Memorial Day and the Bicker Ball Game

I had off from my day job on Monday for Memorial Day. I slept in till about 8:30 then Abby decided it was time for me to make breakfast. At 9:30 Abby and Mommy were running down the street to catch the Memorial Day parade. I went to the back yard to get out my new mower and start getting the yard ready for the picnic planned for later in the day. By about noon the yard was mowed. I had a lunch break and then finished trimming after getting Abby down for her nap. Before 2:00 PM I was shopping for the last minute details... charcoal, water, plastic ware, etc.

At 3:00 PM the two grills were lit and the first of our thirty guests arrived. For dinner we had grilled lemon-garlic chicken (yummy!) for the adults and hot-dogs for the kiddos. Everyone brought their favorite side dishes to share. The food and the fun was EXCELLENT!!!

Around 7:00 PMish we rounded up every one for a nice game of Wiffle-Ball. We had a good amount of players and thought it would be fun to break up boys against girls. Here are some pictures of the action.

The field of action

Girls on deck!

I know the hitting is good... but keep your pants on!

This one might be out of here!

So we thought it would be great to split it up girls and boys and for the most part is was a lot of fun. The big problem is that we have some fairly extremely competitive individuals among our friends and family! The rules were kinda made up as we went along. Needless to say there were a few disagreements about how things should be handled.

One of our dear friends, affectionately know as Gramma Sue, was our score keeper and umpire. She wasn't calling strikes because in Wiffle ball there really is no need for strikes. She was just the final say in the major decisions. At one point, one of the players on the Girls team said we need to quit the bickering and just play. That is when Gramma Sue named the game "Bicker Ball." Man! Did we all get a good laugh out of that. From now on we will no longer play Wiffle ball. It will forever be Bicker Ball.

My lovely wife, Shagga, who happens to be one of the more competitive in the group, piped up and said that JD was number one at Bicker Ball. Immediately after she said that, on impulse, and in the heat of the moment, I piped up and said, "And Shagga is..." (then I caught myself in mid sentence and thought... "this is NOT going to be good! I regained my composure and gracefully completed my statement.) "... AWESOME!" Phew! That was close! ;-)

And you know everyone in the game was holding their breath with me for that second or two. They were all wondering what was going to come out of my mouth. I have a little bit of a reputation of letting my tongue go faster than my brain. They all got a big laugh out of my come-back. Even Shagga laughed and thought I did a right-fine job of diggin' myself out of a pit.

So in all the Memorial Day get-together was a great success and we all ended up having a really good time playing Bicker Ball. Of course our local security guard did show up. As you can see below, he did not have to cuff anyone and spent most of his time feeding his grand-baby.

After the Bicker Ball game we started cleaning up and all of our guests started going home for the evening. Gramma Sue, as usual, did way more than her fair share of the cleaning up. Thanks Gramma Sue! After everyone one was gone Shagga and I got all the final cleaning up done by about 9:30 PM. We had been running for 12 hours straight at that point and it was not long after that we were in the bed.

If you were at the picnic or the Bicker Ball game, leave a comment let me know what your favorite part was about the day.

Saturday Morning... ahhh

I like Saturday mornings. I get to sleep in a little. Abby usually comes in and demands breakfast about 7:00 AM but that is at least two extra hours of sleep for me. I get up and make breakfast for the fam and then if there is nothing pressing we kinda take it slow the rest of the day.

Today we are going to the zoo. Abby is SOOOOO excited! She was in bed with us asking when we were going... are there going to be giraffes... is it time to get up yet? It looks like it will be a good day for the zoo. Low to mid 70's with a little cloud cover.

Happy Saturday!

She got to dance at the wedding

Abby recently got the chance to be a flower girl at a friends wedding. Take a look at Shagga Bears blog and you will get the full story. Here is a video of her dancing with her little cousin. She was the most beautiful of all, if I do say so myself!

It's a small world

Today I had the opportunity to join a conference call with several other believers from across the country. The network our local church is affiliated with has started prayer conference calls to help bring believers together and establish national prayer coverage for what God is doing. Today there were intercessors from New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and maybe others.

I have been using conference calls at work for a long time. At least once a week I am on the phone with coworkers from the UK, India, and all over the USA. It is great to see that the Church is starting to use technology like this to expand relationships and help bring connections.

It's been a while...

Well, it's been a while since I last posted. Back in mid April we went to the FMCI conference. Since then I have barely had time to breath much less post. So I guess I will do a brief recap of what has been going on.

Shagga Bear and I have been doing the South Beach Diet for a few weeks now. It is low carb like Atkins but it is lower fat also. At first I was actually quite grumpy about having to give up my sugar and breads. After all, this diet thing was Shagga's idea, not mine! But now that I have made it past the card withdraws I am really feeling better and I have lost about 8 pounds. Most of my pants are comfortable to wear again! (Mama Lilly pointed out that I am not the only one going through carb detox.)

Abby has started using the potty on a regular basis! I am so proud of my big girl! You will probably hear more about this from Shagga Bear in a little bit. This has been a struggle for Shagga and me. And every one and their cousin was giving us advise on how to make it work! Uggg! Well, Abby finally decided she was ready.

Spring has finally arrived in the frozen north! I wanted to take the mower into the shop to get a tune-up for the new season. It also had a single lever that controlled the height of the mower that was no longer holding in place. As my mower guy was working on it the lever complete broke off. It turns out that the lever is a one piece assembly with much of the back end and it was going to end up costing us about half the price of new mower to get this one fixed. So we just went ahead and got a new one. Here is a pic of my new piece of power equipment.

As you can see, by the time we got the mower we were in desperate need. The first time I used it was probably the only time I will actually be excited about mowing! It really does work nicely.

The week before I went to beg my next-door neighbor for his mower but he was not home. So I went to the next neighbor down and asked if I could use his little push mower. He insisted that I use his riding mower. I acted like the push mower would be fine but when he offered the riding mower a second time I did not let it go. I think that was the fastest our yard has ever been done. :-)

This Wednesday I started tilling up our garden. We bought a used tiller at a garage sale last year and it worked well for us. I took it out of our garage this year and at first it would not start. I was about to give up when on my last pull of the rip cord it started! The only problem now was that the rip cord detached from the tiller and flew out in my hand. But it was running! I started heading for the garden thinking I would till as long as it would run. I got about ten steps when it died. :-( So, I went and got my tool box and re-attached the rip cord so I could start it again. So after about 45 minutes getting it started I actually started tilling the garden. I got about a third of it tilled. I hope the get the rest done in the next few days.

Well, I think that is probably enough for my update on life. Hopefully it will not be so long till my next post!