Friday night started out with a high school football game. I’ve wanted to catch one since I’ve been out here, but I guess we usually have plans on Friday nights. Anyway, a group of us went out to see Rockhurst beat up on Todd’s Alma Mater Liberty. Rockhurst is an all male catholic high school, just like my high school. Todd added that Rockhurst is probably the best team in the city. Good to see the catholic schools ruling another city. :)

From there most of us headed back to our place, where our visitors from Cincinnati were finally arriving. For the rest of the night we sat around our place and caught up on everything.

Saturday we started off the day pretty early, walked around both the Plaza and
Westport. Between shops we caught the end of the Buckeyes game, good to see them pull out the victory. For lunch we headed to Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ. I’ve heard about this place many times before, but this was my first time there. It will definitely not be the last, great stuff. The atmosphere is great, you eat your food right in the middle of a gas station. Their sauce is delicious!

Later in the night we all headed to Amanda’s moving out party. None of us had ever been inside of her place before, and when we finally did it will likely be the last time. She is moving way out to the suburbs sometime next month. The party was a good one though. To end the night we headed to George Brett’s since all the other bars were packed.

Bobbi and Eric left our place after we had some breakfast. From there Kim and I picked up the littles and headed out to Faulkner’s Pumpkin Farm. It was a bunch of fun, the only down side was that you didn’t actually go to the pumpkin patch. I wish I would have taken the camera, there were lots of photo opportunities.

That pretty much sums it all up. I played a hockey game later on Sunday night, but we lost and only had seven guys playing. We are now 1-1, with two games next week.

This morning Kim got promoted to Senior Underwriter, so congratulations to her!

We hung out with the kids again last night. They didn’t have much homework, so we had them read for a little bit while we finished making some pizza. We had dinner and then played a few rounds of spoons, while listening to O.A.R. I’m not sure if they actually enjoyed the band or were just impressed by my love for the band, but they took home a ton of my promotional postcards and a couple of posters. I told them to pass out the cards at school to all their friends. Maybe I can even turn this into an outing with them, we could hang up posters all around town for the upcoming concert. It would be much more entertaining that way and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.

I put up a couple of pictures from the weekend. I meant to include one of my new framed poster collection, but I forgot this morning. Gallery, the photo manager I use, was giving me all sorts of problems on the new webserver. I think I’ve worked all the issues out, so hopefully I won’t have any more problems. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

As discussed in the comments of yesterday’s post, the bearcats blew it miserably last night. Fortunately I didn’t have to watch the blowout for a few reasons:

1. We only have basic cable, so we do not get ESPN2 (or anything above channel 13 really). We usually watch sporting events that we don’t get over at Mike’s place. Well Mike played softball last night as a substitute on Joel’s team.
2. We needed to help our kids out with their homework. They got their midterm grades and both of them are failing at least one class. We set goals for the end of the quarter, and if they can reach them then we said we would do something special with them. We’ll see how they progress. Personally I spent a couple of hours last night doing Math with Dominique.
3. We had the kids out way too late and by the time we got back I’m sure the game was almost over anyway. Instead we headed down to Cold Stone, which just opened on the plaza a week or two ago!

Last night we took “the kids” out for a couple of hours. We didn’t really do anything too exciting, but we have plans to get together with them again this weekend.

Also this weekend Kim’s cousin Katie and her boyfriend Bill are coming to visit. There is a plethora of things going on this weekend, including another race. This time we are only running a 5K, part of this weekends Kansas City Marathon. I’m sure I’ll have lots of stories from another crazy weekend.

If you are a reader who is local to Kansas City, then you probably also enjoyed 97.3 The Planet while it was around. There is now a website (actually just a message board) dedicated to bringing it back. Check it out and while you are there, sign the online petition to “Save The Planet.”

Last night we participated in our first Big Brother/Sister event that didn’t involve the kids. We went to a happy hour at Lew’s with Mike and also brought Christie along so she could get some info on the organization. It was actually a really cool deal. We got free food and free drinks for two hours! There were probably 20 other ‘Bigs’ there and everyone we met was really nice. We’ll have to do more of these activities in the future.

