Bode's 9th Birthday

It's now official:  Bode J. McGuirk is 9 years old.  Hard to believe slightly more than a decade ago the 53 inch, 75 pound boy you see before you in the below picture was a tiny 7 lbs, 11 ounces and a mere 20 inches tall, err, long.  Quite the transformation :-)

Bode made us get him up early, as he wanted to open his gifts BEFORE he went to school.  Thus, at 0620, we were doing presents.  What a great start to the day.  He got some cool things--a snap-circuits set, Halo 5, some Lego sets, a cool microscope, a motorized scooter, and some handy cash.  However, his favorite gift has to be the sort-of-life-sized rottweiler stuffed animal.  He is quite taken with it, and there is even a small resemblance to Harley.

While it's not the real dog that he wanted, it will suffice (for the time being).  We did wait until after school and after dinner to do cake.  Bode brought cupcakes to school for his class, and they sang to him.  His teammates also sung happy birthday at swim practice.  Counting the beautiful rendition Ashley and I gave, Bode heard Happy Birthday three times...I wonder how much money we owe the Jackson estate?  Here's a nice shot of Bode with his cake and his real-life dog.

Nine years old.  Half way to being able to vote...too bad he won't be able to help keep Trump around in 2020 :-)  Pleasant week to all!

Ashley's Birthday

We all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  Bode was off the whole week from school, and my last class was on Tuesday morning.  Thus, we had some lovely family time.  Teddy and Charlie were able to come down on Tuesday night and they stayed with us until the end of Thanksgiving dinner.  It's always nice when Bode has others in the house with whom to play.  We went swimming for a couple hours on Wednesday, and the boys watched movies and played games.  I didn't take many pictures, although I did get a shot of the boys eating and one of Bode and Teddy with Joey in the middle.

Grammy was kind enough to bring some "snow balls", which were simply these white pillow-balls, so we had to have a few snow-ball fights.

The balls were very light, such that you had to be careful to not throw your arm out :-)  Ashley made a wonderful dinner--some type of Cajun-turkey rub with all the fixings, and the guests brought a lot of the sides, to include some wonderful deviled eggs from Jennie, which I proceeded to eat the entire weekend.

David and Ashley both celebrate birthdays during Thanksgiving week.  Dave is now 43, and Ashley is 46.  Dave and I celebrated Thanksgiving by running the Turkey Trot, a 5k up in Briargate.  Teddy ran with us, and did amazing, coming in just under 25:00.  I surprised myself and ran a 21:30, which makes me feel old because I used to be able to go much faster, but it was still good enough for 4th place out of 136 people in my age group.  Here are a couple pictures of those of us that are "forty-something."

The weekend culminated with Ashley's birthday.  We didn't do anything exciting--went to lunch and then to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.  We had a small dinner (we have eaten far too much these past five days), and a small cake.  We did pause for some pictures.

We all go back to work/school tomorrow.  But then big holiday break is in sight...if we can only maintain our motivation for the next three weeks, we'll have a nice ski-vacation to meet us at the end.  Pleasant week to all.

Bode's 9th Birthday Party

Bode's birthday isn't until 28 November.  However, we always have his party a few weeks early because we are never sure if anyone will be in town over the Thanksgiving weekend.  We had the party at The Summit, which is just a big indoor arcade/bowling center/Lazer Tag arena.  Ten kids came to the party--Dylan, Dylan, Tylen, Eli, Teddy, Charlie, Rylee, Mya, Ava, and Shiloh.  We had a wonderful time.  First, was some pizza and drinks.  It's kind of dark in the Summit, so none of the pictures are that great.

We had the obligatory cake and candles, which Bode successfully blew out.

The highlight had to have been the not one but two games of Lazer tag.   Here are the kids in line waiting the start of the contest.  No cameras are allowed in the arena, so I don't have any action shots.

Each kid also got a $20 arcade card.  They loved playing all the games.  I think Bode and Eli spent a lot of time on this one--it was more of a ride than a game, and they loved it.

