Just a quick post today. I shot a 41 last night in part to a good night putting the golf ball. I parred 4 holes on the night and shot bogey golf on the other 5. I hit the ball well with all clubs. Thankfully, this round of golf will not follow me over to next season, so my handicap will remain high for the start next season.

Another weekend, another trip to Atwood. The weather was not as good as last weekend, but nothing fell out of the sky while we were camping. It was trick or treat weekend at the campground and the whole family made it down to the camper. But, before trick or treat, B marched in the Sugarcreek Swiss Festival. Thankfully, they were #15 and were done before the last unit left the staging area. We made it back to the campground in time to change and start trick or treating at 4.
Sunday's weather was overcast and cooler, low 60s. But, still no rain. The family took a long boat ride to the East Marina to look at a pontoon boat. It is an older, 28 foot pontoon boat. It looks really good for its age. The seller seems to be asking a bit much for a 30 year old boat with a 30 year old motor and no trailer. We may give them a price we are willing to pay. We will see.
We had dinner at Olive Garden for T's birthday. Her parents meet us there. After dinner, we all went to welcome B home. She had a bus trip to Geneva for the Grape Festival. She has marched in all but one parade Carol Koontz Baton troupe has entered. She is suppose to march at the Wolleybear (sp?) Festival next weekend, but it is Fall Festival at Atwood. We will see.
Tonight is golf Monday. I can golf on Mondays through October. I hope to play each Monday til then.

Til next post,

Bayou

I went to dinner with a friend I meet while working at SDMI. He was my contact at a paper mill in Mississippi. He was interviewing with a company in Mt. Vernon. He is not sure he would take the job. I drove to Lexington, Ohio and we had dinner at a sports bar. The 3 hours passed by quickly. I hope it is not another 10 years til I see him again. But, until then, email works.

Today was day 10 of the perfect weather in Ohio. We have not had rain since before Ike hit us last Sunday. There is only a 30% chance of rain this weekend, then even some good weather forecast into next week.

--Bayou

The regular season for golf ended last week, but I can play through the end of August. I played last night and shot a 45. The score was the best round of golf since I returned from the cruise. It also included my second EAGLE of the year! I hit a monster drive on the par 5 #3 at the Sanctuary. I followed that shot with a beautiful 7 iron, 8 feet from the pin. I made the putt for eagle!
The good weather is still hanging around NE Ohio. It looks like another wonderful week. Of course, that means I will need to mow my grass this week.

The Bayou Steelers are all alone in first place of the MNFFL. We are in quest of our 4th MNFFL Super Bowl championship.

--Bayou

What a weekend. It was a perfect Atwood weekend. The weather was great. It was sunny and mid-70's. We went for bike rides, walks, boat rides, played corn hole and just had a great time.

Today, B had a parade in Louisville. T replaced one of the marching moms. She said her legs are a little bit sore. K and I went to Progressive Field for the last home game of the season. The Indians won and both of us strolled the bases after the game.

I will try to post some pictures soon.

--Bayou

Quick blog tonight. I went to the Indians game with K tonight. We sat in section 103 row C, right center field. Both K and I caught batting practice baseballs tonight. K received one courtesy of a Twins player and I caught mine on-the-fly off the bat of Justin Morneau. Yes, we both brought our gloves and I am glad we did. I would not have caught the ball from JM with my bare hands. This baseball marks the first baseball I have ever caught or fielded at a baseball game. I have come close a few times in the past, but this is the first one I got to take home with me. I will post pics later. Oh, by the way, the Indians won, 6-4.

Bayou is off to bed.

Happy Birthday to my brother.

Football recap:
Mogadore beat Rootstown to go to 4-0 on the season.
Ohio State lost big time to USC.
Cleveland lost again to the Steelers.
Kent State beat a D-1AA team.
Akron lost---that always makes my day.
The Cowboys beat the Eagles last night.
And the Bayou Steelers have won their first two games of the MNFFL season.

Bayou, DDS struck again last Thursday. K has lost 7 teeth since April 27th. He really does look like a jack-o-latern.

Again, there is no need to write about my golf game this week.

I saw Sarah Palin's plane as it was landing at CAK yesterday. She was in Perry Twp for a fundraiser. I am sure the GOP ticket will be in Ohio more and more as the weeks roll on.

T should get approved to start he new job tonight. I am not sure when they will first call her to sub, but it will be sooner than the hospital will call.

--Bayou

SNOW DAY!!!!! well not really, but leftovers from Hurricane Ike hit NE Ohio and caused many, not mine, schools to close today due to damage or no power. My kids are going to enjoy their first snow day today, while I am at school. T is going to love having them home all day today.

I will get to football in a later post. There is not much to write about anyways,

--Bayou

Did you forget? I have not and hope you haven't either. The fire station down the street from my house has their huge American flag flying from the ladder truck. It is a beautiful reminder to everyone what happened 7 years ago today. Here is my blog for last year, scroll down and read my entry from Sept 11.
http://bayousteelers.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Here is another link you need to read.
http://www.webloggin.com/william-r-ruth-remembering-the-victims-of-911-by-big-dog/
I hope you take time to remember those who lost their life in the attacks. Say a prayer for their families who have spent the last seven years without loved ones. I remember watching TV at my parents house after school that day. It was just something we needed to do. We needed to be together and comfort each other. I hope we never have anything close to those attacks again, but I am sure people said that after Pearl Harbor.
Here is a link about the Pentagon Memorial. It is being dedicated today. It looks beautiful and I can't wait to visit it and pay my respects to the victims.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/11/pentagon.memorial/index.html
Now, I do not get political in my blog, because if you know me, then you know I will be voting the McCain/Palin ticket. I believe Senator McCain wants to keep the military strong and prevent any future attacks against the United States. I believe he is the right candidate to lead our military for the next 4 or 8 years.

