Barry’s Daily Web News

Back to Work

Work was busy today, but still not bad for coming off of a three day weekend. It was nice to come home to a hot cooked meal prepared by Cortney. Not much else to report today. I suppose I could have done something with Sean and Ethan after dinner, but I just put on a Spongebob video to entertain them, and then cleaned the house a bit.

Happy Easter

Cortney did a good job of getting Sean and Ethan excited about Easter. Despite the fact that they both stayed up an hour later dyeing eggs last night, they both woke up at 5:30 AM this morning, expecting to go on an egg hunt. Sean and Ethan had to settle for opening their easter baskets until the sun hit the yard to dry out the wet grass to start the egg hunt.

The tiredness of the kids did not make for a pleasant easter meal. I prepared a ham and cooked macaroni and cheese, but Sean and Ethan would have none of it. Other than the meal, Sean did alright for the rest of the day, and Ethan was fine until he conked out right after dinner.

And of course, this picture is from the egg hunt. You can see Sean and Ethan are having fun, and you can also see my rose bushes in the background.

Sean, the Hiker

Sean and I went hiking this morning. The original plan was for everyone to go hiking, but Ethan did not want to go, and Cortney was tired, so that left just the two of us. Sean now has the strength, endurance, and agility for hiking, but hiking is just not exciting enough for him. He did fine for the first half hour, but then wanted to go home after that. Of course, the first half hour was half way around the trail, so that meant we had another half hour to go. Sean’s favorite part was all of the dogs walked by their owners on the trail.

My Grandfather Passes Away

My grandfather passed away last night in his sleep. These words are tough to write, but I feel it would be an injustice to not talk about what a great person he was.

Despite the fact that he was 93 and in poor health, his passing was still a surprise, since he always seemed to overcome one obstacle after another. He survived his wife’s passing the year before last. He had had heart bypass surgery before it was a common procedure, and had heart trouble ever since, but that seemed like just an inconvenience to him. I recently visited him three weeks ago, and while he was having a tough time with a hospital stay, he was still sharp and mentally strong.

To say I was close to my grandfather would be an understatement. While growing up, my brother and I spent nearly every weekend at his house. While I now realize he was giving my parents a break, the weekend trip was something I looked forward to every week. We played cards on Saturday night, and we woke up Sunday morning for donuts and sticky buns, which my grandfather would always pick up fresh that morning. We usually went bike riding, and occasionally made long bike rides. Even in recent years, my grandfather mentioned the bike rides as one of his fondest memories, and it is one of my fondest as well.

When I was twelve, my father was working on his law degree and my mother was finishing her bachelors degree. My grandfather volunteered to watch my brother and during the week when both parents were gone. He could have just stayed at our house and watched us, but he made it fun, and took us out to the circus, a rodeo, and even to a tractor pull.

When I was 28 years old, I badly inured my knee. I wasn’t capable of taking care of myself, and it was my grandfather who came to help me out. He stayed with me for a month, until I was able to walk and drive on my own.

My grandfather was friendly, outgoing, honest, and trustworthy. Without a college degree, he was knowledgeable enough to work to improve the government employee retirement system. He even traveled to Panama and American Samoa to help set up retirement systems there.

While I am glad my grandfather is at peace and has joined his wife, I can’t begin to describe my loss over his passing. I can’t help but think the world has lost a great person. My sympathies also good out to his friends and our family, especially my aunt, who took great care of him in the last months of his life.

A Day Off

It was nice to have a vacation day without anything specific planned. Of course, I couldn’t just sit around all day (well, maybe I could have), so I did some work around the house. I planted an aloe vera plant in one of the porch planters, cleaned the pool filter, rebuilt the bottom half of the pool vacuum, and did some maintenance work on the computers.

The new vacuum cleaner will get a good test this evening. We had a big dust storm this evening, with debris as well as dust blown into the pool. Even the neighbor’s patio umbrella landed in our pool.

Oh, and I turned on the air conditioning today. At 9:00 AM, it was already 83 degrees inside the house, and I decided enough was enough.

Another Hot Day

Today’s high was 96 degrees, and it was definitely too hot inside the house. It’s supposed to cool off tomorrow, so I kept the air conditioning off.

