This one is from January 18, 2003… Bathtub time with the Rescue Heroes! Fast Forward to today, just 10 years later and it is hard enough just keeping them in the same room without arguing – especially in the bathroom. 🙂

Unlike last week, mother nature was much more cooperative for Sam’s soccer game – sunny and mid 70’s. Although it’s quite humid now as we are waiting for the Thunderboomers to come later this evening. We did get to make it to the pool today too as the boys were hounding us all morning to go. Mom and Dad declined to jump into the freezing water and we stayed in our clothes watching from the sidelines. Sam got in a couple of good plays today, but spent most of the game wandering around like he had never played before. After much yelling from the sidelines and a pep talk at half-time he did come around in the 2nd half. Fortunately for Sam, quite a few of the rest of the players were just as lethargic so he blended in rather well. They did win the game 3-0 as a couple of the mid-fielders were having a good game. Last game of the Spring session is next week, then a pizza party in the afternoon.

Went to see Sam play soccer today and it seemed like we were watching a match in England rather than North Carolina. Sam’s team won by forfeit as the other team didn’t have enough players until a few minutes into the game. Sam got in a couple of good kicks on defense and played over half the game. Good thing they won by forfeit though because the actual score was 2-2 at the end of the game. After the game, Rod and the boys rushed off to see Iron Man 3 at the 11:15am showing – almost completely full even that early and the boys loved it!

Lis and Sam made it to the Dinosaur exhibition in Greenville on Friday. Even though they went right after school there were already quite a few kids. Sam loved the exhibit and spent $32 of his own money on souvenirs. One of the souvenirs he bought was “Rex” a stuffed T-Rex. Last night when I was tucking him in, he had armed wrapped around Rex and made me say goodnight to him. 🙂

Sam’s first soccer game was last Saturday, April 20th. He didn’t get a lot of playing time, only about 7-8 minutes. Looks like most of the team had been playing together before because they all seemed to know each other and were very good about passing to each other. The next day, Sam and Alex went out to practice with Alex’s old team (everyone was glad to see Alex and wished he was playing again this year) and then on Wednesday Sam made it out to practice with his team. Below are a couple of photos from the 1st and 2nd games. They won their 1st game 1-0 and lost their second game 6-3. Sam did get to play the entire second game as they only had enough players to play the game.

Finally got everyone in a group shot… even Farley.

Nana and Gung Gung came down for a quick visit to celebrate Rod’s 50th birthday and have an early celebration for David’s birthday. The magic birthday hat was passed around as we had spaghetti and birthday cake for lunch and then went to the Bonefish Grill for a lovely dinner. As we were leaving the Bonefish Grill, Sam decided to be his usual gracious self and hold the door open for some incoming patrons. The only problem was that it was a revolving door and Sam kind of got stuck – much chaos ensued until we finally got him out of the way. 🙂 We also had a very nice brunch at the University Chophouse on Sunday before Nana and Gung Gung had to head back to Waynesboro. Thanks for a wonderful weekend!

Here is an oldie from the archives…. Lis and Rod in England for their delayed honeymoon. Nana took the photo and Alex made the trip too as just 5 months later he had his birth day. 😉

Sam added to his prolific collection of dinosaur renderings with these latest works including one special commissioned piece for Dad’s birthday.

For Easter Alex got two new posters for his room. One was his favorite soccer team, the Arsenal from London (who he always chooses on the Playstation) and the other was of Mario Chalmers’ “Shot heard round the World.” This was from the KU basketball legends of when Mario took a very long range shot with 3 seconds left to tie the game and send it into overtime. KU ended up winning the game(2008 NCAA Championship) in Overtime and Mario went on to the Pros and now plays with the Miami Heat. Alex was very happy to get “big boy” posters to replace his Bakugan and Naruto posters or as Lis likes to call them “japanese violence” cartoons.