May 2008 Report

Well our month started with a very quick visit from Robert and Jo Wocknitz. They arrived on a Tuesday in the late afternoon and left mid-morning on Wednesday. It was nice to see them and we had a good time catching up.

I took them on my now famous 2 hour express tour of NYC. They were scared to go into the big bad city, but once we got in there and they got to see what a cool place it is, they relaxed and (I think) really enjoyed it. I was able to hit most of the key tourist highlights and included a Gray's Papaya "Recession Special" for dinner.

We had a very nice Mothers Day. The boys did the traditional Breakfast in Bed along with gifts. These pics are from a family walk Kim requested as part of her M-Day celebration. It was a beautiful warm day and it was nice to get out. We drove to a park near Morristown that we used to frequent when we lived there.

Chayce and Brandon relived their childhood playing on the playground.

Brandon is having a great year in Baseball so far. His team is made up of a good bunch of kids and he is having a great time. His pitching has been outstanding and he is the doing a lot of it. He is also having a great hitting year so it is turning out to be a fun season. I am helping to coach with two other guys who I have known for a number of years and really enjoy working with, so it has made the season a lot of fun for me also.

Last Tuesday night we had a particularly exciting game. We found ourselves in a close game, down two runs. We had been planning on saving Brandon to pitch in Friday's game, but after much discussion we decided to use him to keep it close and give ourselves a chance to come back and win. He pitched two shut out innings to get us to the bottom of the 7th (last inning) still down 2 runs. Our first two hitters got out. The next three managed to get on base. This brought Brandon to the plate, bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the 7th, talk about pressure. Brandon stepped up to the plate and smashed a shot over the left fielders head for a walk-off game winning triple! So Brandon was the winning pitcher (of record) and hit the game winner. Quite a night.

We took our annual Memorial Weekend trip to the Finger Lakes in Up-State NY. In spite of getting shut-out in our attempts to catch a fish it was a wonderful get away. We were on a different lake then the past few years and I have to say this one is my favorite so far. We had a great little house right on the water with our own dock. The boys did some swimming in spite of the cold water. I should say jump in cool off instantly and jump out as fast as you can. Of course with two teenagers it turned into a contest to see who went in the most and who could swim out to the buoy and back the fastest.

After swimming in the cold lake the boys had to warm up in front of the fire to fight off the hypothermia that they were certain was just around the corner. Look closely, yes that's Chayce almost all covered up.

We had a fire each night and cooked marshmallows.

Of course we stopped on the was home in PA and bought our years supply of fireworks. We will get to light them off on the 4th this year since our boys are not going to scout camp this year. (our stake goes on the week of the 4th every year because they can get the camp cheaper)

Have a great June and We'll blog you next month!