Football coach killed

Football coach killed, suspect in custody.
Over the past five hours, since Chris notified me of the death of AP head football coach Ed Thomas via email, I've watched the Channel 9 coverage, the press conference, the reports from Chris and Ashley, read tweets, followed facebook. I'm amazed at the online coverage available, it's being reported on Web sites across the country, from Cedar Rapids, to Des Moines, to Chicago. As the wife of a news anchor, I always check out the competition, as well. There's a scrolling headline on their site, but no mention of a story much less a link, which is a good, I guess...Just now, five hours later, do I see the word...Murder. Yet that is what happened. A guy took a gun a killed the coach at point blank range. The media has been reporting on it all morning. I am moderately intelligent, yet, somewhat naive, as I am only now associating murder with what happened, and that's after I saw the word in a news story. I find some solace in my intelligent, yet naive mind and wish it for my children as well.

A day of firsts

Kate's first day of tball practice.
She listened really well. Surprisingly, there were more girls than boys. It's cute the way the coaches paired them off to play catch. The girls each held hands with their partner and the boys just walked off together. Sam started playing tball at 4 also and three years later, he is a power slugger.

My first day turning on the oven
I'm almost ashamed to admit, we have lived in this house for almost five weeks, and today is the first day I learned how to turn on our new oven :) Needless to say, it's the hotest day too and I turned in on twice, once for lunch and once for dinner. Now that I know how to use it, I'll cook much more...

Our first pool day at Noelridge Pool
The perfect weather for a dip in the pool. Normally I'm not to excited to go to the pool, but we all were excited about going to the pool all morning. It was packed, of course, but it was so refreshing to stand in the water, play with Kate and watch her and Sam run around. Looking forward to many more days there in the next two months. It's amazing how much easier it is to go swimming as the kids become older. Kate is still a good four inches too short for the big slides, so that'll have to wait until next year. We saw many friends there. "Hey Mrs. Earl, where is Sam?" So much for incognito.

Our first day with no wallpaper border in our bedroom
It looks awesome. I painstakingly peeled wall paper all day yesterday. This morning I went online to read about how I should easily remove wallpaper. A spray bottle of water later, and the pieces were dropping to the ground. In a pinch, I used our St. Luke's snow scrapper as the wallpaper removing utensil. Worked great, a gift that can give all year long! The kids were awesome at picking up all the pieces, even the tiniest one. I gave them each a bag and told them whoever collected the most would receive a dollar, I also said whoever collected the least received a dollar. This did motivate them....surprisingly.

Girls separated from the Boys

Sam and friend from Roosevelt Elementary in Eau Claire, Ben Madison, spent an afternoon playing during Chris' book signing. To the right Chris is set up for a book signing....

Sam outside the Bradley Center and at the infamous Miller Park after running the bases. He and Chris attended the game with friends














This past weekend, Chris and Sam headed off on the book tour, for "The Last Out." Chris hosted signings in Eau Claire. Sam and Chris also caught up with many old good friends and then headed down to Milwaukee to attend the wedding of a long time friends and a Brewer game. This was Sam's first MLB game. In addition, after the game, Sam ran the bases! In addition, to seeing the sights, I'm told they had a great time playing catch along the beach on Lake Michigan.

Back in Cedar Rapids, Kate and I caught up with friends, watched movies, including Black Beauty, and shopped, We went to K-mart, Kohl's, Walmart, Target, JC Penney, Younkers twice, the Mall, etc. We managed not to spend very much money :) But we did eat out, alot, Olive Garden, Culvers, Pizza Hut and Pancheros - all very kid friendly and yummy. I didn't cook until Sunday night! A great weekend.

Monday morning brought about home project #1, at least inside, as I'm peeling the wall paper border, hideous, floral pattern, off of the master bedroom, thinking a chocolate/turquoise, cream motif is going to work, but we'll see what we find....

Promoted to second grade

Sam's last day at Pierce Elementary as a first grader. Promoted to second grader. How does the time fly by so fast? Kate will join Sam at Pierce next year as a preschooler. She'll go to school Monday - Friday from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.. This simplifies our life tremendously by only have one drop off and two pickups at the Sam location. Hopefully the transition into Kindergarten will be seamless in the future for her.

Our summer plans are filled with some weekend trips in Iowa and Wisconsin. We want to visit the Iowa State Capitol and will take an trip to Adventureland in the KCRG RV, while Chris covers some local Iowa towns and venues. Sam will play basketball, baseball and swim. A couple of art classes are thrown in to the mix as well. Kate will begin her first t-ball experience. Do you know how hard it is to find a tball pink left hand throw glove? I found it and it even lights up and flashes when you catch the ball! She'll continue with gymnastics, have eight weeks of swim lessons and hopefully get some ballet classes in to the schedule as well.

We have a wonderful sitter to watch the kids over the summer and it will be pain free knowing they are in such capable and caring hands. Throw in having friends over and it 'll keep us hopping, but the experiences are so worth the chauffeuring.

Thick in the season of Iowa baseball

Sam's baseball team has played for the past six weeks and goes until July! The Hiawatha Kids League is a class act and Chris is coaching his first year!

Magical May Moving & Money

We started off the month of May with a new house. At the left, you can see our garage is empty enough to fit one car in AND there are very few boxes left.


Below is our family room...complete with Katie playing with her toys.





Kitchen and dining room and over there is our living room - Hooray!

Sam and Basketball

We have a future basketball star on our hands. Sam has developed a love for dribbling, shooting and playing ball since he participated in the 1st grade Y winter basketball league. It's amazing to watch how his skills have developed over the past three weeks. He'll spend time out shooting and dribbling every day for almost an hour, at least. He's almost better than mom, and definitely better than dad! We'll be looking into a portable hoop for him as opposed to the one attached to our garage.