Riding my bike to school uphill both ways

So the other morning Ryan got about half a block from the house and told Carmen that he couldn't make his bike go, that it was stuck. She rode back to him and found that for whatever reason the front wheel was totally seized up. I took the wheel apart and discovered that all the grease had gone out of the bearings and that the cage that holds the individual balls of the bearing in had shifted and was binding between the race (the part of the bearing that the balls ride one) and the bearing ball. So as the cages are only there to facilitate manufacturing, I took it out and FILLED the wheel with grease. Put it all back together and it spun fast and free... now Ryan is no longer falling behind on the ride to and from school, in fact he passes Carmen and Kyle now... I guess that's what happens when you ride uphill EVERYWHERE you go for weeks, months maybe...

Tylor's last soccer season on NYS... maybe

Ty decided after watching his brothers play soccer for two of the three winter seasons (it's the best time of year to play outdoor sports here) that he wanted to play one more season. So we signed him up on coach Steve's team -the team he'd been on last year and we really like coach Steve. Ty's ball handling and awareness of the game have really improved. We found out after the season started, thinking it was Ty's last as NYS only goes up to 12 years old (you can turn 13 during the season but you cannot be 13 before the season starts and still play for NYS). Anyway we found out that NYS is thinking about doing a 13 to 15 year old league. So this might not be Ty's last season... maybe...

Ryan's sharp new suit

que the zz-top "every girl's crazy bout a sharp dressed man..."

Ryan's Birthday

It's Ryan's birthday! So for starters it's difficult to believe all our kids are in school... there's no way they're that old already... but then they go and have the audacity of having birthdays every year and trying to get older all the time! What's with that?



Ryan had a soccer birthday party, we played soccer related games, ok well birthday games with soccer balls and soccer names... so yeah soccer related birthday games. Had a soccer cake... gave out soccer prizes... you sensing a theme here? We think he had fun, but what kid doesn't have fun at their own birthday party?

Soccer Season

It's soccer season again. Both Kyle and Ryan are playing for coach Kimmy (on different age group teams this time though). Kyle is in the age group that plays on a regulation sized field... sure looks huge with those kids on it. Ryan loves to play goalie, striker, midfielder... actually I think he just loves to play soccer regardless of the position. We really like having them play for coach Kimmy, she has the kids play all kinds of different positions so that they get a feel for the whole game, she also expects even 5 and 6 year olds to play their position and amazingly after just a few games they start doing it.

MP3 players

Kyle and Ryan got (cheep) MP3 players for Christmas... now they can dance to the music only they're hearing...

Boxing Day

So all day on boxing day Kyle was acting a little weird about eating, we figured it was just too many sweets and candies. But at dinner he started to cry with every bite he took... so I looked in his mouth and it looked like someone has shoved a pea up under his gums by one of his top teeth. We called our dentist, who as luck would have it had just gotten back into town that afternoon, he told me to meet him at his office in 20 minutes. I took Kyle over there and he looked at it told me that he thought it was an abscessed tooth but that he'd take an x-ray to be sure. We did the x-ray and sure enough it was an abscess up behind a tooth that had a filling that evidently didn't fill in the entire decayed spot in it and as the decay had grown behind the filling it'd caused the nerve to die and the infection (abscess) to start and to grow. So he numbed up Kyle's face (as you can see in the following post procedure photos) and popped the tooth out. The transformation in Kyles demeanor was nearly instantaneous, he went from lethargic and whiny to happy and bouncy, made Carmen and I feel like inattentive parents for not noticing earlier...


I'm not smirking... honest...


Full face smile needed some assistance.


Happy as a lark in our new Christmas jammies, even if we can only get the right side of our mouth to smile...