Alesha

Since Alesha is down in Utah at BYU she doesn't make it on the blog a whole lot. So this is a blog for her.

She seems to like it down there and is doing really well in school. Her class schedule is crazy 9 class this semester that keep her in school till 6:30pm some nights and up to class by 8am most days.

In another week she will start doing some work in a real class room. She's alittle stressed about it all. But, she's bright and smart and will do fine.

Aside from school she has managed to find time to play on a basketball team. She WAS having lots of fun. Evening getting up early to play. Most of her teammates had not played much before, so she was getting to impart her 4 yrs of HS ball knowledge on them. ( I think she really enjoyed that part) then she pulled a muscle in a game. Let it rest a day or two, was back at the gym and hurt it real bad! Tore it some and a really bad sprain.

So she ended up on crutches for a week or so. Dr. thought it should be longer. But, Alesha told him she was not crutching around campus anymore!! She does have a brace and did play alittle the other night... hope her DR doesn't find out!! They had to play BYU's girls soccer team. Guess for soccer players they play basketball pretty well. She felt she need to try to help out. They ended up getting their butts kicked pretty good though.

She also had to endure having a couple more Moles taken off that looked precancerous. They were and she has a follow up in a week or so. They don't seem to worried. They caught them early.

We really miss her and are looking forward to her trip home at the end of April for a few days. She has to go to school all summer so we won't get to see her much.

WARNING

I have learned a lesson on identity theft the hard way and want to impart my knowledge.



I work all over the west side of the state as you know. When at a job I always tucked my wallet under the seat so it couldn't be seen. One night in downtown Olympia my wallet was stolen. And a couple blank checks from check book. (we did not discovery this till a few days later) As you can guess the debit card was used for a couple hrs till I put a stop to it.

What really caught me off guard was to find I had very little money left in my checking account a few days later due to them making copies of my checks and spending all over Olympia. Turns out they made up checks that look just like mine and the #'s even look like the next set of #'s

We are lucky are credit Union is being really great and working to put all the money back in our account.

What really worries me is once these people( there were 2 or 3 different sigs on the checks) can't hurt me anymore, they will just go steal someone else's wallet and take from them till they are stopped and then someone else. Doesn't seem to be a crime the police want to spend alot of time on.

Don't leave your wallet or purse in you car and never leave your checkbook with your drivers license. My check book will always be with me or my home from now on.

I really didn't know what all people could or would do. Was a real eye opener.

It's state time again

Yes, at our house WIAA high school state tournaments are a big deal. First, we get to go and make money. But, it's much more than that. After being at most events over the last 7 yrs for work and many more before that with our kids or as coaches. There is something magical about them. Some we like better than others but, they all have that special quality that makes them a state tournament.

This past weekend found us up at the Tacoma Dome for wrestling. It pretty awesome to see 24 wrestling mats spread out all over the dome floor. I shoot both Friday and Sat. With the family (this time that included-Doug, Melia and Jesse) coming up to booth on Sat. They have really become family affairs. It's nice to work where your family is. But, it is a long day. Up at 6am, home afer 10pm. Out side of drive time, we are on our feet most of the day. On Sunday we all were alittle more tired than usual.

I'm looking forward to the next round which will be State Basketball in Yakima. Hopefully some of the family will be there too!!

Diner for 6 no 2 make that 8

Meal time can be rather interesting in the ole household. To make things easier we have divided the nights up with Tressa taking a couple of nights, Melia a couple and Dee Dee and I doing the rest. We each have our own styles to fixing the meals and as well as our needs from the food. Jesse will eat anything and enjoy it. Spencer just needs lots of it. I like simple things, Dee Dee needs a balance to keep her blood sugars level. Melia is kind of limited in what she likes and with Tressa it depends on where she is at in her pregnancy. Some times for Tressa nothing sounds good and at other times if it doesn't move she is ready to eat it.



When it comes time to cook it is kind of similar. When Tressa feels up to it she likes to make new and different meals with lots of prepartion. Melia makes great spaghetti but after that the menu is grilled cheese or pizza sandwhiches. I tend to do more of the cooking because Dee Dee gets back to late from her work. My meals are more simplistic than Tressa's, with the focus on not too expensive, have plenty of food and be able to do it with the Grandkids helping out. The kids better look out when the Grandkids are able to express their desire for what they would like to eat because there is no doubt, thats what I will be fixing.





