June 21st, 2009
I was finally able to cut the grass after 3 weeks of growing. It has rained a whole late as of late. Everytime I could cut the grass, its raining outside. Even today it wasn’t a great time to cut the grass but I had to do it anyway. The grass was wet from being rained on for days and the soil underneath was muddy.
I let the boys cut the grass with me. Both of them took turns sitting on the tractor and driving around until we eventually cut the grass.
The boys and I watched some TV shows and played baseball outside.
We ended the day by eating dinner together with Frank and Nelly.
Tags: Day, Father's
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May 28th, 2009
On, Saturday, May 23, 2009, Johnathan had a loose tooth for a month. He was eagerly waiting for the tooth to come out so he could have his first visit from the tooth fairy. He wanted the tooth to come out but was scared for the blood. Not as much for pain, just blood. Each day when I’d brush his teeth, that tooth would be woobly but still wasn’t 100% ready to come out. I figured between putting his mouth guard in during flag football would cause it to come out more quickly. Well today that day came.
We were practicing catching at flag football practice and the subject of his loose tooth came up. I asked him if he wanted me to pull it out. He said, “yes”, then “no”, then “yes”, then “no”. He wanted it to come out, but was still afraid. I asked him team mates if any have lost teeth yet. One kid said, “I have.” He smiled and in the front you could clearly see at least 4 teeth missing. He looked like a jack-o-lantern. I asked him if it hurt when they came out and he said, “no.” I asked the team to vote if we should pull the tooth out. Unanimously they all voted yes. So he said ok. We went off to the side, I rinsed out his mouth, washed my hands and in I go. The tooth was so ready to come out. It was almost pointing 90 degrees out from where it should have been. The mouth guard was pushing it away. So I wiggle it back and forth three or four times and out it came. He barely felt it. It bled a little but he was ok. I poured some water in his mouth a few times and he spit it out. Soon enough the blood stopped and we were back practicing. That night the tooth fairy came and he got $5! When I was a kid, the tooth fairy left me 25 cents. What a difference.
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April 27th, 2009
Johnathan brought home a baby Douglasfir tree from first grade. He wanted to plant it so that is what we had to do. Mark Jr. also has been learning iMovie so I decided to make a family education project out of it. Johnathan would help me plant the tree and Mark Jr. would document the event and add all the photos to a montage with captions. He spent a fair amount of time with a computer based training on iMovie to learn the important parts to put it all together. This was his opportunity to put all that learning to good use. I went to buy a pair of sneakers and figured when I came back we would work on the project together. When I came back, he told me he had it almost all done. It was 90% done and I just had to help with the finer details that he would have gotten eventually. I was surprised and very impressed on what he did. Not only was it well done, but it was funny. I think he has my sense of humor… God bless him…
arbor-day-2009 Best Quality
arbor-day-2009 Medium Quality
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February 16th, 2009
We went out for Valentine’s Day to the movies then dinner. While at dinner, my older son Mark Jr. said he needed to play his DS (I had him leave it in the car). Johnathan said, “Mark you don’t need to play DS. The only thing you need is a heart, love and your family.” Sometimes as a parent you question if you are doing the right things. This gave me a level of affirmation that we must be doing something right.
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January 24th, 2009
This will help answer the question I always get asked, “is it easy to break a board?” This is my 2nd attempt at breaking the board with my chin. I tried a total of 3 times and never broke it. I decided to quit before my chin broke before the board. The last one I hit it as hard as I could and all I did was BOUNCE! OUCH!!!
Ouch!!!
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May 16th, 2008
It just hasn’t been my week. Currently I am involved in martial arts, racquetball, coaching flag football and T-Ball. So it all started on May 6th. We had sparing that day. Usually its not too bad since we wear pads on our shins, feet, head and hands - oh yeah and a cup, can’t forget the CUP! Usually I fair pretty well in sparing. I might be the oldest one in my class (most students are in their 20s with one or two 30 year olds scattered about) but I guess fighting enough growing up gave me some “experience”. The worse you usually come away with is a few bruises on your legs and/or arms from blocks kicks.
