Looking For A Handout?

Up close and personal with the Big O.

My Favorite Kind of Park

I'm a sucker for a good baseball park.

These Guys Are Good

You need someone to shag a ball for you during batting practice at a MLB game?  Hire these two guys.

So far, been to two games with Cress and Koen, and so far the boys have manage to go home with at least one ball each from batting practice.

Not too shabby for a couple kids.

Three Down, Twenty-Nine To Go

Bucket List Item #371 (or something like that): Visit every major league baseball park with Jaxson.

So far we have:
Rangers Ballpark; Arlington, TX
Nationals Park; Washington, D.C.
Camden Yards; Baltimore, MD

What Is Art?

Love to see my little minds at play and letting their creative juices flow.

Little Lady Belle

All the credit goes to Robbie on this photo; could not have planned it beeter.

The Question At Hand.

Curious as to what we're talking about; the world may never know.

Inflated Creativity

Fairway Dancer

During a recent afternoon of catching up on the latest golf tournament, a crazed ballerina broke in the house and started an impromptu recital.

Golf, at that point, became the second best thing to watch.

The Wheat's

Where's the Beach, Man?

Intense Lego Session

Putting & Pooling With Pops

Lucky Number Seven

Seven years and running strong...

Over the weekend, the annual All-Balls Reunion took place in Seguin, TX.

To sum up the weekend; pool, golf, shopping, drinks, eat, drinks, eat, sleep.  The way every weekend should lay out; except maybe the shopping part.

He Done Graduated

I realize it's preschool graduation; but the smile on his face you would have thought he just graduated medical school.

Also, each child had to tell the attendees what they wanted to be when they grew up.  I like this for two reasons.  First, it allows the kids to start practicing their public speaking skills - never to early.  Secondly, he said he wanted to be a builder (like his daddy-o).

As much as he likes to doodle and tinker with toys, by tinkering I mean take apart and put back together, I think we may have an engineer developing on our hands.

To Her Own Beat

Somewhere, Annabelle found a stubborn bone - not sure if it came from momma or me, possibly a combo of the two.  When she doesn't want to do something, she won't.  No way around it; your just out-of-luck.

At her first dance "recital," her participation was minimal at best during the ballet portion. 

However, when it came time for the Tap portion of the "recital," she was all over it.  I'm sure it had to do with when she tapped her feet, a sound came from it - so she was getting some sort of external reaction to something she was doing.

Whatever it was, I was glad to see her enjoying her time and concentrating on what she was doing.

Only Sugar Melts

Pregame rain can't keep us from enjoying good seats at a great ballpark.

But the little guy has to ask, "Where did all my peeps go?"

Dreaming Big

Right Spot, Right Time

One benefit of showing up to a ball game two hours before first pitch is being able to watch batting practice and exchange some words with the players.

Ten minutes after finding a great spot in center field for batting practice, both boys had official MLB game day balls.  One, straight from the glove of a player shagging balls in center field, Gio Gonzalez, and the second ball came from the bat of a player - don't recall who was hitting at the time.

Sadly, the ball you see in Jaxson's hand never made it home.  When we relocated to our seats on the first base foul line, Jaxson put his ball in a cup holder for safe keeping...so safe that it was never saw again.

I guess that means I have to go to another game and retrieve him another home run ball...

Evening At The Park

No doubt about it; an evening at the park is a good way to spend an evening.

Rules Have Been Set

Apparently, at least according to Jaxson, as long as you aren't bringing nuggets or water into the basement to watch TV your're good to go.

New Trails To Blaze

Moving sucks.

The entire process is for the birds.  The final product is good - fresh start, new surroundings, new faces, new places.  But the process itself, sucks.

The Wheat clan has finally landed in what we hope is a permanent home.  With our move to Maryland last year, we lived in a place not by choice, but more necessity of needing a place to lay our heads until we knew the area well enough to make a decision where we wanted to live.

