Siblings Square Off

It was note quite as dramatic as Venus vs. Serena, but it was a sister v. sister competition. Yesterday, the u14 (under fourteen) Blizzards were challenged by the U13 Magic. With seven minutes remaining in the match, Chalupa was tossed into the game to defend the Magic Goal.

When the bench-coach from the Blizzards (who, under normal circumstances coaches both teams separately) saw Chalupa in the net, he moved Peanut into a forward position for a show-down. Some very aggressive play afforded Peanut with two solid shots on goal. Both shots were soundly denied by Chalupa. No hard feelings and no excessive trash-talking. It was all fun for the teams, coaches and parents, and will be a memorable confrontation for our two soccer stars.

Peanut charging the net (Chalupa) on what would be her second shot on goal.

IC West Launches it's Football Season

The evening began with the weekly Friday night pizza blast and the Taylor's. In the background you see Emily sucking down some lemonade, Robbert a bit overwhelmed in the mix of four gorgeous HS gals, Chalupa (in the gray T) and Mrs. Dr. Dorfman entering the "food line".

Below are the gals all dressed up and ready to go. From the left we have Emrica, Allie (a rookie to the weekly chaos) Emily (of course), Hanna (in all her glory) and Beaner. Not sure what the drama is all about... but suffice it to say... it makes for an interesting photo.

Next we have the parade to the slaughter. From the left we have Chalupa, Sidetrack, KT, K-Rain, Robert, and Mrs. Dr. Dorfman.

And here we can see that the action is much better in the stand than it was on the field. The Trojans were losing 7 - 38 entering the fourth quarter. Once Hemstead put in their third string team, West High managed to muster 14 more points to only loose by 24 points (14 - 38). They have not won a game since 2007, but the half-time band performance was remarkable!

Kids of kids

Almost 40 years ago I hooked up with my pal Dorf. Now our kids are playing with eachother in Dorf's former back yard. We had a lot of fun and it's really cool to see our progeny playing the way we played back in the day.

After dinner on the porch, we played a fierce game of Uno. I was well warned by Dorf. that his son Roberto was a huge cheater. We can confirm this as Fact. When accused of cheating, Roberto said (without an ounce of remorse or guilt), "I'm not cheating. I'm just looking at your cards."

David and Goliath

Last Spring we tossed together a very quick vegetable garden just to get something started. The soil was not very well prepared. We planted beans, tomato's, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots and a pumpkin. The pumpkin took over way too much space, so it has been voted out of the garden for next year. Zuchs were ok, cucumbers ok, carrots were good. Our beans sucked. And we probably go 2 bushels of tomatoes from three plants. As you can see below this is just a small portion of our crop. Good thing we like tomatoes.

Does this bug you?

Not sure what's going on here, and am concerned that this in not PG stuff. But what do I know?

Still they make for some pretty cool looking pictures.

Scary Camping

OMG!!! Is it Blair Witch Hunt?

Nope. Scarier. An Alfred Hitchcock Film Fest???

NO. Big Dawg... the mask of doom????

Nothing is scarier than the Curse of the Moon Over McBride. AHHHHHhhhhhhhh!!!

Ohhhh Deer!

Camping

Here is our campsite. It's 20 minutes from our house and cut out into the woods.

And here we see Big Dawg and Buzz Dad contemplating the bigger questions in life like... should we throw another log on the fire? Coke or Pepsi? Ginger or MaryAnn?

Welcome to the World

The Taylor's wish to welcome Olivia Love Schultze to the world. Born yesterday (August 11) weighing in at a tiny (but healthy) 4 lbs. 7 oz and 18 whopping inches long! Our hearty congratulations to Lucas and Sheri - in Monkeydoo.

Happy Birthday KFC!

Officially 12 years old. This is the first and last egg she'll crack on BD's head.

Using the Julia Child Technique she appeared like a seasoned professional.

