Tricks and Treats

Halloween Day brought me my own tricks and treats. My first treat is today's weather- A beautiful fall, sunny day with a temp of 70 degrees.


My trick...Oakville was out of Halloween candy. I went to 5 stores in search of candy. Lucky for me, at my 4 th store, Canadian Superstore, the clerk was breaking down the empty candy boxes and let me in on a little secret. He said Longo's grocery store had a little bit of candy left. I was able to pick up some Reese and Twizzlers. My apologies in advance to my Canadian neighbors, I am not a peanut free house!


My next treat was when I pulled in to the gas station to fill up the tank of the Yukon. Gas was at an all time low of 90.2 cents a liter (about $3.60 a gallon)! I believe that is the cheapest I have seen gas priced in the two years we have lived in our temporary relocation facility. I was so happy that I was able to fill up my gas tank for a bargain price of $95.

MacDaddy was so excited I bought Reese. It is his favorite candy bar. He was helping hang spider webs on the front porch and in the bushes. Asking if he could have a Reese, I say yes and remind him...just one! He returns, one Reese in hand and says something bad happened to the candy. I follow him inside and take off the lid of the ghost that holds our candy. In the middle of all the candy is a mouse!
Trick!! Gotcha…it’s just Freddy, MacDaddy’s stuffed mouse from school. Andrew has to write about himself and Freddy and their experiences every weekend. MacDaddy explained that he thought it was a great way to start their weekend adventure.

Mac's Jacks

Halloween is an international holiday celebrated on October 31. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, costumes, and carving jack-o'-lanterns. A-mac, Lil' Lefty and MacDaddy came home from school today and spent all afternoon preparing for tomorrow's festivities. MacDaddy recruited his sisters to help him make his popcorn hands, complete with candy corn finger nails and a spider ring.
Next, it was time to turn each of the three big, orange pumpkins into a one of a kind, Mac created Jack-o-Lanterns. Funny, how some things never change from year to year. MacDaddy still won't put his hands in the pumpkin to pull out the guts and seeds. He says it's gross! Lucky for him, Lil' Lefty thinks that's the best part and pulls double duty de-gutting both her pumpkin and MacDaddy's. Not, only does Lil' Lefty gut the pumpkin, but she also takes great care in separating the seeds from the pulp so that she can bake pumpkin seeds. MacDaddy persuades Lil'Lefty for a handful of seed to throw outside in the dirt to see if pumpkins will grow for next year. A-mac sits, the pumpkin before her, and her creative juices are not flowing. She has already drawn three faces on the pumpkin and still can't figure out what she wants her Jack to look like. All the while, I have the following little pumpkin song going though my head. It has to be from Preston Meadow...Ms. Martha (she was both Lil'Lefty and MacDaddy's Pre K teacher).

Jack-o-Lantern

(Tune: I'm a Little Teapot)

I'm a little Jack-o-lantern Fat and Fine.

They picked me off a pumpkin vine.

Halloween is coming don't you know.

Just light my candle and watch me glow.

And without further delay... Introducing the Mac Jacks!

Phillies Win the World Series!!!

We have been to several Phillies spring traning games in Clearwater, Florida. These pictures are from 2007. Ryan Howard is batting below on the left. Our seats were very close to the players in the middle, and a field view with A-mac on the right.

In 2005, Ryan Howard won the NL Rookie of the Year award. In 2006, Ryan Howard won the NL MVP award when he hit 58 home runs. Ryan Howard was the fastest player to reach 100 home runs in MLB history.

When we visited Phillies spring training in 2008, we were lucky enough to get Ryan Howard to sign a 2006 Topps baseball card. According to Ebay, worth about $100. According to Macs - "priceless". A-mac, MacDaddy and I got to the stadium well before the game start. Ryan Howard was talking to someone by the stands and I pointed this out to A-mac, who hustled down to get his autograph. He was nice... I wish I had the pictures.

