World Series---World Class Team

If you read my blog regularly you probably know that we are big Texas Ranger fans. The Rangers have not always been a great team as far as winning goes, but we've always remained loyal fans. This year, despite many problems, they have made it to the world series for the first time!

Problem #1: Their ownership changed this year (thank God!). The old owner was in debt up to his ears and had lots of creditors who wanted their money. A group led by Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg was all set to buy them. Only nothing was simple. The judge ordered an auction for the team because the creditors wanted more money. All of this legal stuff seemed to drag on forever. Then, Mark Cuban got in the mix wanting to buy them. Then there was a bidding war. Finally, the Ryan/Greenberg group came out on top and got the team. All of this was going on in the middle of the season. But they boys just kept playing great!

Problem #2: The manager, Ron Washington, admitted to using cocaine on an occasion and failed a drug test. He handled it well and went to Ryan, admitted what he had done, apologized publicly, etc, etc. They decided not to fire him. Good thing. I think he was a big part of the Ranger's success. He showed how to handle a mistake in the public eye with lots of class. He never denied anything and you could tell he deeply regretted it. I don't condone what he did, but I think he handled it the best way possible.

Ok. All this brings me to why I'm so happy and proud of this team. These guys stuck it out when things were not so pretty. This team was not expected to win in the division series. Never had before. They were really not expected to beat the Yankees and win the American League Championship. But they did. They are probably not expected to win the world series either. But I think they will.

Josh Hamilton, outfielder and hitter extraordinaire won the American League batting title this year. Talk about a comeback. Several years back he was very heavy into drugs and alcohol. Probably knocked on death's door more than once. But he beat his addictions and overcame them to not only come back and play, but to come back and play amazingly. And win. When the team clenched the division in Oakland they broke out the champagne and celebrated liked they all do. Josh Hamilton, a huge part of why they were winners, was not there sharing in the inebriating celebration. He can't and won't be near alcohol.

Now, this is what I think is the most amazing thing about this team...When they beat Tampa Bay for the division series. The locker room celebration was done with ginger ale! That's right. Teammate C.J. Wilson and equipment manager Richard "hoggy" Price initiated this. Hamilton was met with a ginger ale shower when he came in the locker room. How incredible is that?
And when they beat the Yankees for the American League championship, the on field celebration was with ginger ale. So Hamilton could be a part of it. Not much has been said about this in the media, especially the national media, but that is what I consider one of the best stories in baseball. Finally, a GOOD example of behavior in sports for our kids to see!

But speaking of bad examples...

I was appalled to see the Yankee fan who interfered with our outfielder then proceeded to make obscene gestures to him after he got the home run ball. The TV cameras caught it all. Appalling! The Yankee fans were also throwing things and spitting on Ranger fans seated in the visiting family section...these fans happened to be Nolan Ryan and Cliff Lee's wife among others. I'm sorry but you don't spit or throw beer on Nolan Ryan! And the Yankees are dying to get Cliff Lee. They wanted him this year and missed out when we got him. They will be trying to get him next year. Hmmm...wonder if he and his family will want to go there after they spit on his wife. Appalling. Want to read about that? Here's an article: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Will-spitting-Yankee-fans-play-a-role-in-Cliff-L?urn=mlb-279919 I would be ashamed if Ranger fans acted that way.

Ok. Back to the good...

Tonight is game 1 of the World Series. You know I will be watching and root, root, rooting for my Rangers!

Hip Homeschool Hop: Solar System

The Hip Homeschool Hop is hosted by The Homeschool Chick.

My entry for this week is all about the Solar System. Claire is very interested in space and wanted that as the theme for her birthday party this last weekend. She wanted to "visit" every planet. So we "visited" each planet and played a game there. I thought this would make a really fun homeschool lesson too so I'm going to share what we did.

I made sugar cookies and decorated them to look like planets and stars. I also made a sun cake. The cookies would be a fun treat to do for a homeschool project. We always like assignments that taste yummy!

We had thunderstorms that afternoon so we had to move the party indoors and tweek a few of the games. I'm going to share the original plan here because I think it's the best. I took pictures of each, but I don't like to post pictures of other people's kids on the internet without their permission so sorry there aren't pictures to go along with each.

Earth-Moon Rock Relay:
The plan was to start on Earth and then go to the moon. There we were going to collect "moon rocks". I made the moon rocks out of crumpled up newspaper wrapped in duct tape. The kids used kitchen tongs as space tools to grab a rock and put it in a bucket. We did this in 2 teams. The team to get all their moon rocks in the bucket first wins.

Pluto- Ice relay:
(this is the game we didn't get to do inside)
The plan was to do the ol' egg & spoon relay race, but instead of using eggs we were going to use ice cubes. The spoons were to be the space tools they transported the Pluto ice with.

Neptune- Rocket launch:
I bought those foam rockets from oriental trading and the kids had a rocket race with them. The one whose rocket went the furthest won. You can pick these rockets up almost anywhere, but I found some valentine ones on clearance at oriental trading so I got those and just left the Valentine decorations off. These are the ones we used: http://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/browse/processRequest.do?demandPrefix=12&sku=48/6087&mode=Searching&erec=0&D=foam+rockets&Ntx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&Ntk=all&requestURI=processProductsCatalog&N=0&y=19&Ntt=foam+rockets&Dx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&x=10&sd=Cherub+Flinger+Flyer+Craft+Kit
You could also make your own.