The results were spectacular! Nicely done! Happy Birthday.

More dramatic weather last night. This was taken from our back yard last night and looks much worse than it was. The "Shelf" (someone told me that's what this wall of clouds is called, same for the picture taken below) passed without a drop, but rain eventually followed about 40 minutes later.

Our Family

Left to right: Sidetrack, Chalupa, Big Dawg, Beaner (Weaser?), Peanut and Buzz Daddy.

Storm Front

This from our front yard as a fast moving storm front moved through.

Gross Night

The kid's youth group, BASIC, meets every Wednesday night. It so happens this was Gross Night. Apparently they throw stuff, pour stuff, roll around in stuff and... well... get gross.

Stuff includes flour, eggs, whipped cream, water, milk, mud, and Lord knows what else. These pictures were taken when Peanut (left) and Chalupa returned home. What we see is after they hosed off. I can't imagine what they looked like before the hose. Ugh. Gross!!!!

Now You See It... Now You Don't

Well, we asked Big Dawg if he'd like me to tie a string around the tooth and a door, then slam the door. Having done that once or twice before, he balked. So we opted for the old fashioned tissue yank... He tried it himself but his self-perceived pain threshold was too low. So he had help from Buzz Daddy.

Aside from a brief yip, and it was barely a yip... all's well that ends well. Too late to get notice to the very forgetful toothfairy, but no matter. The toothfairly is slow but sure and will more than likely arrive sometime this evening.
So here's a contemporary question... is the tooth fairy a Male or Female? Not that it really matters, but the girls all say she's female, but I'm quick to tell them that in this this day and age, they shouldn't be so sure (title nine and EEOC and all). Something to think about I guess.

21 Hours of Stupidity

It all started here, just outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa at 6:15 a.m. on Sunday where Buzz Daddy was picked up by Crazy Pete and his son, Warped Thom.

We arrived approximately 4 hrs and 15 minutes later in Shakopee, MN at the "Vans Warped Tour" venue where Warped Thom fit right in.
Whoa! Who's that Warped Babe with Warped Thom? And WHAT, pray tell, is she doing in a warped place like this? It's all a very warped and twisted tale indeed. So we bid the pair to go forth and get warped, I guess!
45 minutes later, across town in Woodhaven, MN... Crazy takes on on a 5 - 6 mile run. Buzz biked because of an injured calf. Actually, Buzz is a wuss and couldn't handle Crazy Pete's lighting speed.
Crazy and Buzz taking in a sorry excuse for a baseball game. This will be the LAST time Buzz has to endure a Metro Dump baseball fiasco and can't wait until the Twinks get a new ball park next year! Meanwhile the Twinks got supremely dumped by the Angels in a 13 - 4 rout. And to make matters even worse... the traffic on our row was insane! People were coming and going between every batter. We were sitting and standing so much, you'd think we were attending a Catholic Mass. Ugh. But is was all good. We closed the place down.
Then off to the Mall of America, to see a movie, "Hangover". Our review: Two thumbs up on the Manly movie scale of silliness and stupidity. Makes this stupid 21 hour adventure seem like child's play. The fact is... we're getting too old for this #$%&! As we left the theater, the Mall was closing down. After this we ventured off to an Olive Garden for an efficiently good meal. Our waiter, Steve, was far from sociable, but got us in and out in about 40 minutes... just in time to pick up the warped delinquent from his warp-fest mess.
And here is Warped Thom the delinquent ... post warped-concerts... post two-plain- cheeseburgers, now cruising home at warped speed ZERO. The kid is outta gas.
Buzz arrived back to the Cedar Valley Nature trail at about 1:10 and back to his crib by about 1:50 a.m. All's well that ends well, I guess. A final Shout-Out to Crazy Pete for yet another completely useless and stupid adventure under the belt.

Letter from Beaner

Big Dawg reading a letter he got from his oldest sister (Beaner) that she send him from Camp. Reading is GOOD!