Christmas 2008

Baseball. That’s a lot of what this year was about. Baseball. Lot’s of baseball. But I suppose I am getting ahead of myself by talking about the thing that seemed to dominate much of this past year. In our last letter, I promised an update and report on our trip to Disney World. So since that’s what I promised, that’s what you’ll get along with other usual yearly stuff, whether you really wanted to hear about it or not.
Thanks to the fact that our neighbors have four kids, our two families qualified us as a “Magical Gathering” which we’re pretty sure got us nothing other than to jokingly use the word “Magical” all during the trip. It was a wonderful trip and all of us had an awesome time. Grayson really latched on to Thunder Mountain Railroad and I think over the four days we were there, he probably rode it at least 15 times. We visited each of the Disney Parks while we were there and Grayson went on every significant ride. He was barely tall enough and despite some fear, he tried them all. He was also lucky enough to get chosen to fight Darth Vader in a Jedi Training Session.  Our biggest issue of the trip was losing Luke (our neighbors’ son) for about 15 minutes. That was pretty scary. Other than the very end of our trip, Grayson’s blood sugars were very good. I remember checking him after we rode Space Mountain, expecting to see the adrenaline having pushed him up, and instead seeing a very nice 120. After Disney, Becky and I managed to hook up briefly with my college roommate, Eric, and his wife, Cindy. We’d not seen them in over 10 years, so it was good to finally get together.
The trip also served another purpose, which was to get together with my parents and have sort of a time to remember my grandmother since there’d not been a funeral (her wish of course). While there, we all spent an afternoon with my grandfather, had an early supper at Sonny’s BBQ and just hung out. That ended up being the last time I saw my grandfather as he went to be the Lord in May of this year. He’s always been an influential part of my life in many small ways. I’m just so grateful that just a couple years ago, that he accepted Christ. It gives all of us the confidence that we’ll get to see him again.
In January Becky began substitute teaching at Grayson’s school. Our county pays pretty well, by most standards, and having her at the school is always good in case Grayson has a medical emergency.  She generally gets the amount of work she wants but it tends to be a little bit feast or famine at times. She’s now got some great stories and it’s allowed her to connect with an even greater amount of teachers and parents (and kids of course) in our area.
Just as baseball was cranking up in the spring, I ended up going to the Python Users Conference (PyCon) this year. It was my 2nd year to go and for this conference I was selected to give a short talk I had proposed. It was a great experience and while I don’t think I particularly provided a lot of value in my talk, it was still fun to be a part of such a large conference (over 1000 people). It was also my first visit to Chicago. I’m looking forward to going back in March of 2009, but instead of speaking, I am currently slated as the photography coordinator.
The league rearranged the age groups slightly so that Grayson had to move up to machine pitch instead of coach pitch. I coached his team, the Brewers, and we did pretty well. Of the eight teams in our league, we finished fourth with a .500 record. Grayson did particularly well considering he’d only been playing t-ball a year prior to that season. He primarily hit dribblers down the 3rd base side and beat them out (he’s pretty fast). Defensively he was my backup 2nd baseman so he ended up playing a lot of outfield in the spring.
At the end of the spring season, Grayson wasn’t ready to stop playing, so when one of the other coaches created a 2nd all-star team, he decided he wanted to try it. But part of the deal is that we would have to miss the first tournament because we needed a vacation.
Becky’s parents totally hooked us up and rented us a place on Dauphin Island, AL. Because it was so big, we were able to go with our other neighbors (the Fox family). We spent a week there, soaking up the sun, boating, breathing the salt air, fishing, shrimping, watching a few dolphins, and generally getting the rest we really needed. It also helped me finally shake off the bronchitis I’d been fighting for weeks.
After Dauphin Island, we headed over to Gainesville to see my parents. While we were there, we all went to a Tampa Bay Rays game, which was Grayson’s first major league game.  Then it was back home to start the travel baseball season. Grayson played in three tournaments. We practiced every night (2 or 3 hours) which wasn’t all bad since I ended up getting plenty of exercise while helping out.
In July, we left for a few days for a quick trip to the Atlanta area. It was actually our first time to really be back (if only briefly) since moving. We went to a Braves game and we got together for an afternoon with the Maxwell family. We just couldn’t believe how the girls had grown. From there, Becky and Grayson went on for a few days in Warner Robins, GA, to see the Bakers and the Scotts while I went to Portland, Oregon, for another conference. My short time there was pretty crammed with classes and talks, but I managed to work out an evening to see Bob Cargill (my buddy and neighbor growing up) who lives there now. It was great to spend a few hours catching up with him.
No sooner had travel baseball ended and it was time to start school (2nd grade) and Fall baseball. The older kids had moved on and now the younger kids, like Grayson and his friends were the new leaders of the team. The summer of working every night on the fundamentals had really prepared him, and he played extremely well, including hitting his first grand slam. There’s still a lot I want to improve on as a coach, but this Fall season stands out because I had an awesome set of parents and assistants to work with. We had very, very few issues which is huge as a coach and a parent.
Grayson continues to do well at school. He doesn’t like reading very much, but he’s really excelling at math (although I suspect he’d tell you he doesn’t like it either). Once again, Grayson’s got a really wonderful teacher and we continue to have a great relationship with Nurse Terri.
For Thanksgiving this year, my parents were able to come up. Visits from them in the past were short and infrequent due to their need to be home to help my grandparents. It was nice this time to have them for a whole week. We had an awesome day trip to the Corvette Factory in Bowling Green, KY, and then on up to Mammoth Cave National Park where we took an amazing two hour tour through some of the caverns. We all loved it and have vowed to go back to see more.
Our neighborhood small group at church just rocks! We love them all, and really enjoy doing life together with them. Whether its eating supper together, praying together, playing spoons or hanging out watching the Tennessee Titans, it’s just a great time being with them.
We hope this letter finds you and your family doing well. Merry Christmas, Go Gators, and see you on Facebook!

