December 5, 2008

Sorry, time has kind of escaped from me and it's already Dec 5. Where did time & the warm temperatures go?


We had a great Thanksgiving and appreciate everyone coming over for a great meal. There were the Wheats, the Lehoczkys, mom & us. We ate & groaned about how full we were but did manage to get the kids eventually off the games long enough to take a late afternoon walk at the new Bluffs walking trails. The Bluffs is a brand new housing complex built on the southwest part of town off St. Mary's Road. Currently there are about 600+ brand new apartments and if built-out as planned will eventually have 1440 units- the largest apartment complex betwee KC & Denver. Anyway, the trail was ok and it was about the right length considering the cold! The kids also had to climb on their playground rope sculpture, which was pretty cool. Friday we all went to the movies in the afternoon with most seeing 4 Christmas's and a couple of us going to Bolt instead.

Saturday was the 3:30PM State 6A Playoff game at Washburn University stadium vs Lawrence Free State Firebirds. The big news is that JC won 19-14 capping a perfect 13-0 season. The last time JC won state was in 1969 with the Hart Brothers. Saturday was cold, rainy and miserable out but the JC side had standing room only. The game had some tense moments, like when we were down 14-13 in the late 3Q but they pulled it out. It was great fun being down on the field with the players after the game congratulating them. We went out with another family to celebrate afterwards & it's amazing how quickly a margharita can warm up nearly frozen feet.

This week has been a fairly routine one of school, tennis, gym, tkd, work, Ft. Riley mtgs, etc. Our bank did have our employee Xmas party Wednesday night, which was nice. We had to leave it a little early to pick up Molly and then we had to attend a redeployment ceremony at Ft. Riley for the returning commander of the Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB). Alice is the commander wife's local sponsor and we've got to know her better over his 15 month deployment. It's nice to finally get to meet him! Various Christmas parties/functions have already started but most seem to kick in next week.

More later

November 19,2008

Everything has been pretty routine here since my last entry so nothing too momentus to mention.

Molly played in the annual Filly Football (girls on girls) game last Wednesday night. Unfortunately the "mighty" sophomores played the "mightier" senior girls and lost. Molly played running back until she was hard tackled by a senior (it is suppose to be flag football) and hurt her thigh. She has this nice bruise now to show everyone. Other than that, the whole event was pretty funny- especially with the student commentators on the PA system. They were sending shout-outs to anyone and everyone and had absolutely no idea what to say. At one point one accurately stated "you know this is harder to say anything meaningful than I thought it would be". So true, but that didn't stop them from babbling on! It was a little scary also how some of the boys-in-drag cheerleaders were really starting to get into their temporary jobs. Their between-games dance routines were seriously challenged.

JC Football survived yet another tough playoff game vs 9-1 Wichita Heights last Friday. They remain the only undefeated 6A team in Kansas at 11-0. Although Alice and I ended up working the Booster club grille and concession stand most of the game (the other volunteers didn't show up for their shifts), we did manage to catch the 4Q when most of the key action occurred. JC was leading 21-0 at the beginning of 4Q but then kind of fell apart (or more accurately wore out). WH scored two quick touchdowns to make it 21-14 & had all the momentum in the world. Luckily JC was able to muster a couple of first downs (one by inches) to run out the clock and win the game. This Friday we'll drive down to Derby (south of Wichita) for sub-state & hopefully will get to play for state the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Last Saturday we went to the sad KSU/NU game, which K-State lost 56-28. Needless to say, we're ready for a new coach and a new team. We are not bowl bound. We play Iowa State Saturday and hopefully we can at least win that for the seniors.

Sunday night the cross country team had their annual awards ceremony and meal. It went well and we'll miss the xc family that has developed over the season. Doesn't look like either Molly nor Max will be running XC in future (?) so we might be done with it. Sam is happy to have XC over but is working more often now as a result. He's ready to move on from his current dipping at Baskin Robbins but hasn't applied anywhere else at this point. Because of the extended football season, Molly & his band committment has lasted longer than either expected. Once football is over, the band work will continue as they prepare to march in the Cotton Bowl parade and compete in the band competition the last week in December.

Sam has applied to Purdue, Illinois and K-State, which I think is his preference order. Purdue requires the essay part of the ACT test, which he didn't take with his initial exam because he didn't think he needed to. So he'll have to take that Dec 2, I think.

Molly back into the gym w/first meet coming in January. The gym made significant improvements after the June tornado, which she says makes it nicer. We're thrilled to be commuting less (20 vs 40 miles) and lower gas prices ($1.79 today vs $4.00 at peak) Molly also wanting to work on her pole vaulting skills w/K-State vaulters who work out at her gym every Tuesday night.

Max got his Red Belt in TKD last week. He added memory to his phone last week so now has a working MP3 & his texting #'s are starting to get up there with S&Ms. Yikes! Thank goodness for unlimited texting option!

Guess we'll be here for Thanksgiving.
Later
Scott

November 8, 2008

Well it's sure feels like winter has set in on us this week. Wednesday a storm rolled through and brought north winds with it...and they have stuck around.

Last night we attended the now 10-0 JCHS football team in their second district playoff game with Wichita North. No one was too concerned about this game as WN was 2-7; winning only one game in regular season and had upset a higher ranked team last week in the playoff game. The final score was 53-20, with very few varsity players even playing in the 2nd half. (I think it was 46-3 at half time?) Anyway Alice and I helped with the Booster club concession, which involved serving food in windy 20 degree temperatures for just about the entire first half. They finally wised up and took what food we had left over to the regular concession stand & sold it from there. It was 38 degrees but there was a brutal north wind gusting to 30mph blowing into our faces. Thanks goodness we were dressed pretty well for it & had brought a sleeping bag for our spectator time. We had a pact with our seating group (our wind break) that we would stick through half-time (we HAVE to watch the band preform, of course) then we could all leave after the first score in the 3Q. That was about 3 minutes into the 3Q when that happened (ok so maybe not all the varsity was out) & we gleefully cheered and headed home to heat, radio and comfort. We were still pretty chilled-to-the-bone when we went to bed. With the victory JC gets another home game next Friday vs Wichita Heights who are 9-1 & will definitely present a challenge.