God Bless you,your family, and God Bless America

-Bayou

Weekend recap---We did not go to a football game Friday night. But, Mogadore, Massillon and Perry won.

Saturday. I took Kent up to Mogadore for the JV game against Norton. Mogadore won. It might be the only JV game I will see this year. T and I went to my 20th high school reunion. I had a good time visiting with some of my classmates. It would have been nice to see some other friends there, but with them living out of state I know it is hard to travel back to Ohio for a weekend. It was a good time none the less. In football action, the Bobcats of Ohio U gave the Buckeyes a scare. I think the Bucks had a case of "looking ahead to next week's opponent".

Sunday. Sue and Rick from Vienna stopped by to pick up some of their stuff from the cruise. We took a bag of stuff from them in our van, since they were flying back to Ohio after the cruise. We made plans to visit them next month to share more cruise pictures and videos. Then it was football time. Jeff came over and watched the Steelers beat Houston and then Dallas beat Cleveland.

Today is J's first day of pre-school. It is hard to believe he is big enough to go to school already. Last night he was excited about going to school, I just hope it is that way when T drops him off.

I will post MNFFL game results tomorrow.

Ok, back to the cruise...

Day 5---Grand Cayman.
We ate breakfast in the Windjammer. We needed to be on shore for our excursion by 10:30am. We tendered ashore in plenty of time. The Pirate Ship excursion was neat and the kids had a wonderful time. You get a good idea how big cruise ship are when you sail by them in a smaller craft. The pirate ship we were on was 3/4 the original size of Christopher Columbus's ships. After the pirates gave the kids the Pirate's oath and made them clean the deck, we were able to swim. Everyone (me, T, B, K, J and my cousin's boy, M), but my mom, went for a swim. Most of us walked the plank for a 6-8 foot jump into the water, while me and M jumped from the top rail of the ship 15-18 feet above the water.
Once we returned to shore, we did some shopping before return to Mariner. Tonight was the second formal night. I broke out my Dallas Cowboy bow tie. I received it as a gift from my aunt and uncle before my wedding. I figured since my aunt was on the cruise, it was a good time to wear it.

Day 6---Cozumel, Mexico
This was our first time to Cozumel. I was not sure if I would like it or not. Boy, was I surprised. It was much better than I ever thought. It was beautiful. The local taxi driver said the hurricane a few years ago wiped out much of the "eye sores" of Cozumel. Us and the Westcarrs spent the day at Paradise Beach. The kids had fun using all the water toys, snorkeling gear, kayak, bungee trampoline and floating mats. We did some shopping in the port area. We found the prices there to be some of the lowest on the trip. Dinner tonight was lobster. I think they were better on Mariner than Enchantment, but that is just my opinion. Briley watched the kids tonight after kid's club. T and I went to the Quest and as they say--what happens at the Quest--stays at the Quest. All I will say, if you sail Royal Caribbean, go to the Quest.
B did a good job watching the kids in our room. She is getting so big. It wont be long now, til she is babysitting. My little girl is growing up way too fast.

Day 7--At sea
We tried to pack in everything we wanted to do before the last day on the last day. It was nice to go for a swim. We meet up with the Lyons and Millers. We took pictures and packed:(
It was a wonderful trip. We counted down the day from 400+ to this cruise and now I have cruise withdraw. We chatted with so many people on cruisecritic.com on a daily basis, I miss it. We are looking forward to our next cruise. We hope to be on Freedom of the Seas in July 2010 cruise to the eastern side of the Caribbean. I will be letting everyone know dates on cost later because it was a blast cruise with friends and family!

The drive home was quick and painless. We did overnight at Missy and Tim's. It is great having them live half way between our house and the port.

There you have it, our "can't wait til '08" cruise review. Now, you just need to see the 700+ pictures and the hours of video we took on the trip...Lucky you!

I'm sorry I have not finished the cruise review. I will finish it soon. Here is a review from one of the people T and I met on the cruise http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=46038

Mogadore beat Holy Trinity Catholic 52-31 Friday night. HTC is from Canada and played very well against the Cats. The Cats are now 2-0 on the season.

This was the weekend for out annual Labor Day Baseball trip. This year we travelled to Cincinnati and watched the Reds beat the SF Giants 9-3. After the game, we (Jared, Erin, T and I ) went to King's Island. T and I went there 15 years ago on our first ever baseball road trip. It was only $15 for twilight admission. We went on a handful of rides in the 5 hours we were in the park. The groups favorite ride was the Drop Tower:

Drop Tower
Feel your heart drop when you plunge 26 stories from a height of 315 feet straight down at speeds of over 61 mph on the tallest Gyro Drop in the World!--from Kings Island website.

Congratulations to Cliff Lee of the Indians on winning his 20th game of the season last night.

The MNFFL draft was held last night. This is the 9th year for the league. I will try to keep you posted on the the Bayou Steelers as they try for their 4th MNFFL title.