Christmas 2009

Last year, we knew it was only a matter of time before we’d have to give in. Grayson’s final maneuver was purchasing the book “My Perfect Puppy” at last year’s book fair. After choking on some tears watching Marley and Me, he still insisted he wanted dog. So on January 24th, we drove to Cookeville, TN, to pick up our puppy. Dill (short for Dillard, the town in Georgia), just celebrated his first birthday on Thanksgiving Day and while I’d love to tell you that it’s been pure joy, I’d be lying if I did. Dill’s earned many nicknames this year with our current favorite being Stupid Animal. The Stupid Animal has managed, despite his relatively small stature, to destroy quite a few things: legos, shoes, vintage Star Wars figures, glasses, sections of the carpet in multiple rooms, more legos, dog toys, homework, receipts, multiple finger lancet devices, bottles of test strips and a meter (I guess he hates that Grayson has diabetes too), even more legos, army men, socks, more glasses, and that’s just the things I thought of in the past 45 seconds of writing. This destruction is what we like to refer to as the “true cost of dog ownership”.
If you are familiar with the movie Annie, you might recall the song “Dumb Dog”. Both Becky and I are known to quietly sing that song from time to time while changing the words to fit Dill’s latest crime. But it’s in moments of frustration (like when you have to spend an hour or two scrubbing huge portions of the upstairs carpet and furniture because someone managed to step in a rather messy ‘accident’ and then traipse all over the place, spreading the ‘accident’ all around) that you have to find a way to laugh or else you’ll surely end up putting an add on Craig’s List for the dog to find a new home. Somehow we find ourselves approaching the one year mark and we still have the Stupid Animal. Dill has managed, despite these low moments, to wiggle his way into our hearts to the point that we’re not nearly so tempted to list him as “free to a good home”.
Other than the dog, we had plenty of other stuff to be involved with. Baseball, of course, was a big part of our year. This spring was Grayson’s final regular season of machine pitch baseball. Grayson really has improved and we could tell he really enjoyed playing more than ever as he experienced quite a bit of success both in the field and at the plate. Our Rockies team managed to win our large division of 7 teams based primarily on their excellent defense. Unfortunately, the playoff tournaments didn’t go quite so well, but it was definitely a great and memorable season for all of us.
When summer hit, we did a little bit of all-star baseball and also worked in some short trips. In June, we flew to Denver and spent a few days touring Colorado. We went to a Rockies game at Coors Field where we saw a great game and Grayson was nearly hit by a foul ball (a very nice usher got him a real ball for his trouble). We also spent a day touring Rocky Mountain National Park. At first, Grayson was unconvinced of the value of going to the park (especially since he wasn’t feeling his best), but after a long day of climbing up to over 12,000 feet in the snow, seeing Elk up close, and some other amazing sites, it’s now one his favorite memories. In fact, Grayson’s been asking to move to Colorado ever since our trip, but unlike the dog, we’re not planning on giving in to that request.
In July, Grayson and I drove to North Carolina to meet up with my parents who had rented a little place near Franklin. I wanted so much to show him the area I spent so much of my summers in and a quick weekend trip seemed to fall into place for us. We managed to catch an Asheville Tourists (single A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies － appropriate, huh?) double header with my parents and then a few days in the Franklin area where Becky drove up to join us after visiting her college friends at their annual “Girl’s Weekend” in Atlanta.
The following week, Becky and Grayson went down to Pensacola to visit her folks, especially her dad, who was battling through a long recovery from surgery. After a few days with them in Pensacola, they spent a little time in Dauphin Island, AL, with Wendi and her kids.
In August, it was time for third grade, fall baseball, and H1N1, or at least that’s what we suspect it was since Grayson tested positive for the flu (and it was too early for the seasonal flu). He fought it off quickly, along with several rounds of strep throughout the fall. Between all that and our 2 days in the hospital with his stomach virus, and a hernia surgery for me in June (ugh), I guess we’ve not been completely well, but at the same time, we’re thankful God has seen us through this year. Despite our ailments, Grayson has never missed a baseball game. And this fall, it was particularly important to him to not miss any games because we had so few. This was one of the coolest summers (thankfully) and the wettest fall on record in Tennessee (and certainly in Georgia as well). Our 12 game schedule quickly shrank to 9 games.
The big deal about fall baseball this year was that Grayson was moving up to “kid pitch”. He’s now in the 9-10 year old division, so it was a very big deal. We’re really proud of how well he did. He even managed to pitch a couple of innings and recorded his first strikeout and a save.
Third grade has presented some new challenges for Grayson, but he’s risen to the occasion and is working very hard. Missing so many days of school earlier this year has put him in catch-up mode, but he likes his teacher, Mrs. Heitz, and is also glad that several of his good friends are in his class with him. Next week, he’ll be starting on his brand new insulin pump, an Animus Ping. It’s been over four years of “pumping” now, and he definitely doesn’t want to go back to shots. We’re glad to have gotten the new pump after months of paperwork and arguments with the insurance company, and we hope that it’ll end up helping him deal with Type 1 Diabetes. That brings us to our Christmas card. The JDRF (http://jdrf.org) selected his design (that he created last year) as one of their official Christmas cards available for purchase to raise funds/awareness. Apparently, his design is popular because it managed to sell out.
Work has been busy this year, where I’ve finally completed a project I’ve wanted to do for over 4 years. So far, that project has been a reasonable success, but it will hopefully lead to bigger and better things for LifeWay going forward.
Becky has continued to work as a substitute teacher at Grayson’s school and is still enjoying it (most days). It’s always funny when we’re out somewhere and we’ll bump into a kid from the schools who you hear say to a parent, “it’s Mrs. Wilcox, she was my substitute teacher last week”, or something to that effect. Becky has also recently joined a new women’s Bible study group and of course, you can follow her many activities via Facebook updates.
We had a nice Thanksgiving when Becky’s parents and our nephew, Nicholas, came up to visit. It was great to see Becky’s dad doing so much better and we had a nice time just hanging out. We’ve been so busy lately, that spending time at home and a leisurely trip downtown to eat at the Spaghetti Factory was just what we needed.
Merry Christmas and may God bless you and your family this next year!