The key to meal preparation around here is flexibility for you never know for sure how many mouths there will be here to eat. When all else fails we fall back on Chili dogs because you know you just can't go wrong with chili dogs.

All I needed to know about relationships I learned at state.

Once again the family worked the State Wrestling Tournament for NSP with most of us boothing the pictures. Through the years of doing this we have all compared stories of our time working with the public so this is what I have learned about relationships and other things from the booth.



First if you have divorced your wife never buy the best photos of your child when she is also at the booth. I had a women this weekend just rip into her ex at the booth about buying the pictures that she wanted then continued chewing him out to me for 5 minutes after he had left. It might have been better to let her have a couple of the pictures.



Second if you hand your wife the credit card and tell her to just get the ones she wants, don't go crazy when she buys most of them ...if not all of them. Afterwards a simple smile and "those will look great honey" will be enough.



Third, don't be surprised when your child doesn't want to stand in a public place with their friends while you look at each picture and tell them what they were doing wrong, for some reason they don't seem to enjoy this much.



On the other side of the issue three is about the limit of photos you can show to another person to point out how great your child is. After 3 they just lose all interest.



Four. If the pictures are of a wrestling tournament, it is of little help to blame the person selling the pictures that the only pictures of your little angel are with him on his back when he was pinned in the first 15 seconds of the match. It should be obvious that he needs to do a little better to get a better picture.

Five. This is Spencers favorite- Don't ask to see the pictures of your little swimmer/wrestler(etc) before he/she actually performs. And Yes people do actually ask to see photos of their child before an event.



We have all enjoyed the time, well most of it anyway, that we have spent working for NSP but we really enjoy the story sharing time of our adventures in dealing with the public. It always makes our place seem a little more sane when we compare whats going on outside of here.

We have movement

Life has gotten more interesting for Dee Dee in the mornings now as Isabell is fully mobile. Its like a flash back to 20 plus years ago with her watching 3 little kids below the age of two. Madison is the more cautious of the 3 as far as movement goes but all three of them know their likes and dislikes and certainly want some of the Grandma time.

Isabell is taking to following after people as they move about the house. It won't be long and I will have to enlarge the kitchen so I can have the kids on the counters and still have room to make the meal. As it is right now Peyton comes a running as soon as anyone goes into the kitchen to start to cook. Sometimes it takes him and I a little longer to fix the meal because we have to take a few time outs to dance around when a good song comes on the radio. He likes to stand up on the counter by the window where there are no cupboards to get in his way and dance, clap and sing(or make his own noises) to the songs.

As for Madison she is into flying on the trampoline, well at least she would probably like to fly but I'm not ready to go that far with her yet but she certainly does like to bounce on it with someone.

Logger action

It has taken a few years to get the excitement back into our high school but I think that it is finally back in Logger town. We have been working hard at the school to get the kids to be excited about being involved in what is happening but with the help of some new blood in the school on the staff and some good kids leading and an exciting basketball team to watch we have once again pack the gym.

Peyton and I went to watch the David and Goliath game of Onalaska against Winlock. Winlock tallest starter is 6'9" and shortest is 6'3", we have one player who is 6'4" the rest are below 5'11". For most of the first half Peyton stayed in my arms as we stood along the wall. By half time my Middle School team was standing by me and playing with Peyton. He was dancing to the band clapping with the crowd and making the crowd noises along with the students. During the latter parts of the third quarter and into the 4th he was mostly standing in front of me. When one of the girls move over into his way he went up to her with both hands and for a second I thought he was going to slap her on the rear but instead he gave her a little push about half way up the upper portion of her legs. When she didn't move out of his way he reached up even higher to try again, at that point I picked him back up before he gotten around to pushing her again.

We ended up having to go home before the game was over because he was getting a little to comfortable and wanted to run around more than he should. Dee Dee was at the game taking pictures for the year book so we have photos for this one.