I am currently a green belt and I am sparing with a ~ 20 year old who is a yellow belt, lifts weights and is pretty good shape. There isn’t supposed to be any punches to the head, although open hand slaps to the head are allowed just not at full force. Then kicks are allowed since you have pads on your feet. So we are going at it I’m getting the better of him. Did I mention this was his 1st time sparing? Well he might be new to sparing but not to fighting as he has had his share of bar fights :) Anyhow, at one point I get in too close and BAM he hits me square in the jaw with his ELBOW! I have only actually gotten smacked once in the head while sparing so this was new to me AND NOT ALLOWED AT ALL! I immediately take a knee. This was a full on elbow shot full swing. After taking enough time to recoup I get up and we continue. A couple of minutes later, a kick to my cup! I go down again. His discipline and accuracy is way off.
My sensei decided I needed to spar with someone else so off I go to another 20 something year old that is 6′ 5″ about 250lbs and a green belt like myself. I am 5′ 9″ and 185lbs. So we begin. I have spared with him a number of times and hold my own. This time he is throwing a lot of kicks pretty low. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing because he hadn’t done that before and where he would have hit me wouldn’t really hurt that much if we were really fighting in the street. To cut to the chase, he ultimately kicks me two times in the cup. Full power round kicks dead on. Cup or not, these hurt like crazy. After an elbow to the jaw and three kicks to the cup I am sent to spar with the bag. I haven’t gotten kicked in the cup sparing until that point but it must have been a magnet this time.
I get home and my jaw is pretty sore. No buises, just sore. I make a slice bread sandwich and go to take my 1st bite. WOW WHAT PAIN! I practically had to let it soak in my mouth just so I could eat it. The next day it hurts less but is still sore. The following day the pain is mostly gone and its Friday.
On Friday I have a lunchtime racquetball game against someone that is pretty good at getting to the ball. We are in the middle of our game and its a ceiling shot. The normal return is to return it back to the ceiling. I turn to follow the ball and make sure that is indeed what he is doing and I see a blue rocket coming at my face. He smashes the ball straight into my left cheek where I was just elbowed 3 days earlier. Boy does it hurt! After the game I see myself in the mirror and it is 1/2 a circle and totally bruised (redish and purple). Then Sunday comes and its mother’s day. As I am out with Millie people keep telling me I have lipstick on my face (it sorta looks like 1/2 a lip print also). I have to tell them its a bruise, not lipstick. I’ll be posting a picture soon.
Now its Tuesday, one week from when I had gotten the elbow to the face. I have a T-Ball game with Johnathan (5 and 6 year old kids). There is a kid on the team that tended to throw the bat. I have been telling him constantly to NOT throw the bat after he hits. I enfoce it just before he gets up to bat, and he forgets right after he hits and the bat goes flying again. The other coach was working batting with the kids and I was trying to pay attention to when this kid gets up to bat to tell him again not to throw the bat. He had told me he had been working on not throwing the bat this past weekend. So I watch one by one as the kids get up to bat. A parent starts asking me a question and when I turn to see where he is in the lineup THE BAT IS COMING RIGHT AT ME! WHAM!!! The metal bat hits me right on the elbow. So that has buised and gotten a bump.
To sum it up in a 8 day period I got elbowed in the face, three kicks to the cup, a racquetball hit to the face and hit on the elbow with a metal bat.
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October 20th, 2007
We, as a family, are marching with Leading Edge Karate at the Emmaus Halloween parade. Considering I had flag football with Mark Jr. early this morning, the Halloween party at Leading Edge Karate and now we are going to march its a busy day.
