Ok, so maybe it hasn’t been that long and hopefully our old posts holds up better than that movie did, but we are finally back.  It’s been 2 years and 1 day… we just missed the 2 year anniversary as we have been having problems with the ‘Follow the Blog’ button.  😓  Anyway, just to give you some background information as to how we got here, this whole thing started when our faithful Mac mini was corrupted, most probably by a virus and completely crashed on us.  Luckily we did back up all of our photos before it crashed, but not before all the folders were completely jumbled, duplicated and the dates were mixed up.  So a few months later we bought a new Mac desktop and a new photo library/editing program (Adobe Lightroom) and we started to rebuild our library.  Of course when you have 2 terabytes of photos that process can take some time especially when you work as much as we do.  Finally a couple of months ago we finished that project and started to look for a new blog hosting site.  Of course it’s really never finished as we still have some digital files to go through and a lot of photos that need to be scanned, but that can wait a while longer.

The old site, Blogger, was Free but very limited by size, the number of email followers (only 10) and the amount of storage as well as general design features.  We also needed a site that could import all of our posts.  The best site for all of that was WordPress, it’s relatively inexpensive, has unlimited number of email followers and has some great design potential.  Of course it took us a couple of months to get all that figured out and up and running, but we are finally ready.  The initial design we chose is very minimalist and clean – we will probably mix it up after the holidays and try some new themes, but for now this looks pretty good.

Now that we are up and running you are probably wondering what all you missed??  Well for starters, Alex got a new car right after the blog went down and has been doing well in college (Pitt Community College) studying Health Management Technologies.  He also got his 1st job, Toys R Us and then his 2nd job at Best Buy.  Sam has also been doing quite well in school and last year transferred to Pope John Paul II High School.  He also attended his first prom and he got a new car for his 16th birthday.  Lis has been working as well at Academy Sports, Lidl and currently Publix.  In between all of this there was a vacation to Europe and a vacation to Niagara Falls.  Hopefully that should have you at least a little caught up on our lives.  Phew… the last 2 years have flown by!   We’ll try to get you more caught up with some throwback Thursday posts/photos each week until we have gone through most of the big events.  Don’t forget to sign up for the email list in the top right border and let us know if you have any questions.

Second game in a row that Sam gets an assist!  It was a perfect chip over the defender and laid out perfectly for Devin.  Devin even came over and gave Sam a high five after the shot.  In addition to the assist, Sam had a shot on goal that had the right distance, but was just wide right.  Unfortunately all that hard work was for naught today as Trinity lost to a homeschool team 5-3.  Defense is still their main problem as nobody seems to be communicating.  Sam continues to improve every game and we are hoping that he is going to have a goal by the end of the season.

Assist!

Shot on goal

One of only a couple of errant shots… he takes out the chairs with this one.

SaveSave

After a very disappointing loss last week, TCS soccer was back on the pitch yesterday and playing at home in quite warm (mid 90’s) weather.  Alex came to watch his brother, but he had to come straight from class and was quite warm in his skinny jeans. 🙂  Although they played quite sloppy at times, TCS did manage a 5-3 victory against Victory Christian School.  Since the team lost Alex, Zach and Cole from last year’s team (last year’s seniors), it doesn’t seem that they have found a rhythm yet as they have a lot of new people in position.  Sam didn’t get the start today, but when he did get quite a bit of playing time in at midfield instead of defender!  Yes – you read that correctly, Sam played midfielder yesterday and he played extremely well.  Sam has improved 200% over last year and is receiving praise from the coach and the fans.  Yesterday, Sam had 2 sliding tackles, one assist (almost a 2nd one earlier in the game) and had some beautiful passes.  Again, you read that correctly – 2 sliding tackles and 1 assist!  He still had a couple of air kicks, but the majority were very solid and on point… no more of the crazy foot where you don’t know where the ball is going to end up.  We are very proud of Sam and can’t wait to see how good he is by the end of the season.

Well we survived Hurricane Hermine over the early part of the Labor Day weekend.  By the time she got to us she was just a strong tropical depression but the weather forecasters think she may turn back into a hurricane after veering off the Virginia coast.  Of course these are the same forecasters that told us we would be getting about 6″ of rain over Friday and Saturday but only gave us a 70% chance of rain on Friday and a 50% chance on Saturday… talk about hedging your bets.   Anyway the storm did give us a lot of rain and quite a few branches down in the yard.  In addition, Sam saw this little guy walking through the yard the day after… probably just trying to get to higher ground during the storm as he was headed back to the brook when Sam checked on him later in the day.

A pretty good size Box turtle is passing through the yard after the storm.

Sam started soccer practice the first week of August and has already had his first game which Trinity managed to win handily.  Sam is one of the starting defenders and we are very proud of him.  He is making good progress with his footwork and will hopefully become a little more aggressive with dribbling the ball this year.

Yes it’s that time of the year again, but this year is a little different.  Sam started school on Monday, Aug 15th and is now in 8th grade, while Alex started school on Thursday, Aug 18th and is in his first year of college!  Alex is only taking 3 credit classes this semester to make sure he gets off to a good start with his new homework load.  So far it’s working because he is making great grades… it’s rare not to see him doing homework.  Sam is also making great grades so far and will be playing soccer, basketball and probably tennis again this year at Trinity.

Not sure how many more years we will be able to convince these two to take a BTS photo together but we will keep trying!

Another year goes by and the cone of shame makes another appearance.  This time the sorting hat picked Mom!  As Mom now enters her 3rd decade she gets prettier every year.  For dinner we had pork chops and homemade chocolate cake.  The weekend before Nana and Gung Gung came down to celebrate and we had a big dinner – a huge salmon filet and a couple of steaks to keep our growing boys full.

Happy Birthday Mom!  Now for the cake and ice cream.  What she doesn’t know is that her new Yeti is in that bag.  🙂

The salmon filet was so big it took 2 boards to cook.

Sam got a tank and regulator from Uncle Deke this last weekend – these will come in quite handy!  We took them in today to Rum Runners Dive Shop to have them tested and checked out… we are sure they were upset we wouldn’t be renting nearly as much equipment next time around.  🙂

We didn’t think we would get another chance this summer to take a photo on the mountain, but this weekend’s trip provided us one last opportunity.  We originally started taking these photos for Henrietta and Lillian – we knew they would love to see the boys on the mountain.  Below is a latest photo, not one of our best, and a couple of the earlier shots from 2011 and 2012…. the boys sure have grown.