Have I mentioned that I’m really not a fan of the cold? No, really. Despite being mostly body fat, I’m still too skinny to develop a good insulating layer. Despite loving Virginia, it’s friggin cold here. Last Wednesday we saw our real snow of the season. We got about an inch that stuck around for most of the morning. It was all melted and gone by the end of the day, but when the boys got home from school there was still enough for a brief snowball fight. It’s been a bit warmer than that since then, if you can call 40 degrees ‘warm’. Being a California weather weenie, I’ve been bundling up like I’m hunting penguins in the arctic (yeah, I know, shaddup. I like the image).
It was actually fairly warm today (about 56) so we had fun with the boys building bird feeders. Turbo was working on getting some of her glass done so we can get it up on the website I created for her. I’ll link it once it has some actual glass on it.
Everyone seems to be over the long bout of being sick that hit us all.
The boys got their second ‘six week’ report card. I guess that’s how they do it here. Both boys did very well, and improved over last, uh, six weeks semester or what ever they want to call it. Dane is pretty much at the top of his class in reading, near it in math (got A’s in both). Ty is doing very well, but they way they grade for kindergarten is a bit off. He can count to 100 by ones, fives, and tens, which is well ahead of where they are supposed to be (counting to 20 is par right now). He’s being rated as ‘at expected level’, even though he vastly exceeds it. Teresa has conferences with both the boys teachers on Monday, so hopefully we’ll learn a bit more about that.
Ty’s teacher has a heavy Virginia (read banjo plucker) accent that Ty has picked up on. He’s pronouncing Half as a two syllable word now, as well as many other long A words. We’re pretty sure he’s just emulating his teacher because he knows it mildly annoys us.
We are back to the battle of the wills getting the boys to try new things for dinner (wipe that smile off your face Mom). We’ve had more success with Dane because he’s actually liked many of the new things we’ve had him try. Ty refuses just out of pure stubbornness. When we were in Redding we made him take a bite of spaghetti. He normally likes spaghetti, but didn’t want to try this because it wasn’t the ‘skinny noodle’ kind that he likes. He sat there with that bite in his mouth, refusing to chew or swallow it, for two and a half hours. Just sat there. Being stubborn. For two and a half hours. I know my mom is laughing herself silly at this, thinking about all the years of payback I’m in for. Yeah, yeah, all your dreams come true mom. 😉
So that’s the latest and greatest with us. What’s up with you lately?
You can email the boys directly if you like at Ty or Dane at our domain, blackwood.ws. I won’t post a direct link to avoid the spam that inevitably comes with doing that. If you aren’t smart enough to figure out the email addresses, you probably shouldn’t be allowed on a computer anyways. 🙂
Just about everyone has been sick lately. Ty started it when he started getting a fever and stayed home from school 2 weeks ago. Turbo and Dane got it mildly, then I got it hard last week, and was out of work for a day and a half. That’s the first time I’m missed work from actually being sick in years. Then I missed a day the next week from getting it again. Ty has been up and down with the fever for 3 weeks now. Turbo was sick Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week, but luckily had Tuesday and Wednesday both off work. Apparently it’s a flu that we keep passing back and forth. Yay.
Dane has been the lucky one so far. He’s been slightly sick, but hasn’t been hit nearly as hard as the rest of us. Ty also got Pinkeye from school. He gave it to Dane who missed two days of school, and now Teresa is fighting it off. They never bothered to tell us it was going around. Luckily she’s just about over it now.
Everyone is still feeling iffy with random low grade fevers. We all have a hacking cough that seems to come at the end of the illness. Hopefully, we’ll all get past this soon and get back to being healthy.
The boys both had soccer games over the weekend. Ty’s team (the Troutville Transformers) continued their winning streak (except for a single tie, they haven’t lost) by winning 3-1. Dane’s team (the YellowJackets) continued their perfect record of no wins (with one tie) by losing 4-1. The 1 on Dane’s team came Dane himself. He actually followed through instead of kicking the ball and stopping to see what happens, and made a 1/2 field run with the ball, got around 2 defenders, and scored the goal unassisted. He was very happy. It’s his first goal/point in any game he’s played.
Somehow, both Blackwood boys are either gravitationally challenged, or are both inordinately attracted to dirt. They both spend more time on the ground than they do running after the ball. They seem to have developed independent habits of kicking the ball (or at it in many cases) then falling to the ground in such a dramatic fashion that many NBA players would be envious (and some of Don King’s fighters). I spend half the game yelling “Get up Dane/Ty!”. They don’t just fall. They flop dramatically, then look around like they are waiting for Olympic scores (damn french judges). If they did this once or twice, it’d be pretty funny. But they do it just about every time the come in contact with the ball.
Come to think of it, they both did pretty well at the game over the weekend. Maybe it was just a phase that they had to go through. Or maybe gravity just loosened it’s grip on them. They still fell occasionally, but didn’t make a big production out of it, and it wasn’t every time they touched the ball.
Dane has another game Tuesday night. Hopefully they’ll win at least one this season. They didn’t start practicing until two weeks after most of the other teams did (coaches out of town), and seem to be on average, smaller/younger than the other teams. They are still having fun though, so that’s all that really matters. He comes home after every game smiling, so it’s really not an issue.
The boys both have bikes, but there’s really no good place to ride them at the house. This is the 2nd time we’ve taken them to a local school to ride, and only the 2nd time they’ve ridden without training wheels. The don’t wan to go, but have fun once we get there. If we could get them riding more often, they’d be buzzin around all over the place.
Here’s a few videos of them riding around.
Me working with Ty
Ty all by himself (ish)
Ty taking a bit of a spill. He kept going after this one though.
Ty ‘teaching’ Turbo how to balance on the bike…
Dane on a long ride
Both Boys riding together
Ty took a pretty nasty spill at the end where he smacked his head pretty good on the asphalt. The helmet did it’s job and he wasn’t really hurt, but it scared the jeebus out of him. He didn’t want to ride again but we made him climb back on the bike for one last ride so he could ‘show the bike who’s the boss’. He troopered through it and rode around the court again.
We are going to try to get them out on their bikes at least once a weekend so they get some practice and feel comfortable on them. We’ll have them off road mountain biking with daddy soon enough.
Both boys are currently enrolled in soccer. Dane is on the Troutville yellow jackets. They’ve lost both games so far, but are improving with every practice. Ty is on the Troutville Transformers. They’ve won both games, and Ty scored one goal in the first game, and two in the second. We’ll have video up of the soccer games soon.
Well, I bit the bullet and joined the Blog world. We’ll have family updates and such as they come in. Check back often, we might have actually updated…