Jefferson, Maryland was love at first site.  Very small town (as in one strip of a few stores) with a great elementary school.  Our development is the only real housing development in the area, except for farms and an occasional historical marker.

The friendliness of the neighbors is incredible and with just a few nights and days under our belt at the new house, it already feels more like home than the last year did at our previous house - also, the fact that there are 16 kids under the age of 7 within one block of the house, is a great selling point. 

Looking forward to blazing new trails; however, Annabelle was first to run the trail and look onto the horizon at what's to come...

Blue-Eyed Brownie

Not sure which I want to bite more, the brownie or Annabelle.

Summer Has Started

Kicking off summer the right way with an afternoon ice cream date with the kiddos.

Rolling Hard This Weekend...

I needed a smile headed into the weekend.

School Bound Buddy

Watching your kids grow is one of the greatest and hardest things to do.

You want them to grow, you want them to experience life, you want them to fall down and pick themselves back up, you want them to learn from their mistakes; but you also want them to stay in the moment they are in today.

Jaxson is an incredible kid.  Most days he drives me bat s**t crazy, but it's a crazy I can deal with.  He pushes me farther than anyone has pushed me before; but we both learn more about each other every day.

As we prepare over the next few weeks to settle into our new house, which will hopefully be the last move we make for sometime, in the small town of Jefferson, Maryland; I can help but be beyond ecstatic to see Jax sign up for his new elementary school.

Crazy to think that my little buddy will be in "big-guy" school in a few months; but if I had to pick a school and a town for him to start his adventure, this would be the one.  

Faking a smile outside his new school

First time eating in his new cafeteria

Open For Business, Maybe Not...

The idea:  Robyn and I will have a garage sale to get rid of some of the things we have acquired over the years before we move to our new house in a few weeks.  Jaxson had the great idea to have a lemonade stand to make some extra cash for his piggy bank.  Win-win situation, right?

The reality:  Robyn and I woke up early.  Set everything out.  Organized and priced the items.  Waited thirty minutes, maybe, and decided to box everything up and take to GoodWill.  We had zero customers.  Jaxson had one; however, he wasn't there when she came by to buy some lemonade and make his first sale.  Business Fail 101.

Total profit for our garage sale / lemonade stand:  $0

Business can be cruel to small businesses...he did have one customer; but she never paid and kept drinking all the profits...

I Started Running...

The family that runs together, stays together.

The last week in our house has been a constant hub of activity.  Three races, two states, and two runners later; we can now take a deep breath and enjoy our accomplishments.

Robyn is now an official runner.  Knocking out her first 5k has opened her eyes to the world of running and the sense of proud a runner feels after finishing a race you have trained for.  

I would love to pass this new found passion onto our kiddos.  To run, you don't need much.  All you need is your own two feet and a desire to challenge yourself.  You can't cheat in running.  You either do it or you don't - it's that simple.

Congrats Robbie on your run; now it's time to push yourself past your comfort level and experience even more joys of running.

I Paid To Do This?

Not sure why.  Can't figure it out.  Baffled.  Stumped.  Curious, why my thick head fell in love with long distance running...whatever it is; I'm glad the bug got to me.

Two marathons and six half-marathons later; I want more.

This past weekend I ran the Gettysburg North-South Marathon.  Toughest race I have ever run (except maybe the half-marathon I ran with a small case of the beer-flu...not recommended.  Pizza and beer the night before was the wrong fuel for that race).

Gettysburg was full of hills (big hills), temperatures in the mid-seventies by finish time (which is very hot for a race) and the fact that I didn't feel my training had prepared me...I thought wrong.

3 hours and 58 minutes after the gun went off, I was done.  Two minutes under my goal time. Big smiles.

Best part of it all, I am set to run another half-marathon this Sunday at the Frederick Running Festival.

The picture above is why I do the races.  

I hope to show my kids that you can do whatever you want in life. Hard work and commitment is the only way - no short cuts in life.