We attended yet another BBBS party at the Beaumont Club last night, this time it was the annual Holiday Party. The food was the same as last year, tacos and/or fajitas from Chili’s and hot dogs. They also did a talent show once again and had a little dancing, but not nearly as much as the last time. I hope Dominique and Bianca enjoyed it, although maybe not as much as last year. For us, it was good seeing both of them again. We’ve been so busy lately that we haven’t been seeing them every week like we used to. I imagine that we’ll try to get together next week for one last time before we move to Denver. If only they could figure out email we could easily keep in touch. I guess we can try and teach them once again.

Keep your fingers crossed for us, as we are putting our offer on the house today.

As I mentioned over a week ago, we attended a Big Brothers Big Sisters Halloween party with Dominique and Bianca last night. Just like the Holiday Party, it was at the Beaumont Club, which still cracks me up. How can a bar that is nasty as the Beaumont be the hosting facility for these parties? Surely there is some place a little better that could be used. Regardless of the place, the parties still seem to be a good time for both the littles and the bigs.

We all attended the party dressed in costume. Dominique did wear my pimp suit from a year or two ago, and we added some nice gold shoes and a gold cane as well. Bianca bought a cheerleader costume while shopping with her mom and twin sisters that worked out perfectly. Kim bought an old black dress from Goodwill and a witches hat from Walmart. And I borrowed a convict suit from our friend Todd. All in all I think we looked pretty good. What do you think?

Is anyone dressing up for Halloween? Or does anyone have any good costume ideas, preferably something that is cheap? We are taking the kids to a BBBS Halloween party next week and we still don’t have costumes. I mentioned to Dominique that I have a pimp suit that I wore a few years ago, and now he wants to wear it. I guess it’s appropriate for him to wear, what do you think? All I know is that we have this weekend to figure out our costumes and I’m pretty clueless still. Someone help me, please!!

Well we survived the race, barely. Obviously we were out fairly late on Friday night because of the American Royal. I think we finally made it home around midnight and our wake-up call was at 6AM. Six hours of sleep is often enough to get by, but not after a night of partying. Saturday morning started off on the chilly side despite the warnings issued a couple of days earlier for a hot marathon with temperatures in the nineties.

The race itself actually could have been much worse. The course was mostly flat and the weather was perfect. I actually didn’t feel nearly as bad as I thought I was going to and in the end we finished just over twenty six minutes. That’s a little quicker than eight and a half minute miles. Not a bad pace for us, but no where near last year’s time of 23:29. Oh well, I’m now on my break from running so hopefully my body will make a full recovery soon.

We also filled the weekend with a couple of other sports activities. Later on Saturday afternoon (after a couple hour nap) we met up with our little brother and sister and went bowling. I don’t think either of them had ever bowled before, but all of us seemed to have a pretty good time. I know that I did, especially since I bowled really well, at least really well for myself. I had back to back games of 131 and 130. Typically I’m happy to break 100.

Yesterday we went golfing with one of my coworkers. He had never played before, just a couple of visits to the driving range. Likewise I hadn’t played in a long time, so it was an interesting start. Kim has really improved her golf game with lots of practice through work. In the end I had a pretty good round and only took one mulligan. My coworker also played really well for his first time, much better than I did on my first attempt. We’ll have to try to get out again before it gets too cold.

And finally last night I had my fourth hockey game of the session. Starting with this session they are doing something new, games between two different leagues. Once or twice a session each team will travel to the other rink to play a team they don’t usually play. Last night was one of those weeks for our team. We didn’t travel to a different rink, but our opponent came over from Kansas for a game. It was a high scoring affair, but my team hung on for the 11-9 win! We are still undefeated for the session since we don’t count the shootout loss.

I think I’ve neglected to mention it before but Dominique, my little brother from Big Brothers Big Sisters, is back in Kansas City. If you recall from months ago, Dominique went to live with his grandmother in Atlanta for a few months. He has been back for a month or so and we’ve seen him twice since then. The first time we went fishing at a nearby lake. We didn’t catch anything but we did get a few bites here and there. I guess fish do like beef jerky after all.

Yesterday we decided to take Dominique and Bianca to Super Splash. They both had talked about this water park before, and we finally gave in and took them there. Bianca’s birthday was a few days ago, so we thought this would be a nice way to celebrate. As their website says, “Super Splash USA is close to home, fits your budget, and is family fun for everyone!” It is actually about a mile from their house, just south of the stadiums, and it only costs $9 per person.

Although they don’t have too many different slides to ride, there is still something for everyone, and enough to keep you busy for a few hours. Plus there is one really large pool where we tried to teach both of them how to swim. I think they are catching on, but they were petrified of the deep end. They wanted so badly to jump off the diving board but I don’t think they could have made it back to the ladder. It probably didn’t help that one of the lifeguards had to jump in the water to help someone as we were debating whether to jump or not. There is always next time.

After a long day of work on Friday we quickly headed over to Phil and Doni’s to kick off the weekend. They were having a Cinco de Mayo party complete with burritos, various dips, and lots of Mexican beer. Kim and I were crowned the cornhole champs after beating everyone who stepped up to the plate. Phil must be practicing his toss since he was much better than I remembered in the past. We only beat him and one of his co-workers by two points.

Saturday morning we woke up early and decided to give spinning another try. In the past couple weeks we have run into the instructor of the classes and he was asking if we were ever coming back. It’s not that we do not enjoy the classes it’s just that the times they offer do not fit into our schedule very easily. It was actually a lot harder than I remembered but it was definitely a great workout.

From there we attempted to hit some balls at the driving range, but I think we were a little too exhausted from the spinning class. Kim was hoping to get in some last minute practice before heading to Pinehurst this week, but we left more frustrated than anything.. After tearing up most of the grass at the range we picked Bianca up and drove down to the Pet Expo. There were lots of exhibits to walk through along with free samples of all sorts, but we enjoyed the disc dogs the best.