Our Digital World - Part Trois (Lightning Strikes Again)

We cleaned off the pictures on our secondary digital camera and to our surprise we found a few pictures from our spring break 2008 trip to Florida. All of the other pictures were lost in a computer crash. The pictures on the camera are in a ghost folder. Not sure how they got there. MacDaddy and I walked up to the St Pete Times Forum to see a Tampa Bay Lightning game, and bought tickets from a scalper on the street. We paid less than face and sat on the blue line about 20 rows up. Great tickets. The person who sold the tickets to us gave me a dozen tickets redeemable for free beer. I gave them to the people sitting next to me after the first period and they never returned. No one in Canada believed the price of the tickets or the free beer. It wouldn't hapen in Canada.

The End of the Line

MacMom and I were married 14+ years ago in June 1994. In the summer of 1995, we moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Frisco, Texas. We bought our first house, and our first major appliance.

Last week, almost 14 years later, our refrigerator died. We bought a brand new stainless steel refrigerator from Home Depot that will be delivered tomorrow. The old refrigerator sits in our kitchen, empty and cleaned out. We have a freezer in the basement and a refrigerator in the garage. If you want milk for breakfast, during this interim period, you have to walk into the garage to get it. The temperatures have been in the high 30's so our whole backyard could act as a refrigerator.

Fridge History:
The refrigerator was white when we bought it. Our refrigerator held the Pre-made baby formula and food for each of our three kids while the refrigerator resided in our first Frisco home. We lived in this house and all three kids were born there. When it was time to move our family to Iowa, our refrigerator made the move with us. The "Fridge", not the football player, was there when our entire family had the flu. The fridge saw A-mac throw-up all over the kitchen floor and watched our kids play in the hearth room. The Fridge probably saw the deer that routinely walked in the backyard of our house.

The Fridge again jumped on the moving truck back to Texas, and into our second Frisco home. This was move #2 for the Fridge. It was nice to get back to Texas. Iowa was not good to us. The Fridge knew it.

In Texas, the Fridge needed a make-over. This was a make-over before there were TV shows about make-overs. The Fridge was a trend-setter. MacMom painted the Fridge "chalkboard" paint and the Fridge became the scheduling center piece of our house. The Fridge also gained a new friend. As our family grew, we bought a stand-alone freezer. For obvious reasons, we kept the two of them apart. We were not ready for a "dorm room refrigerator".

The Fridge went international with our move to Canada in 2006. This was the third move for the Fridge. The Fridge was expected to sit-the-bench in the garage, as our home was to have an existing refrigerator. However, we liked our Fridge better and moved it into the kitchen. The Fridge was called back into action. The home's new, but small refrigerator went into the garage.

Our 3 kids are "fully active" and the Fridge has remained the scheduling centerpiece of our house. Weekly calendars, in chalk, are written on the Fridge and monthly calendars are hung to the Fridge. The Fridge holds the magnetic milk bag opening knife (see previous milk-in-a-bag post). The Fridge has been with us through a lot... 14+ plus years of life with our family. Who knows what new things will happen. Who knows if refrigerators made today will last 14 years.

MacDaddy in Goal

After two games, the offical statistics show that MacDaddy was the second most prolific point - scorer on his hockey team. So what do we do? We put him in goal. Actually, MacDaddy volunteered to play goalie. He had only played goal one game and that was two years ago.
All last year, his team had a permanent goalie.














At the end of the first period the "good guys" were up 2 - 0. The second period saw three goals from the opposition coach's son and our team down 3-2. After a hard fought third period, our heroes lost by a score of 5-4. MacDaddy played goalie like an infielder. He tried to use his glove to stop every puck and forgot that he had a stick. Not too bad for only having one practice with the goalie equipment.


MacDaddy plays in an old arena in Burlington, Ontario. A-mac had our camera and was able to get a picture of a mouse(Freddie) up against the glass. (He is actually a stuffed animal from school that MacDaddy has to write about over the weekend and we thought a trip to the hockey pad would make a good read.)

Canada's Next Top Model?

There is a new fashion model tearing up the runways at the Toronto Fashion Week...Davida! She enjoys taking long walks on the beach and watching sappy chick flicks causing her to use up an entire box of Kleenex. She has high hopes of being the new face for Kleenex so that she can get them for free.



