Flying High

Dale had his solo flight on Saturday, January 28, 2012.

I went with him and even went with him and his instructor on some pre-solo flight run through. This was the first time I have gone with him. I get motion sick very easily, so it took awhile for me to go with him. I was very nervous for his solo flight, but after flying with him, I really wasn't nervous at all, well a little bit, but not as much as I thought I would be. The first take off he had the plane was a bit off balanced, but that was due to the extra weight in the back, me! After 3 or 4 touch and go's his instructor and myself got out of the plane and he was on his own. I stood and watched him fly. I am so proud of him and excited that he finally gets to do what he has always wanted to do, learn to fly. He has a post on his blog in progress that he will share in more detail, but wanted to share a few pictures form that day.

Dale in the pilot seat.
I had a cool head phone with mic, but tries to take a picture with the small camera only to find out the battery was dead.

Downtown Houston from the plane

Coming in for a landing.
It was hard to see from the back seat

Another landing

Cool shadow of the plane

Dale in the plane all by himself

Headed to the runway

And he is off

Dale is flying that plane!!

All done.

He did it!!

 

Blonde Moments.....

I thought these were only for Brittney(haha, we love you Brittney), but I had a few last week.

Wednesday of last week we had over three inches of rain in the morning. That afternoon, I guess I figured we needed more water, but in the house. I was doing my monthly cleaning of my washer filter. There is a tube that you remove the cap from and drain any remaining water from the washer. You then take out the filter, clean it, and replace it. I did all that, except I forgot to replace the cap on the tube and started a load of laundry. I went upstairs to upload some basketball pictures. Luckily, Dale came home from work early only to notice water in the kitchen. I tried to flood the house. Again, I we were lucky that the water was contained to the laundry room, powder room and a small part of the kitchen, ALL TILE!! Dale got out the shop vac while I was soaking up the rest with our many beach towels conveniently located in the laundry room. I guess that's one way to clean your floors!

On Saturday, I locked myself in our bathroom(Miqui,you can stop laughing now), at least the toilet room in the bathroom. I went to leave and the door knob came off. I tried to put it back on the part that was still on on the other side. All I did was push that side off. I was trying to stick my finger in there to open it, but the door had been locked, so it wasn't as simple as pushing the lever. I don't keep anything sharp in the toilet room, magazines, toilet paper and feminine products are all that are in there. After many attempts to get out, I start yelling Dale's name through the hole. He was upstairs and it is really hard to hear anything from the bathroom up there. After a lot of yelling and banging on the door, Dale finally heard me and rescued me. Good thing he was home or I might  have had to  break the door down. On the bright side, I had a bathroom to use if  nature called.  

Things that make me smile!

Makenzie's team had their toughest game, all season, Friday night, and it was against our basketball rival, which we had already beat the first time we meet during District play. We came out on top, but barely. Makenzie probably had one of her best games ever. She caused turnovers, got some steals, rebounded like crazy and had some good moves and some good shots and this was all why the other team was taunting her over the  leg protection she wears on one of her shins. She said she heard it, but it didn't seam to affect her, especially at the free throw line. On a side note, the kid that was so obnoxious was almost going to have to wear leg protection , because I thought Dale might go down and kick him in the shin. The team was extremely happy to get this win and team out of the way!

I know I shouldn't laugh, but the look on the Refs face as he dodges the ball cracks me up!
We did feel a little sorry for him, because he had to ref the game before us by himself and started our game by himself until a Varsity ref got there and came in to help.

Making the lay-up after she stole the ball!

Another really nice shot

One of the coaches daughters.
We are the Cougars and playing the Spartans

I looked up and saw not only the JV parents cheering, but also the Varsity and Freshman parents.
This was only one section of fans also. There were fans to the right and left of this section.

We are the VISITOR!

This picture says it all!
Some look extremely happy and others have that look of relief on their face.

Happy Days... He's Been Cleared

Jacob was cleared on the 17th to play basketball again. His finger still looks weird, but the X-ray  looked straight, so the Dr gave him the OK to play!! He didn't start, which he usually is a starter, but he came off the bench and didn't miss a beat and didn't even look out of shape for not practicing for almost 3 weeks. At one point his hand got hacked at and it started to hurt, but other than that all went well, except we lost to a very good team. The team he played looked more like a high school JV team than a Jr High 8th grade team. They gave it their best though and Jacob was happy to be back out on the court with a basketball in his hands instead of the water bottles.

