This photo was taken of Patrick during the state tournament in March.  My good friend Bryan was able to download it from photographer's web site and forwarded it to me...As I look at it  I realized that I need to invest in a really good camera to get awesome shots like this.  I do like to take a lot of pictures when they're playing sports.

Where's spring?

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I've checked in here, but it has been crazy busy with end of year hockey tournaments and tryouts for next years travel teams.  All the boys did well and now we just have to wait to see what teams they made.  Everybody is pretty much ready for winter to be totally gone and for a nice warm spring to arrive....hmm, haven't seen hide nor hair of warm spring yet though.  As a matter of fact Patrict has baseball practice today in about an hour, and correct me if I wrong, but it's still freezing out there.  I'll just have to watch from the nice warm toasty confines of my car....reading a book or a magazine....hmm there could be worse fates I suppose.

Our newest addition...

As a few people know, we acquired a new family member over the weekend.  His name is "Buddy" and he is a Jack Russell Terrier.  We adopted him from the local animal shelter.  He had been surrendered to the shelter because he was quite the escape artist from his original owner's home and had landed at the pound 9 times.  So we know this going into this gig.  He is extremely sweet, but very stealth like, and I can see how he could be an escapee.  I opened the door to the laundry room and I happened to turn and look behind me, and there he was trying to bolt past me...but he was sooo quiet I didn't know he had snuck up behind me.   The other challenging aspect is that he is deaf.   He does know some signing, and you never have to worry about calling him for dinner because he always foraging for food.  The funniest thing so far was when I asked Ryan to find him one day over the weekend in the house and he starts calling very loudly in a sing song voice "Buddy, Buddy...where are you?" and Patrick, very matter of factly, in the exact same sing song voice yells to Ryan, "He's deaf, He's deaf"...Ryan stops dead in his tracks and says, "oohh, yeah he is".  

While we will love this dog just as much as we did Lacey and do love Timmy, he will never take the place of her, but he will build his own special little spot in each of our hearts, I'm sure of that!

The Newest Quirk..."Buddy"

February Vacation

We survived February vacation unscathed.  The boys spent one day at Rye Airfield indoor skate park, which I am told is the biggest indoor skatepark in the Northeast.  They even managed to make a short video of some of their skateboarding.  We trucked back up to Waterville Valley for another hockey tournament, this time for John.  The road trip did not start out on a positive note, as we got stuck in traffic on I93 behind a 5 car accident.  We left Quincy at 7:20 am for an 11:10 game in Waterville.  We got to Watervill at 11:10.  Fortunately, half the team was stuck in the traffic with us, and also half the team we were playing against was also stuck in this traffic.  John, who was the one to play at 11:10 was of course blaming me...."I told you we should have left earlier"...who would've guessed a two hour trip would turn into a 4 hour trip (kinda like gilligan's island)...no matter how much I told him that his assistant coach and 4 other players were an exit behind us, he grew more neurotic by the minute...he even put most of his equipment on while on the highway.  Fortunately, we made it as warmups were starting.  Quincy lost that game and I am totally going to blame it on the traffic (doesn't matter that they all looked like slugs out there).  The rest of the weekend was without incident, and they had a blast in the hotel, being able to play manhunt throughout the hotel.  I think the staff and management just closed their eyes.  The trip home was an uneventful under 2 hour drive....as Ryan would say, (due to his parochial schooling)...thank the dear lord!

It's only 30 seconds..

We went for a rare dinner out to Bugaboo Creek last night.  Why rare you ask?...spend a day with the boys and you'll understand why these visits are not of the frequent variety, although, they are getting much better about getting along long enough in a public venue so that the dinner field trip can at least be tolerable.  There was the usual statements and disagreements, but overall it went well.  Here is a sampling of the conversations:

Waiter:  drinks for anyone?

Ryan: Pepsi for me

Me:  No, you can have root beer or sprite.

Ryan:  I don't wan't root beer!  I want Pepsi..why can't I have it

Me:  Because of the caffeine and I said so...

Ryan:  Fine....I'll have sprite, but I really want Pepsi

Waiter moves around the table and gets to John

John:  I'll have diet pepsi

Ryan:  WHY CAN HE HAVE PEPSI?????

Me:  The caffeine affects you more, you're smaller.

Ryan:  NO SIR, IT DOES NOT AFFECT ME!!!

The stare down with his arms crossed begins....I win...sort of....he ended up taking Dad's root beer.

The next conversation was a keeper:

Patrick:  Dad, can I have the butter for my bread?  This was said with much effort as the poor kid apparently had a temperature of 101.9 not figured out until we got home and took his temperature.

Just as Dad is about to grab the butter, Ryan whips it away and starts buttering his bread.

Dad:  Ryan, that wasn't nice, Patrick asked for the butter first

Patrick: (with a really big sigh, followed by putting the head down on the table, muttering "I have a headache")  It's ok Dad, its only 30 seconds of my life...I have more seconds to wait for the butter...

Maybe if we all had that calm approach to lifes potholes, people wouldn't always be so damn crabby!

Deep Freeze Tournament in Waterville Valley

Ok, so we survived Patrick's hockey tournament in Waterville Valley, but barely.  Who would've thought a hockey rink is actually warm when the outside temp was -22 degrees?  The kids played well and missed the finals by a measly 1/2 point.  We managed to go tubing at Tenney mountain, but that only lasted about an hour since the temperature was a balmy -15 or so.  Back at the hotel there was just lots to do...ok, maybe Days Inn is not a luxury resort, but they could run up and down the hallways, play knee hockey in the hallways, and even skateboard in the hallways...who needs a four star hotel when you have all that at your fingertips.  Yes, though, I was the mean mother who dragged the kids into the room at 10:30 at night...I was part of a small minority...but I digress.  All and all the kids had a great time...even some of the parents had a really great time.....maybe too great...lots of headaches dragging asses around.  We left on Sunday, the day before MLK day during a snow storm....it took 4 hours to get home and we counted 12 cars spun off the road into ditches and snowbanks....at that point the novelty of the weekend had worn off and by hour 3 in the car it was a miracle no one got tossed out of a moving vehicle and the best part is we get to do it all over again in February for John's Deep Freeze tournament....must remember the ativan!