Uranus- Side orbiting race
Since Uranus sometimes orbits on its side I put a small amount of water in regular balloons and blew them up. This makes them roll on their side. The kids then had to push them around an orange cone (the sun). This makes a good race for 2 teams.

Saturn-Ring toss
The kids were again in 2 teams and had to get "Saturn's ring" on the stick. Then, run back and give it to the next one on their team.

Jupiter-Asteroid belt

The kids each got a balloon (asteroid) and had to keep it up in the air (so it wouldn't hit Jupiter). As their balloons hit the ground they were "out". The last child left with a balloon that didn't hit the ground won.

Mars-Play doh martians

I gave the kids play doh and they all created their own Martians.

Earth- We ate cake. (because Earth is the only planet with cake!)

Venus-Hunt through the clouds:

I put party favors in a rubber maid container and covered them with poly fil stuffing for pillows. They had to hunt through the clouds of venus to find the favors.

Mercury-Hot planet:

Since Mercury is closest to the sun it was the "hot Planet". We used a big bouncy ball that looked like a planet and played hot potato with it.

Sun:

I made a pinata that looked like the sun. Since we were indoors they kicked it open!

Good space themed candy to fill it with would be Milky Way and Mars bars (we couldn't do these because Claire has a peanut allergy), and starbursts.

Have any good homeschooling ideas? Join the hop today and share!

Catching up

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to blog. Here's one of the things I was doing...


I made 2 doz. of these cupcake ice cream cones for Claire to take to gymnastics on her birthday.
Here is a close up shot. They turned out really cute!


Wednesday was her birthday. Nathan woke up sick that day, but did school anyway (his choice!). Claire didn't have much school to do. She got ahead earlier in the week so she wouldn't have to do much on her birthday. Then, I took her to gymnastics and we all went out to dinner for her birthday. Came home to cupcakes and presents!

I started painting the guest bathroom on Tuesday. I painted over wall paper so I primed it Tuesday and painted it Thursday. Had some "issues" with the textured paint so I didn't finish until after 9:00 Thursday night. I'll post before and after pictures as soon as I add the final touches.

On Friday my parents came into town and we watched our Texas Rangers crush the Yankees to become the American League Champions!!!! That's right...we're going to the world series for the first time ever! We could not be more excited. I plan to do an individual post on that in a few days. :)

These pictures are from the last regular season game. I was not lucky enough to have tickets to the post season games. We had to watch from home. Tried to buy world series tickets, but they were already sold out. :(

Saturday was Claire's birthday party. She wanted a space party. I had lots of outdoor games planned, but it rained all afternoon! There were actually tornado sirens going off 5 minutes before the party was suppose to start! (The tornado threat was north of us though.) Needless to say, we moved the games indoors.

Notice her planet shirt in the picture. She had to have a planet shirt with Pluto on it when we visited the Lowell Observatory. I could not talk her into the pink girly shirt because "it didn't have pluto on it". Luckily we found one that did have Pluto on it. It was the perfect shirt for her party!

Now this week I have Claire's friends coming over, book club, our homeschool group's All Saint's Party (that I'm coordinating), halloween and watching every minute of the World Series!!

So, that's what I've been up to. What have you been up to?

Wordful Wednesday

Today is my daughter's 8th Birthday! She is so excited...she LOVES her birthday! It's hard to believe that its been 8 years already. The time has just flown by. So, my wordful wednesday post is dedicated to Claire today.

It seems like just yesterday she was this small!

Eating her one of her favorites...fried chicken.

The first time my princess met a Disney princess!

Her 5th Birthday party. She looks so little!



At Walt Disney World in 2009. (with her build a bear bunny in tow!)

She's our little gymnast. She loves gymnastics!



Last week at the botanical gardens. She had a blast feeding the fish.

Happy Birthday, Claire!!

To see more Wordful Wednesday posts or to join in visit Parenting by Dummies

L.E.N.S. Photo Challenge

The fun little challenge is hosted each week by Home is Where you Start From. This week's theme is "perspective".

This is a photo my daughter took this last week at the Botanical Gardens. I didn't know she took it until I saw her photos. I made the comment to her then that I really liked it because its from a different perspective.

50 years!

My husband's parents celebrated their 50th anniversary this past Friday. The children threw them a party. It was very nice. Here we are with them.

I made a slide show and scrapbook for the party. While I was putting them together I just kept thinking, "I hope Chris and I are both around to celebrate 50 years of marriage." What an accomplishment, and what an inspiration! With the divorce rate so high these days its really nice to see a milestone like this. I wish them many more years together!

Wordful Wednesday

We went to the State Fair Friday. We go every year and its so much fun.

I've been making a scrapbook for my mother-in-law with all their old pictures. I ran across these and realized they were taken at the 1958 state fair!

This is my husband's aunt and a cousin (I think) and her little girl. They are in front of the hall of state.
Here they are in front of the big tex statue, but you can only see his legs!


I meant to take pictures of the same areas when we were at the fair so I could compare the old photos with the new, but I forgot! Here's a picture of Big Tex this year though.

Claire had a blast in the petting zoo. This was the first time she ever went in there. Nathan always hated petting zoos so we never bothered to take her in. I told my husband that she likes animals we should really take her in there...and she loved it!

Nathan could care less about the animals, but he sure likes the car show!

And what would a state fair be without a giant statue made of butter? That's right, butter!

Wordful Wednesday is hosted by Parenting by Dummies.