Baseball. That’s a lot of what this year was about. Baseball. Lot’s of baseball. But I suppose I am getting ahead of myself by talking about the thing that seemed to dominate much of this past year. In our last letter, I promised an update and report on our trip to Disney World. So since that’s what I promised, that’s what you’ll get along with other usual yearly stuff, whether you really wanted to hear about it or not.

Thanks to the fact that our neighbors have four kids, our two families qualified us as a “Magical Gathering” which we’re pretty sure got us nothing other than to jokingly use the word “Magical” all during the trip. It was a wonderful trip and all of us had an awesome time. Grayson really latched on to Thunder Mountain Railroad and I think over the four days we were there, he probably rode it at least 15 times. We visited each of the Disney Parks while we were there and Grayson went on every significant ride. He was barely tall enough and despite some fear, he tried them all. He was also lucky enough to get chosen to fight Darth Vader in a Jedi Training Session.  Our biggest issue of the trip was losing Luke (our neighbors’ son) for about 15 minutes. That was pretty scary. Other than the very end of our trip, Grayson’s blood sugars were very good. I remember checking him after we rode Space Mountain, expecting to see the adrenaline having pushed him up, and instead seeing a very nice 120. After Disney, Becky and I managed to hook up briefly with my college roommate, Eric, and his wife, Cindy. We’d not seen them in over 10 years, so it was good to finally get together.

The trip also served another purpose, which was to get together with my parents and have sort of a time to remember my grandmother since there’d not been a funeral (her wish of course). While there, we all spent an afternoon with my grandfather, had an early supper at Sonny’s BBQ and just hung out. That ended up being the last time I saw my grandfather as he went to be the Lord in May of this year. He’s always been an influential part of my life in many small ways. I’m just so grateful that just a couple years ago, that he accepted Christ. It gives all of us the confidence that we’ll get to see him again.