She is an emerging face from the region of Paintsville, Microsoftland. She is most remembered for her hat obsession. She wears baseball hats on all her catwalks. Strange, she even leaves the price tags on? Could this be the start of a new trend?

I am sure we will see more amazing photo shoots from this modern day supermodel, Diva. Do you think she is material for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue? My name is A-Mac and I approve this message.

See what A-mac spends her time doing on the computer when she is suppossed to be doing her homework-translating the Beatitudes.
Mac Mom

Our Digital World - Part Deux (The Stadiums)

Got home from work tonight and MacMom had found and started up an old lap top computer. The computer had about 500 - 1000 old (circa 2003 - 2006) pictures. I copied them over to our current computer using our external hard drive and it was like Christmas morning. The first question was, who's cute little kids are those in the pictures on our computer? (Just a joke, because the three kids are growing so fast.)

With the new pictures available, it was time for a consolidation of MLB Stadiums that I have visited with at least one child. There are several stadiums that I have visited without child that do not count. I will list them below. At the end of the day, it only matters if we create a memory and mark it by visiting a MLB stadium. Need to get to them all... and very timely with the start of the World Series.

MacDaddy started it all with a trip to New York City in 200

Yankee Stadium

We missed the scheduled tour because of subway construction. I paid a tour guide to take us on a private tour. Not sure George Steinbrenner got any of that money?

This past summer, the whole family returned to NY to see both the Original Yankee Stadium, the house that Ruth built, and the new Yankee Stadium across the street.

The next day we caught a game at the Original Shea Stadium and saw Pedro Martinez pitch on our way to the airport. MacDaddy and I brought our gloves and played catch in the parking lot while waiting in line to run around the bases. Catch with Dad... that is all that it is about.


MacDaddy in his Mets shirt, Mets hat and Mets braclet. This was when the rubber bracelets were cool and the "in" thing. I have a couple bags with me that we had been carrying around for two days. Don't tell anyone at Shea, they contained a bunch of Yankee souvenirs.

Tampa Bay Rays are playing in the 2008 World Series. This is a picture at Tampa Bay Devil Rays Spring Training in 2007. We also went to Tropicana Field and I can not find a picture.

A summer trip to SoCal. SoCal is short for Southern California for the older generation. Angels Stadium of Anaheim on the far left and Petco Park home of the San Diego Padres in the middle.

Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine overlooks downtown Los Angeles.

A-mac don't look so mean. :-)

In Spring 2007, A-mac, MacDaddy and I went to a Pirates game while MacMom and Lil' Lefty enjoy some USA shopping. PNC Park is on the other side of a river from downtown Pittsburgh. We got tickets 20 rows up behind the dugout for less than face value. Great fun! Took a boat back to the hotel.




We had season tickets to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2007, 2 front row tickets on the intersection of the infield and outfield. We saw about 45 games that season. We saw one game in 2008 because all three kids got busier with rep softball/baseball during the summer.












This is our only Jays game of 2008 and we went with Lil Lefty's softball team in September. I actually think it was one of the last home games of the season.







Lil' Lefty and I went to Washington DC for the baptism of my cousin's son in 2006, I believe. We saw RFK when it was the inagural stadium for the Nationals. Lil' Lefty and I drove to Baltimore to see Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Lil' Lefty to right is standing in front of a statue of Babe Ruth. The Babe was born in 1895 in a house, walking distance from the stadium. He was first signed as a professional baseball player by the minor league, Baltimore Orioles.


After a cruise during Spring Break out of Galveston, we stopped off at Minute Maid Park where the Houston Astros play.

Here is a picture from a Texas Rangers game in 2005. Nothing like 100 degree heat at 10pm.

