Today was definitely a day of mixed emotions for us at PCS. Today was our last day of school. We started the day off with graduation practice for the graduation which will take place tomorrow night. This morning before we started, I walked over to the bathroom where I heard running water only to find one of our students, Jessica, filling water balloons. I asked her if they were for one of the other teachers, or for herself. To both questions she answered no. She said I wasn't supposed to know anything about it, so I left her to her business. I knew we had it coming to us! After we finished eating pizza at a local park, the students all rushed over to a couple of vehicles. I thought we were toast. It ended up that before the water balloons, they decided to present me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and my husband seven boxes of dots and a "Cat In The Hat" book (long story). They also gave us a scrapbook with many memories from this past year as well as the frame that you can see above with their pictures and notes to us. Many tears were cried.

Thanks guys for the gifts and for an awesome first year! You are our first class and we will never forget you. We love you!

Tonight I practiced my pitching for around an hour with Greg. I developed quite a nice curve ball, a decent two-seam fastball and a wicked knuckler. Needless to say I am quite excited to try them out on some suckers Thursday night.

The Reds finally won tonight. Valentin hit a pinch-hit two run shot in the bottom of the 8th inning to give them the lead, and Weathers claimed the save. Greg was listening to the game with me and called the homerun right before the pitch. It was pretty cool.

Not much else is happening that's very exciting. This is the last week of school, which I guess is exciting. For the students at least. But it brings my unemployment. Welfare is calling, I guess...

We didn't fare so well in our first game. Actually we got our rears handed to us. Not good. Not good at all. Offensively, I went 3 for 3 with a sacrifice fly and 1 or 2 RBI and a double. I am working on some new pitches, however, and I hope to stymie the opposing batters in games to come. My wife took no pictures, so I have none to post. But perhaps the weather will be warmer and she will be outside watching and will take more pics next week.

I can hardly contain my excitement. Tomorrow night is the first game in our softball league. Well, our team's first game anyway. We are playing on Lima Baptist Temple's team, with a good friend, Uncle Louis (pronounced "loo-yee"). I am our starting pitcher, and we have no bullpen, so hopefully my arm stays healthy. It being my rookie debut, the jitters will no doubt haunt me for at least an inning or two, but I hope to work through all those annoyances and pitch flawlessly. Just to let you know, I've got a wicked 12-foot arc.

I'll be sure to let you know how it goes, and also upload some pics of my victory.

Tonight I ventured into a first-time experience. It was one of those things that I had been talking about doing for a long time but also one of those things that you just never get around to doing. As I mentioned to my brother-in-law, it seems like these types of things only get done on whims, with no planning. Anyways, with his help and expertise (he once painted his car), we got my rusting running boards off of my Explorer (named Meriwether, by the way), grinded and sanded the rust out, primed them, then repainted them. Monday will see them returned to their prominent position flanking Meriwether.

Mucho thankso to Grego for his helpo.


I also made a rather profound connection
tonight. I realized that running boards are a lot like love handles. They both really add to and dress up their objects. That's really something, huh?

Running across this picture tonight gave me a quick chill. Reality then returned, as my tiny fan in the window beside my head continued to blow slightly-cool air into my right ear. I must admit that I do not miss the bitter cold we experienced this past winter. Even though I hate sweating, it is better than freezing for months at a time.

Of course, ask me in about 4 months which I'd rather have and I'll probably say the cold. I go through this cycle every year, it seems. Alas, why not let it continue?

Oh, by the way, the Reds lost, compliments of their bullpen.

As you know, our basement flooded a little over a week ago. Here is a picture of our living room that evening, after the boxes of books had been carried to higher ground. The floor eventually looked about twice this full of books, pages flapping wildly in the wind, musty scents wafting across our nostrils. And yes I meant "across" and not "into." I like the mental picture of "across."

The books are pretty much completely dry by now, but we have yet to purchase new boxes to hold them. I also need to purchase some shelving to the basement, so that should the floods come again the books can be elevated enough to avoid contact.

The Reds lost again...

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellman's mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York.

This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise, and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great, that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day.

The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

Thursday evening, I discovered that our basement was filling up with water. I was on my way downstairs to put in a load or five of laundry when I noticed water at the bottom of the stairs. "Not good," thought I, and began to investigate - from the staircase. Our entire basement floor was covered in about 4 or 5 inches of water. Not too horrible, I guess, but still bad for me and my basement. It had been raining for right around 40 days and nights by this time, so I was eagerly looking for a rainbow. The rain finally stopped that night some time, and thanks to some good friends (Steve and Nathan), my wife and I were able to move all of our belongings from the basement into the living room and pump the water to the outside.

In the now three days that have followed that eventful evening, I have determined that the water backing up into my basement is, in fact, poop. Or at least water with poop in it. Along with toilet paper, etc. Not nice at all. So, methinks I must do something about this tomorrow morning. Perhaps call my congressman.

During Spring Break, Val and I went to visit my parents in the Cayman Islands, where we will be moving in August. Here is a picture of us at a little place called Eats Cafe. It was completely renovated after Hurrican Ivan a couple of years ago, and I was somewhat disappointed to revisit the new place. The atmosphere is different than it was before. Still a cool place, though, and the food was awesome! I ate enough nachos for a small tribe of toddlers. Seriously, it was good.

We took more video than pictures while we were down there, so maybe I'll be able to post video or links to video at a later date.

At our youth party on Good Friday, we had two "Pedro" shirts. We got Nathan (left) his shirt for his birthday a few weeks ago, and he claims it is his "Good Friday T-shirt." By total coincidence, Andrew wore his shirt to the party as well. A good party. One full of times. Gotta love those shirts...

Here is my favorite pic of Elliott to this point.

Another good one.

Palm Sunday weekend, my brother and his wife and son came up to visit. We had an awesome time being with them, and being with Elliott was so much fun! He has really "grown up" since we last saw him - he is now much more interactive, etc. Saturday night I taught him how to make *tthhhpppbbbbtttt* noises by sticking out his tongue and forcing air through. We had great fun doing this, perhaps much to the consternation of his parents. =) Apparently, he remembered what I taught him, for as he awoke Sunday morning he was making "the noise." Also, after Sunday morning service, as a man in the church was introducing himself and looking at Elliott, "the noise" was again exercised. I'm a successful teacher after all!

In all seroiusness, we did have a great time with the three coming up. The older we get (Aaron and I) the closer we get, it seems. Our discussions are deeper, etc. Too bad our solutions are mucky, or the world would be a sane place by the time we're done talking.
I will post more pics of Elliott soon. Perhaps even right now.

Here Elliott's giving the "Uncle Adam gives me candy and teaches me fun noises!" look.

Tonight was our School's Spring Program. We decided to have the program consist of the entries in the Regional Student Convention in which we participated last month. Above is a picture of a round-table discussion where everyone answered questions about Convention. The night was a great success - aside from my piano bumblings. Sorry, trio. The atmosphere was laid back and the kids were phenomenally open and talkative about the trip. It's awesome seeing them come out of their "shells" and express themselves openly in front of a large group of people. Everyone did great tonight - all the performances were awesome!

This year our school participated in ACE's Regional Student Convention. Our region, the Heartland Region, has their convention in Muncie, IN, on the campus of Ball State University (a very nice campus). While there, our two guys and I demonstrated some Russian folk-dancing moves we had mastered while staying in a rat-infested hotel where our room was 80 degrees. We had a great time at Convention - I will try to post some more pictures at a later date.