Sean swam in the pool twice today. Cortney took him in this afternoon, and I took him in this evening. In a moment of insanity, I jumped into the pool as well. After a cold shock, I realized it really wasn’t that bad, with the water around 72 degrees. I walked Ethan around the pool, but it was still too cold for him. Sean and I did not stay in long in more than ten minutes, but that was enough to cool off.

More Fun at the Gym

Sean’s new gym has many advanced gymnasts, so sometime it is difficult to just watch Sean. I like watching the rings and pummel horse, and one girl was doing some impressive vaults. Sean did look like a gymnast in his on right, particularly when he did an inverted handstand on the rings.

In other news, we had our hottest day of the year so far, with a high of 93 degrees. It’s awfully tempting to turn on the air conditioning right now.

Sean’s New Gym

I made my first trip to Sean’s new gym. The instructors at Sean’s old gym all moved over to a new building. The new gym opened last week, but I was out of town. The new gym is much larger, and has students and teachers from another gym as well. Sean still shows much enthusiasm, and is still doing well.

Tough Parenting

Sometimes parenting just doesn’t go as you expect. Tonight, I had plans to work with Sean on his writing, then take Sean and Ethan to the park. Well, Sean quickly lost interest in working on the letters he has trouble with, so we moved on to go to the park.

As soon as we walked out the door, Sean ran off down the street. I like the fact the he was excited about going to the park, but I don’t like Sean running off where I can’t see him. I called Sean back, and he refused. The bottom line is that we never made it to the park.

Sean’s actually a good kid, but this evening, I thought it we be good to teach him a lesson about immediate gratification. Sean did get to play Uno as a consolation.

Warm Weather

I was glad I did my yard work early today, as it warmed up to the upper eighties today. The summer lawn is starting to grow, so it looks like mowing will be mandatory for the next 5 months or so. The rose bushes, for which I removed all the foliage in February, have filled out again and are ready to bloom. The yard no longer has the pungent orange blossom smell, but most of the plants are flowering. In short, the yard looks nice. I guess I really enjoy my gardening.

Pool Open for Business

Sean saw the some kids swimming in the neighbor’s pool, so he decided to go swimming. The neighbor’s pool gets more sun than ours, but I imagine the water was still cold. Ethan and I never did go in the pool, but Sean jumped in and swam around for a few minutes.

Yard Sale Day

Today was the neighborhood yard sale day, so of course, Cortney participated. The good news for me is that means spending the morning with Sean and Ethan.

Sean told me a dinosaur story, which I transcribed for him. I then had Sean write his story himself, and he finished the first page. He did really well with the story and the writing.

Sean, Ethan, and I also had fun playing computer games. Ethan has just learned to launch games and play them himself, and he likes playing the games just as much as Sean does.

Cortney had a successful day with the yard sale, and she made quite a bit of money.

Sean’s 6 Year Checkup

Cortney finally got around to taking Sean to the doctor for his 6 year well visit. Sean is now 45 and a half inches tall and 49 and a half pounds, which puts him at 50th and 55th percentile. I think the extra 5 percent weight is the muscle Sean has gained from gym class.

Sean’s ears hurt after having wax removed, so he did not feel like doing anything this evening. That was fine with me, as I feel a bit tired, likely do to jet lag.

Back Home Again

I arrived home after Sean and Ethan went to bed, but apparently, they were not sleeping, so I got a nice big greeting from them. I’m glad I’m back home.

Sunset on the Beach

This evening, we had dinner in Clearwater Beach, at a restaurant directly on the beach. It was a clear evening, and we had a great view of the sun setting over the Gulf of Mexico. For the third day in a row, I had seafood for dinner. I will likely have seafood again for lunch tomorrow. It’s a treat to have fresh seafood.

As a bonus, we finished dinner early enough that I was able to go swimming in the hotel pool. I assume the pool was heated, but at any rate, the water was just the right temperature. Cool enough to be refreshing, but not so cold as to be uncomfortable. Even though I enjoyed the cool water, I just had to warm up in the hot tub.

It might sound like I could get used to this lifestyle, but I would much rather be spending time with Cortney and the kids.