Life's a Ball, Even When You Drop One

January 16th was my dad's birthday. My mom was sneaky and called a bunch of my dad's buddies to meet up for a surprise game of basketball. My dad thought we were all headed to the gym - with a quick stop by the church to drop off a case of water for a service project (nice decoy mom!).

When we got to the church, my dad walked in the gym to drop off the case of water and "Surprise!" Except my dad was so confused it was somewhat anticlimactic. He saw some of the guys and said, "Hey, you guys are here for the service project?" They started to laugh and my dad got more confused. Then they tossed him the basketball and he got even more confused. It took him about 5 minutes to grasp that my mom had told him a giant lie about the service project. Happy birthday dad!

Next came the big day - the 49er/Giants game. I wore my helmet to breakfast to show how committed I was to the game. After church it was all 49er gear all day long. I went to sleep at half time and my mom said she could hear me on the monitor saying, "hut one, hut two, hut three," until finally at "hut six" my room got quiet and I fell asleep. I awoke the next morning and my parents broke the news to me. Williams had touched a ball with his knee and then fumbled a ball in overtime - 49ers lost. I understood the magnitude of this loss immediately and have been walking around ever since saying, "Niners sad, niners sad." Maybe next year Niners.

Lastly, I had a ball with my Grandpa who popped into DC for a last-minute business trip. Poor Grandma missed the fun, but I'll see her in a few weeks. Grandpa gave me fudgsicles, played baseball with me, and let me stay up late to watch a movie and eat popcorn with him. We also visited the MLK memorial and took a trip to the car wash. Seriously, does it get any better than that!?! What a ball!

Knock Knock

A few mornings ago, Dave and I woke up around 7am to a loud door knocking sound coming from INSIDE of our house. Next we heard someone yell, "Let me out of here!"

It was Bodie. He'd launched himself out of his crib and was "trapped" inside his own room, but trying to get out. Hilarious. So the front of his crib came off and we turned his bed into a toddler bed. This act was meant with incredible joy - could he jump any higher?!?!

There was no doubt our little curious kid would adventure around his room once the lights went off, and he did. We heard him take several basketball shots into his hoop, climb on and off his ladder to turn the light on and off (yes, we gave him a ladder - if you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em), and his box of blocks were poured around his room. But then it got quiet and he wandered back into bed, so we headed to bed ourselves.

This time were were awoken by a loud scream at 3:30am in the morning; then it got completely quiet. Then softly on the monitor we heard "mom, help mom." Huh? Did he just say help mom? Then quiet. Next a loud demand "Get out Lightening McQueen, get out!" What? I thought, I need to actually wake up, this doesn't make sense. And as I began to stand up to investigate what was going on, a definite plea, "HELP mom! HELP!"

I opened his door and didn't see Bodie in his bed. Instead I saw just his feet sticking out from under his bed. He was completely pinned underneath his bed....where he had crawled to rescue his Lightening McQueen matchbox car. SOOOOO funny. I lifted up the crib and told him to crawl out then asked what happened. His response, "Stuck mom. Scary."

Once freed, he climbed right into bed and didn't wake up until 8:30am. I can only imagine what tonight's adventure will be, stay tuned....

Jumping into 2012!

It's official, I did a "jumper!" If you know my family, you know they jump everywhere they go - it's their signature photo. They even did a jumper at the end of the aisle after they got married. They literally have jumpers all over the world. Until yesterday, I just stood there, unable to get air. But yesterday it happened and my mom caught it on film. Check it out!

Solo jumper....

Jumper with my dad.... 

We wrapped up 2011 with a trip to Vermont. All of my dad's family joined in the fun so there were 12 kids and 12 adults for the festivities - yes, my Nana had her hands full!

The two things I said all week were, "Brr, chilly outside" and "Let's race." With eleven kids besides me, there were TONS of people to race and LOTS of trucks to choose from. The other one is obvious, Vermont is beautiful and COLD! My cousins got Nerf swords for Christmas. Those things are awesome. You can swing full speed at someone and not get in any trouble. Needless to say, I tried them out...several times.

We have a video of the trip, but it seems to be having a hard time loading. We've posted a link below, but i don't think it's working. Give it a try...

No Christmas is Complete Without a Little Fire

The St.Jeor family sent us the coolest gift - lanterns to "light up the night" on Christmas eve, so Santa could see his way to our house. The lanterns are made of biodegradable paper, about 4 feet tall, and have a block-like candle that gets attached to wire at the base of the lantern to make it float into the sky.