Later in the evening we headed to the Brooksider to meet up with our friends and to watch the Kentucky Derby. I didn’t have any money on the line, but I did make some free picks that could have won me some money. Unfortunately Sinister Minister couldn’t hang on at the finish and ended up in 15th place. Oh well. We spent a little time walking around the Brookside Art Fair and headed back home before it was too late.

Kim and I had dinner and a couple drinks at Jazz after work on Friday. I was still a little stuffed from lunch, so I just ordered some fried pickles. Kim ordered her favorite dish, the chicken cacciatore. Since the servings are fairly large I was able to eat a little of her food in addition to the pickles. We even had some left over cacciatore to take home with us. Later in the night Doni and Phil came over to play some cards. Euchre was the name of the game and the guy team had no problem claiming victory!

Saturday started much earlier than a typical weekend morning. Earlier in the week Kim had volunteered our services to the Lakeside Nature Center for a couple of hours. Big Brothers/Sisters was having an Earth Day event there so we took Bianca and her younger twin sisters along to help out. We were put on weed picking duty around a little pond since we had little kids with us and probably shouldn’t be using any dangerous tools. I worked hard for two hours while Kim took the twins on a nature hike.

After stirring up my allergies at the nature center we dropped the kids off and headed back to Loose Park to play some golf. We got stuck playing behind a guy and his son, who was at most four years old. Perhaps this helped us relax though because we both played some of the best golf that we’ve ever played. I’m finally starting to hit the ball pretty consistently and my putting was much better than it has been recently.

As if that wasn’t enough time spent outside in one day, we then met up with some friends and headed out to the Royals game. Before Saturdays game the Royals were on an eleven game losing streak including a loss the night before to Cleveland. We must have brought some good luck with us even though Mike was wearing his Indian’s shirt. The Royals actually won again last night and are on a two game winning streak!

After the game everyone came back to our place to play euchre and to celebrate our friend Amanda’s birthday.

Yesterday was a very lazy day. After going to Planet Sub for lunch and enjoying $2 turkey subs, I didn’t leave the apartment for a couple of hours. When I did leave it was only to hit some balls at the driving range and then a quick trip through the grocery store. All of that laying around made it hard to fall asleep last night which has led to a sleepy Monday morning. I’m hoping the coffee will carry through the rest of the day.

Today’s entry comes from a soon to be homeowner. This weekend Kim and I spent a bunch of time working out the details to buy the house I mentioned last week. If all goes as planned we will be moving all of our stuff in just over a month, the weekend of May 12th. Overall I would say that it has been very nerve racking, but at the same time also very exciting!

Besides all of the time spent on the phone and signing our names on the dotted lines, we had a pretty busy weekend. On Friday night we went to a Shaking Tree concert. Saturday we played nine holes of golf (although Kim was on the phone most of the time) and then hung out at the Brooksider for the night. Sunday we ran some errands (including faxing in our official offer for the house), hung out with Bianca, and I even got in a game of hockey.

This week is definitely going to be a busy one. Heck, the next month or so is probably going to be jam packed. That should give me plenty to write about, I just hope that I still have the time to do it.

The delay in today’s update was due to yesterday’s double post that would not go away (although it is now gone). I didn’t notice that the update from yesterday was posted twice until I got to work this morning. I then spent quite some time trying to delete one of the entries. I’m not sure if it was blogger acting up, or my computer at home, but I cannot wait until the conversion to wordpress is complete.

Last night we hung out with Bianca for a couple of hours. Kim actually made dinner and it was pretty tasty. After we ate, Kim and Bianca did some homework while I worked on a couple of things for Ed Hearn. He wanted to put a new image on the front page, so I created a couple of examples for him and we eventually went with the one that is on there now. Other than that, I’ve been very busy at work trying to meet a deadline at the end of the month. I think I’m actually getting close to completing it, so perhaps I’ll have more free time in the near future.

Our weekend was full of some crazy weather changes. Friday was a decent enough night to sit outside and have a couple of beers. Before doing that, I went to SidePockets with some folks at work. This was put together as a going away party for Chad, who is leaving the company this week. Hopefully we’ll still see him around on Wednesday nights. From there I headed home to find Kim and Christie out on the porch having a couple of drinks. I joined them for a couple of hours, and then we called it a night.

Saturday was a beautiful day in Kansas City! Kim and I started off the day with nine holes of golf. I think both of us played much better than we did last year, even if it was only the first time we’ve been out this season. Kim’s new clubs seem to be doing the trick or at least giving her enough confidence to really hit the ball. I actually enjoyed golfing for a couple of the holes. From there we returned home to prepare for a little gathering at our place. Mike, Christie, and Maria all made their way over for some cornhole, cards, grilling, and drinks. We all had a great time and it was good to see everyone again.

We went from a beautiful day to a truly ugly one. We left the apartment with plans of running errands and hanging out with Bianca, but didn’t make it further than the nearest gas station. We stopped there to pick up a few drinks and as we were pulling in the national weather service was announcing severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings for most of the area. We decided to head back home to wait it out. In the end, there were three separate waves of storms that swept through the area, but luckily for us, our area was mostly untouched. It’s been said that “We had a full season of tornadoes today and tonight alone,” with something like 15 tornadoes spotted. Once the storms were all past us, we continued on with the errands. Kim and Bianca hung out at our place while I worked on the computer until my hockey game later in the evening. We won our game and I finally scored another goal! Even on my way home from the game, they were announcing more warnings for some of the counties just outside our area.

Today it’s cold outside, and the clouds are again forming out my window. Don’t you just love spring?