In one of the numerous computer crashes we have suffered, I have lost pictures of the following:

We ate lunch at Comerica Park ( Detroit Tigers) and it snowed that day we were there. We were on our way to Cleveland to celebrate Thanksgiving. We have been to Jacobs Field, and tour the facility, where the Cleveland Indians play. On our drive from Texas to Canada, MacDaddy and I took in a game at Kauffman Stadium, home of the KC Royals and we walkd around Great American Ballpark where the Cincinnati Reds play in Ohio. A-Mac, Lil Lefty and I saw a St. Louis Cardinals game at the new Busch Stadium on our drive to Canada. A-mac and I went to a Boston Red Sox game with my cousin, Richard and his wife Melanie in the early 2000's. Our whole family went to a Minnesota Twins game during our short residence in Iowa. The whole family also saw Coors Field where the Rockies play, while attending my cousin Richard's wedding in Colorado Springs.

I have seen the stadiums of the following teams while on business trips: Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs and White Sox, Atlanta Braves and Florida Marlins. (Old Montreal Expos)

Two members of the family have been to the stadiums of the Yankees, Mets, Rays, Jays, Angels, Padres, Dodgers, Pirates, Blue Jays, Nationals, Orioles, Atsros, Tigers, Indians, Rangers, Reds, Cardinals, Red Sox, Twins and Rockies.

We need to get to yet... Brewers, A's, Razorbacks and the Phillies.

Wait til I tell MacMom ,we have to spend Spring Break in Milwaukee.

"Eye" Spy

"Eye" spy with my little eyes something blue. No, not my eyes silly, they are green! But you're warm. Yep! You got it. GLASSES! Blue glasses. I had to get extra "eyes" for reading. Don't I look smart? Mom says I am still handsome.

MacDaddy

P.S. I lost my Nanny McPhee tooth Sunday night. The Tooth Fairy left me 5 bucks!

Do We Really Need Another Website?

A 2007 survey found that there were 108,810,358 distinct websites, not counting the webpages within those sites. Make it 108,810,359. That's right we just added one.

http://www.eteamz.com/MississaguaNorthSquirt2/

MacMom spent the better part of a day setting up this website for Lil' Lefty's softball team.

And "yes", we do need this website.

I am an Artiste

I wish I could tell you I set this picture up by using low apeture and shutter mode with a specific ISO settiing in full manual. Unfortunately, all I was trying to do was get a picture of Lil Lefty throwing her first Squirt (12u) pitch from 35 feet. The initial feedback was I did a horrible job. I remember taking the picture, hitting the button and it seemed like an eternity waiting while the camera did "stuff" before the picture was snapped. I think using the word "stuff" has confirmed that I do not know the inner-workings camera technology.

MacMom is REALLY good at taking pictures. I enjoy looking at her pictures. It is very hard for me to take pictures during an event because I like to see the action first hand. The ultimate "Proud Dad" trade off is, do you watch the action as it happens or try to capture a piece of it for review at a later time. At MacDaddy's hockey game on Saturday he had a full ice break-away goal, skated through the oponents and scored in the "5 hole". He also had a "One timer" slap shot that was the best I had seen at his age. (aside: 5 hole is the space between the feet. One timer means the puck is coming at you and you slap shoot it without stopping the puck) I got pictures/movies of neither. I wish I had. I am sure there will be more.

MacMom had uploaded all the pictures onto our computer and I ran a back-up (See "Our Digital World" post... you can teach an old dog new tricks) I looked through all of the pictures. If you click on the picture above it will bring the picture into your full screen.

As I looked at the picture I realized it is kind of cool. Lil Lefty's hair is "flowing" in the middle of the picture. You can see the black and orange colors of her new uniforms. The yellow circle of the ball is also in the middle and if you follow the circle from the top you can see the ball carry all the way to the batter who is out of camera sight. If you understand your fastpitch mechanics you can see she turned over her wrist where the back of her hand is facing up. This is an area we will work on correcting in the winter to provide consistency in her "flipping". You can see the car lights in the background. Lil Lefty is the only Tiger player in the picture showing it can be lonely having the responsibility of pitching and you can see four player from the other team on the bench watching as Lil Lefty pitches.

After several minutes of further review I have realized that my picture was not horrible.

I realized that I am an "Artiste"

42 - are you crazy?

