GOINGS ON

Just a couple of observations and such of the family:

* First off - Samantha attended her first major league baseball game on April 22nd, 2008. The Phillies came into town against the Rockies. Matt Holiday hit a bomb to center field to put the Rockies in the lead, but Manny Corpas blew his third straight save in as many nights in the 9th inning and the Phillies won.

* Ryan has been calling sneezes "Bless You's." It is so cute. Of course, no matter how many times we tell him that a milkshake is called a 'milkshake' he still wants to call it a 'shakemilk.' I love the way he talks.

* One of the cutest things about Samantha is that when she 'talks' she will bat her eyes as if she is flirting. It is the cutest thing. The not so cute thing she does is grunt and groan all night long and keep us up. Hunter and Ryan slept through the night at an early age, but Samantha is struggling and Stacey isn't getting a whole lot of sleep.

* Hunter is in the mode of baseball right now. We went outside and played baseball again tonight. I held Sammie so Hunter played catch against his pitch-back net. I told him to try and catch 10 balls in a row. On the 9th one I would stop him and remind him that he was on number 10 and that he didn't want to drop it (I was putting the pressure on). He would get laughing so hard and throw the pitch and not catch the 10th ball. This happened twice and on the third go around he caught the 10th ball.

Art Show

Mr. Ryan didn't have to go to school last Thursday. We thought this was kind of weird, but they cancelled school because they were getting ready for the school art show. Well, we didn't think much of it and went to the artshow that night. WoW! Were we amazed! The school was decorated from ceiling to floor with art pictures that the kids had done throughout the year. Each room had one item that each child had completed and each room had a theme. For example, Ryan's class is called The Frogs so their classroom was decorated in the theme of frogs. There was a pond and all sorts of creative frogs and animals that you would find at a pond. It was a really neat set-up. Ryan was so excited to show us his artwork, yet he was a little shy and embarrassed. But he was proud to show off his work. It was so cute and so amazing what the school put together. Unfortunately, neither Stacey nor I took a camera or video camera.

Pinewood Derby

So, Hunter had his first pinewood derby last week. We spent a lot of time painting and sanding his car. We tried to do all the tricks to help the pinewood derby go a little faster and get that extra speed to edge the other cars. By the time, I got the wheels on his car for him, I was just hoping that he would win one race. We arrived at the church and saw the new metal track they had laid out for the derby. I had Hunter go test his car on the track to make sure the car worked. His car rolled to the bottom of the track and so I knew that the car would work. Then a couple of other kids started putting their cars on the track and Hunter was beating thier cars every time. I decided that Hunter would at least not come in last place and that made me feel a little better. Finally, Hunter got to race. Somehow his car won his first race. I don't know who was more surprised - me or Hunter. I will never forget the look on his face when he realized he won - I think he was in a little shock and had to look at the big screen that showed the place of the cars, then he looked at me with this huge shocked look on his face. His friends were cheering for him and it finally sunk in that he had won! He was so excited. The next race, Hunter won again and there was still shock and excitement on his face. He won his third race, and I started thinking that maybe we did something right in making his car. However, he took third in his next race and second in the next race. I was humbled. But Hunter ended up winning 5 out of the 8 races he ran. When the final tallies came out, he took 5th place. He was so excited about that and I was impressed that we finished so high. Thanks to Grandpa Griffin and Grandpa McClanahan for thier techniques, help, and equipment. Had Hunter and I tried to do it alone, we definitely would have come in last....or second to last.