In January Becky began substitute teaching at Grayson’s school. Our county pays pretty well, by most standards, and having her at the school is always good in case Grayson has a medical emergency.  She generally gets the amount of work she wants but it tends to be a little bit feast or famine at times. She’s now got some great stories and it’s allowed her to connect with an even greater amount of teachers and parents (and kids of course) in our area.

Just as baseball was cranking up in the spring, I ended up going to the Python Users Conference (PyCon) this year. It was my 2nd year to go and for this conference I was selected to give a short talk I had proposed. It was a great experience and while I don’t think I particularly provided a lot of value in my talk, it was still fun to be a part of such a large conference (over 1000 people). It was also my first visit to Chicago. I’m looking forward to going back in March of 2009, but instead of speaking, I am currently slated as the photography coordinator.

The league rearranged the age groups slightly so that Grayson had to move up to machine pitch instead of coach pitch. I coached his team, the Brewers, and we did pretty well. Of the eight teams in our league, we finished fourth with a .500 record. Grayson did particularly well considering he’d only been playing t-ball a year prior to that season. He primarily hit dribblers down the 3rd base side and beat them out (he’s pretty fast). Defensively he was my backup 2nd baseman so he ended up playing a lot of outfield in the spring.

At the end of the spring season, Grayson wasn’t ready to stop playing, so when one of the other coaches created a 2nd all-star team, he decided he wanted to try it. But part of the deal is that we would have to miss the first tournament because we needed a vacation.

Becky’s parents totally hooked us up and rented us a place on Dauphin Island, AL. Because it was so big, we were able to go with our other neighbors (the Fox family). We spent a week there, soaking up the sun, boating, breathing the salt air, fishing, shrimping, watching a few dolphins, and generally getting the rest we really needed. It also helped me finally shake off the bronchitis I’d been fighting for weeks.

After Dauphin Island, we headed over to Gainesville to see my parents. While we were there, we all went to a Tampa Bay Rays game, which was Grayson’s first major league game.  Then it was back home to start the travel baseball season. Grayson played in three tournaments. We practiced every night (2 or 3 hours) which wasn’t all bad since I ended up getting plenty of exercise while helping out.

In July, we left for a few days for a quick trip to the Atlanta area. It was actually our first time to really be back (if only briefly) since moving. We went to a Braves game and we got together for an afternoon with the Maxwell family. We just couldn’t believe how the girls had grown. From there, Becky and Grayson went on for a few days in Warner Robins, GA, to see the Bakers and the Scotts while I went to Portland, Oregon, for another conference. My short time there was pretty crammed with classes and talks, but I managed to work out an evening to see Bob Cargill (my buddy and neighbor growing up) who lives there now. It was great to spend a few hours catching up with him.

No sooner had travel baseball ended and it was time to start school (2nd grade) and Fall baseball. The older kids had moved on and now the younger kids, like Grayson and his friends were the new leaders of the team. The summer of working every night on the fundamentals had really prepared him, and he played extremely well, including hitting his first grand slam. There’s still a lot I want to improve on as a coach, but this Fall season stands out because I had an awesome set of parents and assistants to work with. We had very, very few issues which is huge as a coach and a parent.

Grayson continues to do well at school. He doesn’t like reading very much, but he’s really excelling at math (although I suspect he’d tell you he doesn’t like it either). Once again, Grayson’s got a really wonderful teacher and we continue to have a great relationship with Nurse Terri.

For Thanksgiving this year, my parents were able to come up. Visits from them in the past were short and infrequent due to their need to be home to help my grandparents. It was nice this time to have them for a whole week. We had an awesome day trip to the Corvette Factory in Bowling Green, KY, and then on up to Mammoth Cave National Park where we took an amazing two hour tour through some of the caverns. We all loved it and have vowed to go back to see more.

Our neighborhood small group at church just rocks! We love them all, and really enjoy doing life together with them. Whether its eating supper together, praying together, playing spoons or hanging out watching the Tennessee Titans, it’s just a great time being with them.

We hope this letter finds you and your family doing well. Merry Christmas, Go Gators, and see you on Facebook!