Lil' Lefty played her first game as a Squirt (12u in Canada). Squirt means that the pitchers mound moves back to 35 feet. Her new team, the Mississauga North Tigers, is playing in a "friendly" tournament in Brampton this weekend. Lil' Lefty pitched the first game of the tournament against the Brampton Tier I team that has older girls (11-12 year olds). Lil' Lefty struck out 15 batters in 6 innings. After the game, the umpire came up to me and asked if I was her dad? He complimented me on how well she pitched. More important is that Lil' Lefty expressed to me how she really liked the girls on her new team. From what I saw tonight, I think they will be very good. I will even go out on a limb and say that they have a good chance of winning gold in Provincials next year.

Now for good weather news. It wasn't windy!
At the end of the game, we got in the car and the car thermometer read a whopping 42 degrees outside - are you crazy? Who plays softball in 4o degree weather....only Canadians! Mac Mom had to stop taking pictures because her hands were so cold. Many of the pics she did take are out of focus because she was shivering and couldn't keep the camera still. Good thing, Lil' Lefty is a pitcher and is constantly in movement. I can't believe she wore only an under armour (what a plug) under her tank jersey and Shorts! The Mac family athletic supporters were all bundled wearing multiple layers ,winter coats and gloves and sipping hot cocoa. Not once did Lil' Lefty complain about being cold. What a great sport she was! Is this the same girl that at her very first Spring soccer game in Texas she would not play because she said she was too cold and sat on a chair in a winter coat with a quilt wrapped around her? I guarantee it was much warmer than 42 degrees!

Lunch date with MacDaddy

One of my disappointments about Canada is school recess and lunch. The Mac kids begin school at 8:45 am , lunch at 11:45 and are dismissed at 3:45 pm. There are 2- 15 minutes recesses (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) in addition to their 40 minute lunch recess. Recess takes place for the whole school at the same time on a black top behind the school bldg. There is an invisible line drawn across the black top and grades 1-3 are banished to one side and grades 4-8 on the other. I am not excited that 9 year old Lil' Lefty can't cross this line to play with 8 year old MacDaddy. Also, imagine some of the conversations and language Lil' Lefty overhears during recess because she is on the side of 12-14 year old 7th and 8th graders. Mind you all this time spent on the playground as they call it--there is not a playground nor equipment. A few basketball hoops and a hopscotch. Don't forget to bring in your own basketball from home if you want to play hoops. They do provide 4 mini hockey nets and the kids play foot hockey with tennis balls or wall ball--throwing the tennis balls against the brick wall of the school building. You got it...bring your own tennis ball. MacDaddy probably goes through 3 dozen tennis balls in a school year. He and his friends end up "roofin" the balls. MacDaddy tells me that means they threw the balls up to high and on the school roof they landed and stay. Oh, wait till the snow falls and they are told that there is no throwing snow balls on the playground. Good luck with that! Guaranteed, MacDaddy will be in trouble on the day of the first snow fall.

Next, school does not provide a hot lunch nor do they have a cafeteria. The Mac kids eat a packed lunch everyday at their desk in their classroom. The contents of their lunch cannot contain peanut butter or any kid of nut. The school is a nut free environment due to peanut allergies of some students. Poor MacDaddy lives on peanut butter. A-mac, Lil' Lefty and MacDaddy usually end up coming home for lunch 1-2 times per week. OK ...enough complaining!

Today, MacDaddy and I had a lunch date. We headed for the McDonald's drive thru for a double cheeseburger ketchup only, fries and a chocolate milk. Then, went to the playground located about 100 yards away from his school.

Upon dropping him off at school, he said with a big grin showing off his loose "Nanny McPhee" tooth , "Thanks Mom! That was fun! Let's do it again. "

Our Digital World

Big D here. I love the digital world. I love movies, pictures and words stored in a box and reviewed on a screen. After about 1/2 a dozen computer crashes over the past 10 years and the most previous one about a month ago, I have learned that our digital world is not perfect. We had a back-up external hard drive that was not configured correctly and we lost a "chunk" of picture and movies. That is the bad! We lost the hundreds of $ of iTunes content that we had purchased over the past 2 years. But, in our digital world, I had receipts for everything bought on iTunes and was able to get them to allow me to re-download the content. Three days to re-download and a day to back-up to the external hard drive and we seem to be back in the digital age.