Tomorrow is our big race! We tried to run this morning but I was having some back pains, so we decided to just turn around and spend the morning stretching. I guess we’ll have to ‘carbo load’ tonight and then get up around 6 tomorrow to get ready and head out. The race is part of the Jesse James Festival going on in Kearney, MO. I’m sure that I’ll have some interesting stories from the festival and other events throughout the weekend.

And here’s another update from Gabe, it looks like everything is almost back to normal for them:

It has been about 18 days since the hurricane hit, and life is really beginning to return to normal. I think you can tell from the tone of my first sentence that things are looking up. First, thanks again to everyone who has e-mailed and text messaged. My cell phone sometimes works, but not all the time, so sometimes I can get calls, and other times no. So e-mail is still probably the best way to keep in touch……….

The good news first – I got a job! I am so, so, so happy to report that I am now a Special Ed teacher at Destrehan High School. Today is Friday, my second full day, and I know that I am so lucky to have this job. Not only and I employed again – thank god – but it is a GREAT place to work, and not poor school district. I was in Orleans Parish schools, and those are about the worst of the worst schools – you name it, it is wrong. But this school – a competent administration, gorgeous building, respectful students, great teachers, computers, supplies, safety – it is great. I know I really lucked out and I do not take it for granted. As far as I know, I am the only one of the people from my old school to have found a job so fast. I now work out by Brad’s plant, so it is about a 20 minute commute – very easy. And for those of you that have visited, you know the area around where Brad works can be a little hillbilly……but I am in a little town that is not redneck at all, so again, it worked out.

We are officially at home, and not living there illegally anymore. When we first got home last Friday, we were not supposed to be living there even though we had water, power, and sewage. But they gave us the “all clear” yesterday, so I would say about 75% of my neighborhood is back. That is good. Stores are opening – Wal-mart, Papa Johns, etc. We even have a working gas station! But life is still odd – military planes and choppers everywhere, police and military police everywhere – and we have a curfew of 8:00 pm. Tomorrow I think we might have a little “outing” to Baton Rouge just to go out to eat and maybe see a movie! The things we all take for granted – freedom with our time, etc…..this has just been such an experience.

So that is the news for now, and life is slowly returning to normal, at least for us. Many, many people I know and worked with lost everything, including their jobs. Life is not normal for most people. I know many people have donated to the Red Cross, and I would definitely encourage that, even 3 weeks after everything happened.

Friday after work we headed out to Lawrence with Christie. Her sister plays volleyball for Michigan State and they were in a tournament at KU and were playing against KU that evening. Kim’s always been a volleyball player and fan, and I’ve seen my fair share of games as well. Not to mention my career as a volleyball player back in 7th and 8th grades. However, the version of volleyball they played was much different than I remembered. First of all they use rally scoring, which means that a point is won regardless of who served the ball. I guess because of this, they play each game to 30 points instead of the 15 that I am used to. They also play best of 5 instead of best of 3. I also noticed that the ball can hit the net on the serve, I think. The strangest of them all is this new position called a Libero. This is one person on the team who is likely the best defensive person. They are allowed to substitute into the game whenever they want as long as they play the back row. I guess the changes aren’t really that significant and I still could follow most of the game. Michigan State lost the game, but I was told that they won their other two games to take home 2nd place.

From there we drove back to KC, stopping along the way to pick up Joel and Amanda. We then had a little party over at our place. A few of our neighbors stopped by and we actually stayed up until 3AM or so. It was a fun night!

Saturday we were a little slow to get the day started. Kim and I walked down to the Granfalloon to watch part of UC’s loss to Penn State. I’m sure both Amanda and my boss Steve are real happy about that. I then watched some of the other football games and then eventually we headed up to Westport Art Fair with Christie. We walked around the booths for awhile and then chose Harpo’s to watch the Ohio State game. It was a real good game even though Texas won. Oh yeah, Colerain won that high school game against that Texas high school team, Ohio rules! From there we headed to George Brett’s to end the night.