Last year, we knew it was only a matter of time before we’d have to give in. Grayson’s final maneuver was purchasing the book “My Perfect Puppy” at last year’s book fair. After choking on some tears watching Marley and Me, he still insisted he wanted dog. So on January 24th, we drove to Cookeville, TN, to pick up our puppy. Dill (short for Dillard, the town in Georgia), just celebrated his first birthday on Thanksgiving Day and while I’d love to tell you that it’s been pure joy, I’d be lying if I did. Dill’s earned many nicknames this year with our current favorite being Stupid Animal. The Stupid Animal has managed, despite his relatively small stature, to destroy quite a few things: legos, shoes, vintage Star Wars figures, glasses, sections of the carpet in multiple rooms, more legos, dog toys, homework, receipts, multiple finger lancet devices, bottles of test strips and a meter (I guess he hates that Grayson has diabetes too), even more legos, army men, socks, more glasses, and that’s just the things I thought of in the past 45 seconds of writing. This destruction is what we like to refer to as the “true cost of dog ownership”.

If you are familiar with the movie Annie, you might recall the song “Dumb Dog”. Both Becky and I are known to quietly sing that song from time to time while changing the words to fit Dill’s latest crime. But it’s in moments of frustration (like when you have to spend an hour or two scrubbing huge portions of the upstairs carpet and furniture because someone managed to step in a rather messy ‘accident’ and then traipse all over the place, spreading the ‘accident’ all around) that you have to find a way to laugh or else you’ll surely end up putting an add on Craig’s List for the dog to find a new home. Somehow we find ourselves approaching the one year mark and we still have the Stupid Animal. Dill has managed, despite these low moments, to wiggle his way into our hearts to the point that we’re not nearly so tempted to list him as “free to a good home”.

Other than the dog, we had plenty of other stuff to be involved with. Baseball, of course, was a big part of our year. This spring was Grayson’s final regular season of machine pitch baseball. Grayson really has improved and we could tell he really enjoyed playing more than ever as he experienced quite a bit of success both in the field and at the plate. Our Rockies team managed to win our large division of 7 teams based primarily on their excellent defense. Unfortunately, the playoff tournaments didn’t go quite so well, but it was definitely a great and memorable season for all of us.