Thursday night the JCHS band had their annual Band Blast in the gymnasium. Basically this is just their normal Thursday night rehearsal except they do use this event to pass out their annual awards, etc. They are so much louder in an enclosed gym! There has been a lot of prep work lately regarding their Cotton Bowl trip in late December. Since K-State most likely won't make a bowl, this may be our bowl trip this year although Dallas doesn't quite measure up, in our books, to a Scottsdale, Miami, Pasadena, etc. bowl experience!

Also Thursday night Max tested for his next TKD belt. If he passes, which he said he did, he will be a red belt - only two belts away from his first black belt. Alice looks forward to the red belt indicating that it's much nicer looking than his current brown-yellow belt. "That color match didn't go well with anything well", she stated. Max can't do anything but tolerate comments like that.

No startling surprises with the election. Think everyone kind of knew that Obama would win but it would have been nice to prove the "we're-always-right" media wrong. I think he will do just fine. Obama himself never bothered me but the team he brings in with him does. I'm concerned that they will be very bad for business in general, bigger government, higher taxes & am concerned that all of these military lives, lost and wounded will all be for nothing if we just pack up and leave the mid-east. Granted I think the repubs were just as disappointed in Bush as the demos but I am hopeful that a rational solution with adequate military leadership input will be made vs just pulling the plug.

As I mentioned to some at Kevin's wedding, the Extreme Makeover Team arrives here this week to build a house for a fortunate family in the area. While I'm not really personally involved in it, I am on the board of one of the organzations that is. So at our last board meeting, we had to sign a confidentiality agreement not to disclose who that family is or when this will all happen but EM has agreed to have a fund raiser for our org during the event in their VIP tent. So we may get to attend the event with all the EM personalities. More on this later when I can say more. The episode will most likely air in January.

This week JC & Milford Lake hosted the national ESPN Bassmaster fishing tourney so we have had 65 of the top nationwide bass fisherman in town. The weather has literally ruined the tournament. They were suppose to have their practice day Wednesday but that weather front blew in and they called it off. The temps have stayed in the 40's as high, winds 30+ and morning temps in the high 20's- making fishing & boating conditions just awful. Thursday was their first competitive day and 18 of these professional fishermen caught nothing! The leader of the day caught two fish & the largest caught so far is 4lbs- nothing in bass circles. It's been a total bust! They cancelled Friday's event and have extended the tourney over to today (& it's not any better today). Can't imagine what ESPN will put on the airwaves and can't also imagine that they'll ever come back. So much for $100K the local CVB and others have put out to have it here. Imagine we won't be sponsoring anything like this again for a while.

There has naturally been a lot of buzz this last week about Ron Prince's firing at K-State. I think this is the right decision for K-State. I think everyone here likes Ron Prince personally; he is from JC and is a nice, ambitious guy but he was just in over his head for Big XII/Div 1 football. Frankly anyone following Snyder would have a tough go & even Snyder was having a hard time winning when he decided to retire. Prince will complete the season and you might see some crazy football for the last 3 games with a "nothing-to-lose" attitude. There was a temporary buzz yesterday that a new coach had been selected but the story was withdrawn as wrong so am not sure who it will be. Alice has some pretty strong opinions about who it shouldn't be.

More later
Scott

Kevin & Sandy

Kevin & Sandy

November 3, 2008

Last week saw the wrap-up of Molly's tennis season with the season ending tennis banquet. We'll lose 4 seniors- 2 of which played jr varsity & there are no juniors so the 4 sophomores you see> will be the core group for girl's tennis for a couple of years. Molly's season was what one would call a learning experience. She played well but her opponents played better. Molly thought is she had played more often she might have done better. At least that is the excuse we're using.

Friday night we had the highly anticipated football game between the JCHS (8-0) and Manhattan High (7-1). In addition the schools foundation had a chili feed before the game so Stuckey bodies were flying between band, chili feed, & packing for the Texarkana trip, which left right after the final gun. Anyway, JC came to play and won handily 30-6. Sam, along with the other band and fall season athletes were honored at half time so we walked out on the field with him once with the band then dashed over to cross country to walk out once again. whoopee!

After the game we jumped in the car and drove south for nephew Kevin & Sandy's wedding in Texarkana TX. We planned on driving to Norman OK- about 4 hours and spend the night. We did not do any research however and found out, at 2AM, that it was Parents Weekend at OU and that our little LaQuinta normally-$60 room was $189. Sorry! I tried to negotiate the rate down explaning and half the night was already gone so it should be half price but they weren't biting. We checked another couple of places, which were full or not willing to discount ridiculous rate and headed further south to Pauls Valley. We lowered our standards some- since we were only going to be a room for a few hours and found a place there. At 7AM we were out and back on the road arriving in Texarkana at noonish. We got cleaned up and went to the 2PM wedding and reception & all went well. Was great to see everyone, even if it was for a very short time. After a little late afternoon field football for the kids and visiting by the adults we all went to dinner together at a BBQ place before turning in. We, needless to say, didn't need a lot of help getting to sleep.

Sunday we had breakfast and hit the road returning home. We arrived at 7:30ish and everyone was pretty bushed!