Summer....

Is in full swing.

New job is in full swing.

Looking for new house is in full swing.

Volleyball is in full swing.

Softball is wrapping up...and I'm looking for a soccer league.

It has been sweltering hot here, we happen to have both heat and humidity.  The beach can make it tolerable though.

My piano lesson book happens to have some good Irish music in it.  I've been playing it.  Found Auld Lang Syne a few chapters ahead, but I didn't have any problem playing that at all.  :-)

Went to see Sister Hazel at the beach tonight.  Always a good time.  I wish they would play more from their Absolutely album, but I also have a feeling that most of the songs there are too emotional for that type of scene.  However, they did play "This Kind of Love".  It is a piano song and one of my favorites.  They mentioned they had the sheet music for sale...so I bought it at the exorbitant price there...  I don't know any of the band members names, and I wouldn't know any of these people if I met them on the street, but I ran into some recent new friends, Stacey and Marissa, and they were standing in line to get their picture taken and shirt signed by the lead singer.  So I got in line with them figuring it would be neat to get my sheet music signed...and I got a picture below.  Stacey and Marissa are below that...

Books and adventures...

Just to let you know...SGG LOVED the book I made her for her birthday.  Basically it was this blog from all of 2009, with all the pictures we took in 2009.  She kept saying that she wanted to get a bunch of the pictures printed and  put into an album, so that is essentially what I did.  The book really turned out amazing.  The surprising thing is that the three boys seem to like it more than anyone!  They are always flipping through it.

It appears that the book has made some enemies for me though.  I have lost nearly every male friend I have.  The conversations usually go something like this....

Girlfriend of SGG: "So, what did Mike get you for your birthday?"
SGG:  "He wrote a book for me.  He wrote about all the things we did in 2009 and put in all the pictures.  It is a huge coffee table type book."
Girlfriend of SGG: "Wow!  That is amazing!"
Significant other of Girlfriend of SGG: "You SUCK dude.  It is guys like you that make the rest of us look bad."

I'm really not kidding about that.

My son has joined the Boy Scouts and is involved with  a really active troop.  In the last month he has been on two weekend trips and has really had a great time.  One of those was a two night camp out with several hikes that SGG and I went out to as well.  It was a great weekend of hiking and fun for all.  This was over Mother's day weekend...Both hikes are fairly easy and offer great scenic views.





My son also had his 13th birthday this past month!  Five more years.  :-)  We had a great Pizza party for him and one of his favorite pizza places where they also have free video games.  He got to have a very special ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery as well.  He gets two parties every year, one with me and one with his mom and both were great this year.

SGG and I went on a short kayak trip Sunday morning since all the kids were gone this past weekend.  In addition to a lot of cool birds we happened to startle and were startled by a mother deer and her fawn.  The fawn was so small that it didn't look like it was more than a day or two old.  It had a hard time getting out of the mud it was in, and it's mother LEFT it.  The little deer was left bleating out for it's mother as it had no idea where she went.  Not wanting to be a part of some comical news story about a couple being attacked by a deer, we left rather quickly.

So another school year is closing out.  Two more weeks and the kids all leave for at least most of the summer.  :-)

Beach volleyball is starting again and softball has already been in swing.