When summer hit, we did a little bit of all-star baseball and also worked in some short trips. In June, we flew to Denver and spent a few days touring Colorado. We went to a Rockies game at Coors Field where we saw a great game and Grayson was nearly hit by a foul ball (a very nice usher got him a real ball for his trouble). We also spent a day touring Rocky Mountain National Park. At first, Grayson was unconvinced of the value of going to the park (especially since he wasn’t feeling his best), but after a long day of climbing up to over 12,000 feet in the snow, seeing Elk up close, and some other amazing sites, it’s now one his favorite memories. In fact, Grayson’s been asking to move to Colorado ever since our trip, but unlike the dog, we’re not planning on giving in to that request.

In July, Grayson and I drove to North Carolina to meet up with my parents who had rented a little place near Franklin. I wanted so much to show him the area I spent so much of my summers in and a quick weekend trip seemed to fall into place for us. We managed to catch an Asheville Tourists (single A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies － appropriate, huh?) double header with my parents and then a few days in the Franklin area where Becky drove up to join us after visiting her college friends at their annual “Girl’s Weekend” in Atlanta.

The following week, Becky and Grayson went down to Pensacola to visit her folks, especially her dad, who was battling through a long recovery from surgery. After a few days with them in Pensacola, they spent a little time in Dauphin Island, AL, with Wendi and her kids.

In August, it was time for third grade, fall baseball, and H1N1, or at least that’s what we suspect it was since Grayson tested positive for the flu (and it was too early for the seasonal flu). He fought it off quickly, along with several rounds of strep throughout the fall. Between all that and our 2 days in the hospital with his stomach virus, and a hernia surgery for me in June (ugh), I guess we’ve not been completely well, but at the same time, we’re thankful God has seen us through this year. Despite our ailments, Grayson has never missed a baseball game. And this fall, it was particularly important to him to not miss any games because we had so few. This was one of the coolest summers (thankfully) and the wettest fall on record in Tennessee (and certainly in Georgia as well). Our 12 game schedule quickly shrank to 9 games.

The big deal about fall baseball this year was that Grayson was moving up to “kid pitch”. He’s now in the 9-10 year old division, so it was a very big deal. We’re really proud of how well he did. He even managed to pitch a couple of innings and recorded his first strikeout and a save.

Third grade has presented some new challenges for Grayson, but he’s risen to the occasion and is working very hard. Missing so many days of school earlier this year has put him in catch-up mode, but he likes his teacher, Mrs. Heitz, and is also glad that several of his good friends are in his class with him. Next week, he’ll be starting on his brand new insulin pump, an Animus Ping. It’s been over four years of “pumping” now, and he definitely doesn’t want to go back to shots. We’re glad to have gotten the new pump after months of paperwork and arguments with the insurance company, and we hope that it’ll end up helping him deal with Type 1 Diabetes. That brings us to our Christmas card. The JDRF (http://jdrf.org) selected his design (that he created last year) as one of their official Christmas cards available for purchase to raise funds/awareness. Apparently, his design is popular because it managed to sell out.

Work has been busy this year, where I’ve finally completed a project I’ve wanted to do for over 4 years. So far, that project has been a reasonable success, but it will hopefully lead to bigger and better things for LifeWay going forward.

Becky has continued to work as a substitute teacher at Grayson’s school and is still enjoying it (most days). It’s always funny when we’re out somewhere and we’ll bump into a kid from the schools who you hear say to a parent, “it’s Mrs. Wilcox, she was my substitute teacher last week”, or something to that effect. Becky has also recently joined a new women’s Bible study group and of course, you can follow her many activities via Facebook updates.

We had a nice Thanksgiving when Becky’s parents and our nephew, Nicholas, came up to visit. It was great to see Becky’s dad doing so much better and we had a nice time just hanging out. We’ve been so busy lately, that spending time at home and a leisurely trip downtown to eat at the Spaghetti Factory was just what we needed.

Merry Christmas and may God bless you and your family this next year!