Bark Of Our Souls

I Saw From the Beach

I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining,
  A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on;
I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining,
  The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.

And such is the fate of our life's early promise,
  So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known;
Each wave that we danced on at morning ebbs from us,
  And leaves us, at eve, on the bleak shore alone.

Oh, who would not welcome that moment's returning
  When passion first waked a new life through his frame,
And his soul, like the wood that grows precious in burning,
  Gave out all its sweets to love's exquisite flame.

Thomas Moore

Each spring, we all wait in joyous anticipation for Memorial Weekend to arrive.  In addition to honoring our brave military heroes, it also marks the date of our annual trek to Galveston Island.  We are always eager to see our wonderful friends Kenny and Hailey and their precious daughters Carley and Aubrey.

With things around the house currently so mixed up, I was sure that our 7 year string of glorious travels would be broken.  It just did not seem right to me to be at the beach without Lori there to enjoy it with us.  Personally, my feet have not touched sand in 20 years without Lori by my side.  The kids have never experienced the ocean without mom's watchful eye and playful demeanor.

I did not know what to do.  I was very conflicted.  On one hand,  I know that I unfortunately have to get the kids used to the idea of worldly travels without the comfort and joy of their mom being there, but on the other hand, I knew none of us would have nearly as much fun without Lori there by our sides.

I finally decided to just ask her to go with us.  I knew she would probably say "no", but I would not be happy with myself if I didn't at least try.  So, I did.  I can't tell you how happy the kids and I were when she said YES.  She said that she would go to help out with the kids and visit with our friends, and that was certainly enough for me.  Sure, I would have loved to have gone as "partners" but just having her there as my friend was fantastic.  

Lori worked a night shift in the ER last Thursday, so the plan was to leave as soon as she got home on Friday morning.  She arrived at the house about 10:00am, and since I had already packed and loaded the CX-9, we left for Galveston about 10 minutes later.

The drive to the beach was easy, and the kids did great.  I only had to stop on the side of the road and threaten to beat them a few times.  No, not really.  As a matter of fact, they were pretty quite the entire time, and Lori was able to get a few hours sleep on the way down.

We got to the beach a little before 4:00pm and after unloading the car, we were dipping our toes in the water by 4:30pm.  Ahhhh........we love the ocean.

The water was really great, and warmer than usual for this time of year.  It was very refreshing, and relaxing.  Mystic of course, was giddy.

While Lori and Aidan took out the Boogie boards, I grabbed my phone to record the "intense surfing action"
 

We left the beach about 6:00pm, and went back to the beach house to await the arrival of our friends.  While we were waiting, I prepared some filets to cook on the grill, along with some asparagus.  The Canon family arrived a short time later, and we sat down to a wonderful meal, a great bottle of wine, and enjoyed each others company just like great friend should.

We were all pretty beat, so we got to bed fairly early.  We all looked forward to the Horseshoe tournament, and a full day at the beach on Saturday.

Saturday morning we got up pretty early, and Hailey made a fantastic breakfast casserole.  We feasted, and then went downstairs to play washers as the kids rode their scooters.  A little before noon we headed down to the beach for the annual "King Of the Beach" horseshoe tournament.

We had a pretty good turnout this year, with 24 players showing up.  I chose my number, and waited with anticipation to see who my partner would be.  Kenny and I always hope we drawl the same numbers, for we would really like to partner up some day.  We like to think that we would be "unstoppable".  Well, my partner this year turned out to be William.  No, not me....another William.  I took that as a good omen.

We did great the first game, winning easily.  I was ready to put our name on the trophy right then and there, until reality set in our next game.  We got pummeled.  We went to the loser bracket, were we ran into the eventual finals team.  We put up a good fight, but lost.  Oh well, maybe next time.  If I couldn't win, I wanted my buddy Kenny to take home the trophy.  I sat and cheered him on, and after 6 games, he and his partner were hoisting the trophy.  It was tons of fun.  Here is Kenny and his beautiful wife Hailey between games.

While we were playing horseshoes, Lori and the boys were enjoying a beautiful day on the beach.  It was not too hot, and lots of cloud cover.  The boys Boogie boarded and played like there was no tomorrow. 

Mystic and Aubrey were having a good time too!

We left the beach about 5:30pm, and everybody was pretty wiped out.  We met a couple of Kenny and Hailey's friends back at the beach house, and grilled a delicious dinner of chicken, pork and beef fajitas.  After dinner we all sat down very satisfied, and just listened to music, had a few cocktails, and laughed.  How fun.

