not quite as into as my good friend, Kathy in Etown but that's okay. I'll just have to Skype with Kathy once I get my computer set up again.

Sorry to leave ya hanging like this but I seem to be battling the flu or some such nonsense and the NyQuil that I just took is blessedly starting to kick in and if I don't end here I'll probably stop making sense. Good nite y'all!

Life Goes On....

School is well under way here in Georgia. I didn't think I would like Cole being the first one off the bus but it actually works out quite nicely because it gives me time alone with just him to work on his homework. Of course, it makes it difficult to spend the day shopping in Atlanta when I know the little guy will come home to an empty locked house if I don't get home in time.

Traffic going in and out of Atlanta is so bad that you really need to give yourself an hour even though it isn't really that far. It's all about timing if you leave between the hours of 6:30 and 9 am or 4-6pm it is really horrible. And then if there is an accident it's even worse. Apparently these people never learned to drive in rain storms either because every time it storms the roads are an absolute mess. They just stop! It's insanity! Perhaps the reason that traffic is so bad is because the subway system they have is useless. In order to utilize it you need to drive to the edge of Atlanta which means you have to go through the worst traffic and then it only makes a cross shape through the city and from there you would probably have to walk an hour to get to your destination. The other reason people have trouble navigating the area is because they use the same name for multiple roads in the same area so for instance in a five square mile area you would find Crabapple Ave., Crabapple place, Crabapple blvd., Crabapple Rd., Crabapple Trace, Crabapple St. That doesn't even touch on it because then they add North south East and West and Northwest, South West, North East and South East to each of those names for different streets. Sometimes when you enter a street name into your gps you have to scroll through 30 different streets with the same name before you find the one you're looking for. Someone told me there are 71 roads in the Metro Atlanta area with the name peach tree. Can you imagine finding that on the gps? I hope I never have to go to any peach tree streets!

Everyone says you cannot live in Atlanta without getting into at least one car accident in your life. Fortunately, for Lauren she has already experienced her first accident without injury or damage to her car. The very first weekend she was down here we utilized her as our designated driver. We were about five blocks from the hotel at a sports bar for Bill's birthday .
We called and had her come get us and it seemed like it took forever. Finally, she called and said she had been in an accident. Ugh! Those are the worst words to hear. Although, I was relieved it was her and not the police calling. Some guy had rear
ended her at a stoplight when his foot slipped off the pedal. He was very nice and handled everything well. I think he may have been in need of a designated driver himself but because there was no damage and she was uninjured everyone went on their way. Thankfully, the road was not busy because he had hit her hard enough to push her into the intersection. If it had been busy I'm pretty sure we would have been getting a call from a police officer that night. It was a good way for Lauren to experience her first accident as far as gathering information etc. and to get her once in a lifetime accident out of the way.

Home Sweet Home

We finally closed on the house yesterday. It has been an exhausting 2 1/2 weeks. The kids started school August 1st. This meant that we had to do an hour commute at 5:45am to get Cole to school on time. Since he goes to school first. if everyone had been able to get to sleep at a decent hour it wouldn't have been too bad. Unfortunately, hotel living means everyone goes to sleep or stays awake together. Repeat that schedule a few days, throw in softball tryouts and football practices and what ya get is some very grumpy kids and two exhausted parents. So needless to say in spite of sleeping on air mattresses that were going flat and army cots we all slept very well and very long last night!

Today we moved most of the stuff from the storage unit down here. The washer and dryer are hooked up and running. The refrigerator is connected and producing icy cold water. I've so missed that minor convenience. Believe it or not I actually missed my washer machine and dryer too. Don't laugh! I spend at least two hours a day attending to laundry, of course, it's my best friend! It will probably be even more so now that I left my best friends in PA. We'll be spending the night on air mattresses again tonight. After the carpets are cleaned the movers will get the rest of the stuff from storage. Te heaviest thing we own is probably our Tempur Pedic mattress. It's floppy and heavy. So someone else is carrying that thing up the steps!

I am hoping to post a video tour of our new house but I'm not sure blogger will let me.