Warming the Bench

Walking out of Jacob's game Thursday night the coach asked when he gets his lefty back. We told him he has an appointment on Tuesday. He told us how hard it was to keep Jacob from wanting  to practice and that he still shot better hurt than the rest of the team. Jacob wants to play as much as his coach wants him to play.

Jimmer and Jacob sitting on the end of the bench.
We find out tomorrow if Jacob can return to playing.
You notice Jacob isn't the only team member with an injury.

Roll Tide

Jacob sent this picture to his LSU fans after the game on Monday.

 Jacob is not an Alabama fan, but he dislikes LSU more.

"Roll Tide"

Rough Weather

Rain, what is that? We haven't had a good rain in a very long time, but we got over 6 inches of rain this morning. There was a funnel cloud spotted 2 miles north of us and a tornado touched down 6 miles southwest of us. We really needed the rain, unfortunately some people got a little more than just rain. We are fine, just a little wet!

Taken at 9 am in the morning. It was really dark and started to hail.

Trying to capture the 2 inches of water running down the side walk

A house across the street from us. You can see the gutters were doing overtime 

Mother Nature made lake

The pool was to the top!

The other house across the street from us

You can see how much water was on the street.

LOL

These made me lol(laugh out loud) this week:

"What do you call 53 grown men watching the Texans first playoff game at home?... The Dallas Cowboys"  Thomas Bennett's facebook status

"I have a bad feeling that we're in for some tough times. Bloodshed, hatred, and humanity at its worst. Yes, it's time for church basketball." Steve Brown's facebook status

It was determined by a "nose goes" that Matthew would take care of Dale when he is old, mostly because Matthew wasn't around when the kids did the nose goes. Last night Dale was talking about when Jacob was going to take care of him. Makenzie reminded him that it was Matthew that got him. Dale said fine, he will get all my money and my plane. Jacob said, "He can't even ride a bike, what makes you think he could fly a plane."

This is a quote from Coach Hammond, one of the girls basketball coaches, as he was pumping up our Varsity as they were getting ready to play the number 23 team in the state:

"I came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass! And guess what?...I ain’t got no bubble gum"

By the way, we beat that #23 team in the state!! 

While at that basketball game, I was on the floor taking pictures. Coach Clayton, the Varsity football coach, told the mascot to go rub Coach Hammond's head. She shook her head no. Clayton said she needed to rub it for luck and just then, Hammond rubbed his own head and Clayton said, see he likes his head rubbed. A few moments later, Coach Clayton is saying to me, get a picture of this. The mascot did rub his head.

It must have brought us luck, we won!

  

It hurts to be hurt!

From starting Point Guard to water boy. It was hard to watch Jacob have to sit on the bench during his basketball game. The orthopedic doctor is working hard to have him playing in a few weeks. We will see. It's killing Jacob to have to sit also. The High School Varsity coach was at his game and told me he really wanted to see Jacob play. He asked which hand the finger was on and I told him the right. He said that's good since he is left handed. I love how all the high school coaches know that he is left handed.

We Love It

We started the New Year off with basketball, I know, what a surprise!
As we sitting at the dinner table last night we were going over the weeks activities, Tuesday, basketball, Wednesday, Mutual, Thursday basketball, Friday basketball, to which Makenzie said, "We Love it."
Makenzie played a team that they played in a tournament championship game. We were a little surprised when 5 members of that JV team were up on Varsity. Their JV team didn't look like the team we played a month earlier. We killed the JV team and our Varsity bench killed their Varsity. I made the comment that our JV could beat their Varsity and it occurred to me that we already had a month earlier.

This is who Makenzie had to guard this game

 This who she had to guard a month ago, this girl was on Varsity this time:

There was a bit of a size difference. Luckily our Varsity got to deal with it this go around!

The best thing from that day was a fashion statement by one of the dads from our freshman team. I only took a picture because another mom couldn't get her phone camera to work and I had my camera out.

Many husbands were informed that day that they would not be allowed to walk out of the house in this attire. Dale just might do it to embarrass me.