We all bundle up warm because its a bit chilly and we have to wear our Karate uniforms. Well all except Millie since she decided to wash her and my uniform 5 minutes before we are about to need them. I had bought a spare uniform so I was able to wear that one. Was it an accident? Probably. Subconsciously though it was probably on purpose 
We park our car a few blocks from where we are supposed to meet up with everyone. We get there just in time - or so I thought. It turns out we are waiting a little over an hour until its our turn to start going down the parade route. Its now like 8:00 and Johnathan, Mark Jr. and Millie are all beat. I have to be in the front holding the banner. So we start marching and I’m holding the banner. On paper the route seems like its not that big. Boy I should have checked the scale of how that route was drawn. This march took about 1:20 minutes. Along the way Johnathan got piggy back rides from Lance and Melissa. Then they put him in the wagon after they ran out of candy.
I figured thank goodness we are done! No we aren’t, Millie promised the kids ice cream somewhere along the way. So off to Friendly’s we go. I just wanted to go home and sleep. The kids shared a meal and Millie and I got burgers. Then Johnathan got his usual, the Candy Shop. Mark Jr. got a double scoop cone. Millie got a soft serve sundae with caramel. I ate whatever Millie left me.
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October 20th, 2007
I took the kids to the Halloween party at Leading Edge Karate. Johnathan was dressed in his Picachu costume and Mark Jr. was dressed in his Darth Vader costume. Since they are someone popular and store bought costumes I expected there to be others with the same costumes. There was 1 other Picachu and 2 other Darth Vaders. Sensei was Darth Mall. Lance was a Dr or was he an intern? Melissa was an officer. I was paparazzi running around taking pictures.
The kids played dodgeball, sensei says, the clapping game and just had a great time. The got a bag of candy on their way out. I later found the candy they didn’t like in the back of my car 
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October 20th, 2007
Mark Jr. won once again in flag football. The team is really starting to come together. We are now 4-2-1. We started out the season 0-2-1 and have been on a 4 game winning streak. Considering our team last year went 0-8 this is a huge deal for us.
The confidence is paying off for Mark Jr. He had a huge run play. Since he generally is the center when he is playing, I designed a play for him. We call it the delayed center. Basically he snaps the ball to the QB then drops back behind him. He just waits there scanning the field for where its open. He counts to about 5 then the QB turns and hands him the ball. Invariably one side is open and that is the side he is to run on. So the play is done, he starts running and gets by a few guys and goes 3/4 of the way down the field. Considering Mark Jr. isn’t a very fast runner this was a huge run.
At the end of the day we won 14-6. Mark Jr. got 3 flags and that huge run. He had one very bad penalty. He isn’t used to being a wide receiver and he lined up offsides. Naturally he did this on a play where we ran the entire length of the field for a touch down but it was called back. Since he wasn’t used to playing WR I kind of understood his mistake. We learn from our mistakes and that is why they are playing - to learn.
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October 13th, 2007
Mark Jr. had board breaking for the 1st time in karate. Getting him to understand about getting “in the zone” has been working very well for him. He was maybe the 5th or 6th kid to go up and break a board. Its a bit scary going up to the board when you haven’t seen a bunch of other kids do it a few times. He saw maybe 4 or 5 kids then it was his turn.
His 1st board break was to be done with a hammer fist. This is basically when you make a fist and swing down. Kind of like you were going to hit someone on the head with the bottom of your fist. You get 2 preparation swings to help with aiming and concentration. Then you just go for it. This is when all the parents hold their breath and hope their kid doesn’t hurt their hands. He winds up and swings!!! CRACK the board breaks!!! He did it!!! He broke his 1st board. He was so excited and I was so proud of him. We saved the 1st board he broke so we could mount it on the wall.
He then had to break board with a palm strike, a knee, then another palm strike but this time with the boards set between 2 concrete blocks - so they could strike straight down this time. When he did the palm strike he didn’t break it the 1st time. He kind of missed it with his palm and instead struck it with his finger tips. He tried again and got it. I had been taking pictures of all of it. When we reviewed the pictures I realized why he missed. He has been closing his eyes on each strike. I guess you gotta see your target to hit it
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