This all seemed pretty simple to me, however my parents decided to not only read the directions, they decided to debate their contents. One small challenge here - the directions for the lanterns were written by someone who's first language was definitely not english. And while very entertaining to read, some of the gaps in the directions made my parents over analyze the basic instructions.

As they debated back and forth, I sat - as I was told to - on the planter box. As my dad lit the lantern and they went back and forth on how it would eventually fly, I sat patiently saying "light, light, light." Then suddenly - just as the directions had stated - the lantern self lifted in to the sky. WOW! It worked! None of us could believe it. It just kept going up and up and up and OH NO!

While my parents focused so heavily on the process, no one cared to look up and realize they were lighting the lantern directly under our 50' pine tree in our front yard. Yup, the lantern, and 4' paper enclosure, and it's fire - floated right into the tree, then up, and up and wedged itself into the middle of the tree where it burned.

In what is considered a "less-than-merry" family moment, my parents tried to decide who's stupidity was responsible for what we hoped wouldn't be a call to the fire department on Christmas eve. I got my football helmet on (wouldn't you?) and came back and sat calmly on the planter box, which was directly under the burning fire in the pine tree. I pointed - in case no one had realized - and said, "tree, fire!" Neither of my parents looked amused but I was quickly moved to the porch to watch the spectacle.

Fortunate for all of us, the lantern eventually burned itself out without igniting the tree or our house on fire - whew, that would have been a little too much "merry and bright" for us. Thanks St.Jeors for the cool gift and the story to last a lifetime!

The daytime was far less eventful. We visited the National Christmas tree and went to the National Harbor to see the water skiing Santa and his reindeer. They had elves that did flips on knee boards and air chairs - a descent show for guys skiing in 43 degree water, brrr!

As you may have heard, I'm not too thrilled with the idea of sitting on Santa's lap this year. Attempts have been made and well, it hasn't ended well. So my mom and I compromised. Below is my official "Photo with Santa" for this year. While it's not the real guy, we both look happy in the picture!

And finally, the joys of Christmas morning came today. We got up to find our living room filled with cool stuff. Here are some photo highlights from the morning.

I got a new ski helmet and goggles for skiing!

 This is me giving an M&M to my Grandma and Grandpa on the webcam - they spent Christmas with us "electronically."

 My grandparents gave me my first bike - I love it!

 Like my new swim goggles!?!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Merry Everything!

Another action-packed week; this Christmas stuff is awesome.

We checked out "ZooLights" for the first time and LOVED it. The national zoo stays open late during the month of December and has a ton of lit animal shapes - very cool. If you've never been, I highly recommend it. And if you don't live in the DC area, I'd like to once again, thank you for your tax dollars that make all the stuff in our town free.

Next was my buddy Dru's birthday. She had it at the Hidden Oak Nature Center and we got to see lots of cools stuff like live turtles, snakes, and a giant lizard (but the guy who worked there kept correcting us saying it was a fancy dragon name - it looked like a lizard).

We saw a stuffed fox, climbed an indoor tree house, and compared stuff like leaves and butterfly wings under a microscope. Dru and I just needed white lab coats to look "official."

Then it was off to four parties in one day - whew. Let me just say, our friends know how to throw parties. One house had more than 20 desserts displayed on the table. Oddly, they were just high enough that I couldn't reach a single one without asking for help - hmm, I'm sure that was an oversight. Another house had decorated an entire twelve foot Christmas tree with blown glass elephant ornaments - yes, they're Republicans. It looked really cool. They had kids' crafts - I made an ornament and a wreath, they had treats, and they had lots of fun people. The day was slam-packed with fun.

We topped off our week with a caroling party. My dad absolutely LOVES to sing Christmas carols. The odd thing is that he doesn't know all of the words to a single Christmas song, and really isn't too worried about learning them. But what he lacks in skill he makes up for in spirit. He sings the loudest and does lots of wild motions with his arms as he sings. He definitely has the most fun. So every year my mom invites friends over to go caroling and every year she prays people show up - because with or without a crowd, my dad will head out to knock on doors and sing his heart out - he's the best. We had a great group this year. My buddy Jackson and I were in charge of the bells. We stood in the front with our Santa hats on and shook the bells while everyone else sang. We did add an occassional "Hey!" once in a while.

I have been practicing my Christmas songs. A few of my favorite lines that I sing completely out of context in the middle of conversation are, "You better not cry. You better not pout. He sees you when you're sleepin. To town!" and "Santa baby!" Oh, and jingle bells," check this out...