Sunday we woke up a little earlier than the previous day. We played a full set of tennis and actually we both played pretty well I thought. It was way too hot to finish out the match though. I won the first set and probably would have dominated from there. :) After that we picked up Dominique and Bianca and went to a pet store to pick out some new fish for my tank. We settled on about 16 tiny neon tetras. We were supposed to only get 10 of them for $8 but the lady who fished them out couldn’t count I guess. We then played a few hands of cards with them and then had to drop them off so we could get over to Doni and Phil’s. They were cooking up some fajitas along with a tasting of salsas they brought back from New Mexico. The food was excellent and a great way to end the weekend.

The show on Friday night was a fun one. I taped the show, but had to do so without using my stand. Jack Johnson does not allow microphone stands at the shows, so I just clipped the mics to my shirt collar and hoped for the best. We’ll see how it turns out.

Saturday Mike and I took his brother to the Boulevard Brewery tour, a great way to start a Saturday! From there we went back to my place and started up some cornhole games with Christie. Kim finally got back from Cincy sometime that afternoon and Doni showed up later on with Gabe. Another fun night!

Sunday I worked on my computer while Kim continued her studying for a upcoming test. I removed linux and installed Windows XP on the server machine. I’m hoping that I can get everything running on there before the end of the week, although I’d also like to re-launch the site with a new design. I guess I could do that later though.

Later on in the day we took Dominique and Bianca out to Chuck E. Cheese’s for a couple of hours. I always remember that place being so much bigger than it actually is, or maybe it’s just the one that we went to that is small. We had a blast though, and the kids did as well!

Last night I picked Kim up from work and we headed over to Dominique and Bianca’s house. We talked with their mom for a little bit and then the four of us headed back over to our place to pack up a picnic lunch (or dinner). We took our food and drinks down to the park and ate near the big fountain. Afterward, Dominique and I tossed a football while Kim and Bianca walked around the park. By the end of that I was feeling pretty tired so we then headed down to the Discovery Channel Store on plaza. There we all played with the remote controlled cars and other toys. After that, it was already getting late, so we took the kids back home and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Kim decided that I was feeling good enough to start running again. We have been trying to train for a 10K that we are supposed to run on September 17, but haven’t run more than two times a week. We should be running at least three times a week and that should include a five mile run this week. I ran four miles this morning on the treadmill and about died. I’m not sure I can do another mile, or another two miles plus to finish a 10K. This should be interesting…

Last night we took Dominique and Bianca out once again. This time Dominique wanted to go to the mall and do some shopping. We went out to Independence Center which isn’t too far from their house but they had never been there. We ate some pizza in the food court and then split up. While the girls spent forever in Build-A-Bear, we were off to check out anything sports related. Dominique found a few things he wanted to buy but he didn’t have any money. We encouraged them both to save up anything they can and we can always go back out to the mall. They are supposed to be helping someone move today, so maybe they’ll make a little money from it. After an hour we all met up and then checked out the pet store. That’s always an easy and fun way to kill time. From there we dropped them off and then headed home to take care of some unpacking and cleaning. We are so busy that the apartment might not ever get clean. Kim is in Minnesota on a business trip so who knows what tonight will bring…

Last night we picked up Dominique and Bianca and brought them over to our apartment. We cooked pizza and also baked a cake for Bianca’s 11th birthday tomorrow. Kim forgot to buy the candles, so we had to use one of our large scented candles instead, haha. Kim did buy some dominos and a purse filled with makeup for her that she seems to enjoy. We tried to play dominos but soon realized that none of us had any idea how to really play. So instead we set them up a few times and knocked them all down, everyone knows how to do that! If anyone has any tips on real domino games, send them our way…

The time flew by and before we knew it we had to take them back home. They seem to be having lots of fun though and never want to return home. It must be all of the dedicated attention they get when with us. I never realized how spoiled we must have been growing up. :)

I snapped a couple of quick pictures of our party, check ’em out.