I am a note taker. My email used to have a 10 GB capacity, then it moved to 20GB and then to 500 GB. Now they don't even report the capacity. During the kids ball seasons, I took notes after each activity and stored them in the "Notes" section of my email. I enjoy reviewing and seeing the progress archived in notes.

We have had several video cameras during the 14 years of our married life. I am sure that we have a box of tapes with birthday parties, family activities, sporting events and that video of when we bought our first home... remember that one MacMom? The problem is, what do I play them on? I know they can be converted to DVD. But along with loving the mediums, I like them short... give me five - 30 second videos over a hour long VHS tape any day.

I love the idea of a blog. It allows me to memorialize activities, and thoughts, that I can later review and enjoy. The blog is for me. (I really like it when MacMom corrects my spelling or syntax.) You are welcome to watch it evolve, but realize I am not trying to make a statement or communicate information to the world... just documenting life! It fits well with "Our Digital World".

One last thought, I really like Christmas cards. I like the chaos of getting the three kids together for one photo to create our photo card. I really enjoy the one page summary of our year that MacMom writes, and we as a family "wordsmith" before including in the card. Living in Canada, we try to save a couple hundred bucks and mail our cards from the US when we visit relatives for Thanksgiving. To mail each card from Canada would cost us $1.60 per card verses whatever the US postal rate is up to now. So expect your card early. I look forward to heading out to our mailbox and finding your card. I like reading the Christmas cards and catching up with your family news and looking at the pictures of family and friends included in the card.

This is a transition year with the start of the blog (thanks to Mrs. Nelson for explaining how easy it is). I suspect we will have a full year summary in the Christmas card this year, but as all good ideas evolve future Christmas cards will probably just give you the link to the summary of Mac life on our blog.

Milk in a Bag?

Milk bags are rectangular plastic bags that hold milk. They are usually stored in a pitcher with one of the corners cut off to allow for pouring. A typical milk bag contains one liter of milk and is purchased in bundles three for about $4.79.

It takes some effort to place the milk bags into the pitcher because they seem to be made larger than the plastic pitchers you purchase to put them in. After placing the milk bag into the pitcher you need to smack the bottom of the pitcher on the counter or table until the bag slides all the way down into the pitcher. Even then, too much of the bag is up over the top of the pitcher.
A milk bag is then opened with a small razor blade type envelope opener. The trick is to cut the corner off just right. The size of the hole you cut should be fairly small so when you go to pour the milk you have a small stream. Now, having 3 kids in the house that cut the corner off of milk bags gives us large corner holes. When you slightly tip the pitcher the milk gushes out like Niagara Falls. It makes a mess with milk all over the counter and down inside the pitcher. Worst of all is that you can’t cry over spilled milk! The milk bag is stored in the fridge just like a milk jug, but it sits there unsealed/open and the air from the refrigerator and smells from your food flavor your milk if you don’t drink it fast enough. I guess that’s why each bag is only one liter.

And there we have it. The milk bags in all it's glorious action. I want my plastic milk jug back!!!

Whoever Heard of Thanksgiving before Halloween?

Even though Canada is just to the north of the states and our home or as A-mac calls it-our temporary relocation facility is only 45 minutes from the USA border at Niagara Falls, we have learned that Canada is quite a different country. More on this in future posts! For now, their Thanksgiving Day is celebrated the second Monday in October. Whoever heard of celebrating Thanksgiving before Halloween?

The 3-day weekend has given us some of the nicest weather of the summer. Sunny and warm with a temperature of about 75 degrees. Most good Canadians head north to their cottages to close them up for the winter and are home in time to spend Monday having dinner with family and friends.

What do we do on a 3 day Canadian Thanksgiving weekend? We go to the ballfield....

I am catching Lil Lefty. A-mac is

standing in watching balls. MacDaddy

is hitting off the Tee in the outfield and MacMom has camera duty.

A fun time was had by all. Although, Lil' Lefty probably enjoyed herself the most. When it wasn't her turn at bat, she went around collecting snails and grasshoppers and she would sneek up behind me and place them on my head. Silly girl!