Sunday night - a moment to pause

Yeah, I know that there's more to life than the Y, but I've started to utillize it more than ever before. Up till now, playgrounds have been fine, sicne Lance was unable to walk. Now that he's hauling much ass, and generally in the opposite direction as his brother, I'm in need ot more "self containted" means of amusment and socialization. Plus, the wife has been paying the monthy membership, so I figure might as well use it.
And they DO, have a pool, but the hours are ignorant. In the mourning, or early afternoon - when I'd like to take the boys in (one at a time), they'll have other things going on that reserve the pool. SO they'll have 2 lanes free, deep end only - or some weird shit like that. I DID manage one day to drop one kid off at childwatch, take the other swimming, and then swap em so each got to swim that day. That was hard on me.

AIKIDO STUFF: We had a seminar/testing at our dojo on Saturday. I passed mine, and am now a 5th kyu. Tried to explain to the wife why I was promted to white belt, when I was already a white belt. And then to explain why I have 4 more white belts to test for, before black. The wife is only used to the traditional "Americans are like kiddies - let's amuse them with pretty colored belts". Aikido generally has 5 degrees of white belt, then you test for your black. This keeps everyone humble, as you have no flashy GREEN or ORANGE belt to show off. Downfall, however, for new students, is that you never know who has been there forever, and who is new (and full of shit).

TIME TO PLAY :

Our tax return came in (our refund, I should say), so we made good on our promise to get the boys a playground for the back yard. And BOY DID WE EVER! We got this monster jungle gym from Costco. It came in 6 boxes, and that's not including the HUGE slide. This bitch gotta rock wall, slide, swings, tire swing, monkey bars, fort, and bunches of other things. So today, me and my 2 "helpers" started to week long task of assembling the beast. I tried my best to let them help, to feel a part of the process. Of course, this set back the actual "getting anything done" drastically. I got page 1 done after 2 hours of "help". I was able to bang out pages 2-5 once my helpers went to bed! I'l post pics of it soon.

Costco has a contest goign on where you send in pics of yoru backyard before and after you "fix it up". Our, as is, is pretty pathetic. I plan to take some pics, and then do up the yard nice once the beast is completed. Maybe we can win something by mowing the grass, and erecting a monster fort that we bought at the place that's deciding the winners.

Ok - off to cruise the web before nite nite time.