Sunday was another day playing around the house, and spending a few hours at the beach.  Before we left for the beach, Kenny smoked some ribs for about 5 hours, and we had a great lunch before we left.  Yummy!

The beach was extremely crowded on Sunday.  It was the most people that I had ever seen down there.  There was still plenty of room to set up our canopy, and use the gulf as our personal playground.  We did, and it was FUN.  We came home with some tired monkeys.

 

Look at those precious freckles.

Sunset was beautiful.

Monday came in a flash.  It was Memorial Day, and that meant it was our last morning there.  I took Lori and the boys down to the beach in the golf cart to see the sun come up over the gulf.  It was inspiring.

Lori and Christopher were looking for sea shell in the sand.   So innocent.

The boys and I having a good time enjoying a great morning breeze.

God bless the men and women of our military who have sacrificed so much for our freedom.

We went to the beach one last time on Monday morning.  We stayed from 11:00am to 1:00pm, and we were all very sad to leave.

I packed up the car while the others were getting cleaned up.  We ate and said our goodbyes to our wonderful hosts, and we were on the road about 2:20pm.  We arrived home about 7:25pm last night.  It was nice to sleep in our own beds, but we were all missing the sounds of the waves.

William.

PS.  Lori, you are one in a million.  Thank you so much for going with us.  You still make life fun, and I feel blessed to have gotten to spend one more glorious time frolicking in the ocean with you.

It's wonderful to see your happy face.

All Cedar And Lots Of Love

Have you ever had something in your life that you absolutely loved doing, but for some reason, some unexplained reason, you just stopped doing it?  I'm not talking about making a conscious effort to stop doing something, I'm talking about it just fading away.  Why does that happen?  One would think, if you enjoyed it so much, you would find the time to continue doing it every chance you got.  One would think.

I've had many things over the last couple of years that would fit into that pattern, and I don't understand how or why it happened, but I now realize that I'm very sad that I've missed out.

You see, I did something over the last couple of days that stirred a passion that I have not had in a long time.

One of my good friends and I started working on a small construction project on Monday, and I have to tell you, I really enjoyed the time I spent designing and creating a special Grill/Smoker table for my friends Liam and Elaine.  After finishing the project this morning, I started thinking about how much I love wood working, and how it makes me feel special when I create beautiful things with my hands.  I can't believe that I let carpentry fade away from my life.

I can assure you, I will not let wood working leave me again.  I derive too much pleasure out of it to let that happen again.

There are obviously many other things in my life that I would love to rekindle, but I have to start small.  So, without further adieu, I present my first passion project in a long time.

 

 

 There you have it.  It's not too fancy, but it turned out beautiful.  Liam and Elaine loved it.  All cedar.  200+ screws, and lots of love.


William

"Air.....I Need Air"

My fastest 5K so far by chocdante1 at Garmin Connect - Details

Today I ran my first 5K without stopping or walking.  The above link with take you to my Garmin web site to show you the route.  I set my Personal Record by finishing in under 32 minutes.  While that may not seem very fast to some, for someone who was 273 pounds 5 months ago, and couldn't run a 1/2 mile without an oxygen tank, I'm very happy with the results.

I believe with a little hard work, and shedding a little more weight, I can get that time to under 30 minutes.  If that happens, I will be ecstatic! 

William

"mom" It's your day.................

As you might guess, today is very difficult for me.  This will be the last mother's day that I get to spend with Lori.  Tears are streaming down my face just thinking about it. 

It seems like only yesterday that I was helping Lori bring Aidan into this world.  "Breathe Lori" "Breathe"..........."I AM BREATHING!!!!!!!!!"...............Oh the memories are still fresh. 

Man I was so scared....so clueless, but you know what?  I could not have asked for a better mother and teacher to help me learn about children, and to show me what being a parent is all about. 

10 1/2 years since Aidan was born, and 5 1/2 years for Christopher.  Hard to believe.  God I wish time would slow down. 

It's funny, but after Aidan was born I very rarely, if ever, called Lori by her given name.  Since his birth in 2002, I have always called her "mom".  That is just who she is.  It makes me really sad to know that I won't be able to call her by that pet name anymore.  She will have to be Lori once again, but I have to tell you, deep down inside, she will always, always be "mom" to me.

I know things will be changing drastically here in the next few weeks, and that's a shame.  One thing that will never change is Lori being the mother of my children.  I'm always going to be grateful for that.  It was more than I deserved. 

Lori, I hope your day is filled with happiness, and the children's love touches your heart.  You are a good mom, and you should be proud of the job you've done.