Bode repeated the experience with Teddy.

The party was a big success, although it was more work than I thought it would be.  Most parents dropped off, which was fine, until I realized I better not lose a kid :-)  Bode is blessed to have some great friends, and we were thrilled they all came.  Here's looking forward to his real birthday on 28 November--can he really be almost nine?

Opening Day!

Not really.  We had planned to go up Breckenridge for the opening of ski season.  Sadly, we have had an unseasonably warm October and November, which has prevented any type of snow-making capability, not to mention there's been almost no snow fall on the mountains.  Thus, opening day has been postponed for at least a week (and I'm betting it's going to be closer to two weeks).  Any one that had Thanksgiving ski plans will be in for some extremely poor conditions.

We left on Friday morning--Veteran's Day--and Joey wanted to do the driving.

The drive was uneventful, and we arrived shortly before noon.  We went to lunch at Eric's, and then decided on a hike.  The trail is in the shadow of a high peak, which meant is was a little chilly, and there were very small patches of snow.  First up was the quick hike to the trailhead.

Obviously there is some snow.  But note the peak in the background--all above treeline, and no snow to be seen.  Any area that gets even a modicum of sunshine has zero snow cover.  The trail criss-crossed a snow-melt river--perhaps it's a feeder into the Blue River that runs behind our house.  The scenery was beautiful.

The hike took about an hour, and we stopped for other pictures along the way.  Here's a nice one of Bode near the end.

At the end was a nice waterfall.  Bode spent some time chucking rocks into it.

Finally, a nice one of Bode

The hike was lovely, although coming down near the top was a little nervy.  The sun was setting, so it was a little dark, and some of the paths looked a lot like the trail.  A couple times we had to turn back and find the right trail.  We were never very far off the path, but I can't imagine the feeling (terror) one would feel if they realized they were lost in the woods and the sun was going down.

We had a nice weekend in Breck--spent some time swimming at the rec center, and did some work around the house.  Sadly, we watched the Auburn-Georgia game, which ended badly, which effectively ended the fun.  We came home this morning, and are just thrilled about going to work tomorrow :-)  Happy week to all.

Swim Meet

Bode competed in a swim-meet this past weekend.  He swam in five events:  the 100-yard relay (where each member of the team swam 25 yards), the 100-yard freestyle, the 50-yard backstroke, the 25-yard butterfly, and the 100-yard individual medley.  He did awesome.  Let me show you what he collected:

He would have had one more ribbon as well, but his old Dad failed him.  In the 100-IM, apparently you aren't suppose to do a flip-turn when you transition from backstroke to breast-stroke.  Before the race, I reminded him to "do his flip turns."  Sadly, my advice led to a DQ :-(.  Here are some pictures from the events.  First is Bode waiting for his leg in the relay race.

Next we have Bode in the ready position for the 100-yard freestyle.

He was 4th out of 12 or 13 eight-year olds.  The next event was the backstroke.  I took some rapid pictures and got the following sequence--note how he explodes into the water.  He also finished fourth in this race.

Finally, here are some action pictures of Bode during the IM.  He is in lane two, and you can make out his butterfly stroke in the first picture, and he's obviously doing the backstroke in the second picture.

It was a great meet.  The only problem was it conflicted with the Auburn game.  Ashley used up most of her data watching the first half of the Tiger-Commodore game on her phone.  Fortunately, the meet ended, and we were able to watch the fourth quarter at Jersey Mike's.  Auburn (thankfully) won, but had a key player get injured.  Hopefully he's healed for this weekend's matchup against hated Georgia.  Pleasant day and happy voting to all.

Gone Too Soon

We had to say good-bye to Harley today.  The cancer had spread to her lungs and probably a lot of other places.  Poor girl simply could not catch a break, but she fought so hard.

Be in peace, girl.  You are our best friend, and you are gone way too soon.  We love you.
Harley, 25 Feb 2011 - 4 Nov 2016.