William

PS.  We made a couple of angels didn't we?

How beautiful

A Season To Remember - Christopher's First

The kids and I survived the week by ourselves, but I can tell you, they were sure happy to see mom when she got home Thursday night.  To be honest, I was happy to see her too. I probably shouldn't admit to that, but unfortunately for me, it's true. :-(

The weekend finally got here, and Saturday morning started bright and early.  Aidan had a 9:00am baseball game, so we had to leave the house at 8:00am.  Aidan's team was playing the Titans, and it was a battle for second place.  I would like to say that The Express were victorious, but I cannot.  The team played very poorly, and committed way, way too many errors.  Walks and errors will kill you every time.  Aidan got the pitch the last 4 outs of the game, but his control was a bit off on Saturday.  He walked 5 and struck out 4 and gave up one bloop single just over the first baseman's mitt.  Everyone was really disappointed in the loss.  Here is a picture of Aidan pitching.

If you notice, everything looks pretty good about his follow through except one thing.  Notice his glove?  Yep, he forgot to tuck it into his shoulder.  I have been trying to get him to be consistent, but that stubborn monkey keeps forgetting.  Grrrrrr.........

After Aidan's game, we all came home and had some lunch.  Aidan and I then went to one of his friend's (Spencer) game to watch him play.  Spencer plays on a Majors level team.  That is the highest rating there is.  It is very different watching these kids play ball.  All they do is eat, drink and sleep baseball.  I'm talking practice 4 days a week, and tournaments all day both Saturday and Sunday every week and weekend.  Geesh.....I love baseball, but that's asking a lot for both a 10 year old boy and their parents.  Anyway, the game was fun, but we had to leave early in order to get to Christopher's soccer game by 3:00pm.

We got to the soccer fields about 2:45pm and waited for Lori and Christopher to get there.  Once there, Christopher warmed up with his team, while we enjoyed the beautiful, but windy afternoon.

The team played really well, and won the game quite easily.  Christopher played well, but did get a hard shot to the belly that almost sidelined him.  I say almost, because once he realized that this was his last game of the season, he did not want to come out, so he played through the pain.  I was very proud of him.  Here he is in action.

 Once the game was over, the team was ready to go to Gatti Town to celebrate the season.  We all showed up about 20 minutes after the game, and feasted on pizza!  Christopher was being his normal self.

 

Not really.  Christopher was actually being a little goofball, and Aidan was in the background devising an escape plan to get away from the gaggle of 8 other 5 year old kids being equally goofy.  

All the kids finally settled down (somewhat) once they realized they were about to get their trophies.  Yep, Christopher's very first team trophy!  He was excited.

The team posed (as well as 8 (5) year old kids can) for a team picture, and Christopher was on cloud nine!

Only one thing could get this group to sit back down after trophy excitement......and that was......cookie excitement!

Yummy!!!

We finally headed home about 6:00pm, but not before Christopher climbed aboard the pirate ship one last time in the fun and games section of the restaurant.  

What a cutie.

We stayed at home the rest of the evening, and all of us gathered around the TV and watched a Shawn the Sheep marathon.  It's a fun creative show, and we all got lots of laughs.  

Thanks boys for making the weekends so special.  You keep me young.

William

P.S.  Welcome back Lori.  As always, you were very missed.

 

Tough Week

This is not the first time that I have taken care of the kids while Lori is away on a business trip.  It has happened many times in the past, and I never gave it much thought.  It was just something that needed to be done, and I did it.  I never liked her being away for 4 or 5 days, but I knew that it was necessary.  This trip however, has a very different feeling for me.  It now feels like a warm up for my upcoming life.  I must say, that thought or interpretation leaves a very horrible and wanting taste in my mouth. 

There is just a hollowness to the surroundings.  It's like trying to finish a puzzle, but having a piece missing.  I of course do not dare mention this emptiness to the kids, and they are no more worse for wear.  They just see it as another trip, and mom will be home soon.  Me, well, I can't help but morn.

Oh well, if this is my sentence, then I will make the most of it, and continue to be the best dad that I can for the two angels that count on their daddy every day for strength and love.  Hopefully that will be enough for us all.

A Wounded Deer -- leaps highest by Emily Dickinson

A Wounded Deer -- leaps highest --
I've heard the Hunter tell --
'Tis but the Ecstasy of death --
And then the Brake is still!

The Smitten Rock that gushes!
The trampled Steel that springs!
A Cheek is always redder
Just where the Hectic stings!

Mirth is the Mail of Anguish
In which it Cautious Arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And "you're hurt" exclaim! 

 William