I am just waiting for the Buckeye's game to start. It is going to tip off near 10pm. Maybe Oden and the boys can be up 20+ at half and I can relax in bed for the second half.
I just wanted to jot down about going to the dr yesterday.
We did book a cruise yesterday. We are currently on Explorer out of Cape Liberty in New York. The sail date is April 20, 2008. We will change the date once the summer of 2008 dates are opened by RC. The dates look like either 6/14 or 6/28. I am not sure what type of cabin we will book. I would like the RFS with my parents, but we may go JS or even aft ocean view. Jackie at AAA will have her work cut out for her when we show up during spring break to change our cruise. Once we have a date, then we can let others know when the ship leaves and they can book their trip. I am not sure we will fly to NYC unless their is cheap airfare to NY. I dont know if we will stay before the cruise or after. But I still have 16 months to plan. Plus, Philly has a new stadium or we can take the kids to Shea. Half of the fun of vacation is planning it.

Sitting out by the dock of the Bayou!

Thank goodness spring is on Wednesday. There was snow/sleet falling all day today. It is going to get into the upper 50's by the end of the week. We are going outdoors for practice on Wednesday.
What a weekend for basketball. Ohio State escaped defeat with the OT thriller over Xavier. I have 12 of 16 teams left in the tournament. I still have all my final four teams. T is in the top 1% of all pick'em players on yahoo.com. She is winning my pick'em contest. She has 44 of 48 games correct. However, she had Wisconsin in the championship game. That will hurt her point total. I talked to my buddy Rick yesterday. He has tickets to the San Antonio Regional, with the games on Thursday/Saturday, I cant make it to them. Plus, a short notice airplane ticket will cost big $$$.

Go Bucks!

--Bayou

Let the MADNESS begin!!! There is nothing like the NCAA tournament. I first went to the tournament in 2001. I was in Atlanta for a conference. I know MSU and Temple were there, but I forget the other two teams. The next year, I went to Greenville, SC with Jared to see Kent St beat Alabama to advance to the Sweet 16. We next went to Lexington to see the Flashes lose to IU. I still hate Indiana!!!!!!We were ready to head to Atlanta for the Final Four! Last year, G and I meet Jared in Michigan to see the Flashes lose to Pitt at the Palace in Auburn Hills. Even though the Flashes lost, it still was a fun time.
My Final Four: Oregon, UCLA, UNC and Ohio State. I have to go with the Buckeyes to win it all.
We have heard that RC will start booking for the summer of 2008 on April 2. We will book our "Cant Wait til '08" cruise. It looks like we will sail from Baltimore. I think it will be fun to sail from Baltimore to Bermuda. The ship is docked in Bermuda for 30 hours or so. Hopefully, we will have a group of family and friends on the trip.

See you out by the Bayou!

Congratulations to the Miami(OH) Redhawks on winning the MAC. They beat Akron on the 3 pointer with .6 seconds left. Jared drove down the see the game. We ate dinner at Gordons in the arena. We spent about hour in the bar area. We didnt go to our seat til after the 15 minute mark in the first half. I did fell bad for Mogadore grad Melissa Horak. She is a cheerleader for the Zips. I guess they will be going to the NIT.

Look who I ran into at Gordon's. Jared used my phone for this picture. Only 4 weeks til Opening Day at the Jake!

The NCAA invited 65 teams to the big dance. THE Ohio State University go a #1 seed. They could make a nice run to Atlanta this year. Jared and I might go somewhere next weekend. I will know for sure later. This Thursday and Friday are the 2 best days of the year. 32 games in 2 days. Basketball heaven.

GO Buckeyes from the Bayou!

Only ion Ohio can you drive to work and the temp be 21 degrees and on the way hom eit be 61 degrees. It was a beautiful day today. The sun glare was bad on the drive home, but it is better than gray overcast.

This is a look at the Mogadore High School. It is just a matter of time until I get my new room. It has been 23 months since I moved out.

This was the view of the sky on March 8. Due to atmospheric conditions, contrails from airliners marked up the sky for hours. This view is just south of Mogadore. I wish I would have had my "good" camera. This is a great picture. My students will see this pictures on a test in the future.

Sports Update: Went to teh Perry-Hoover game with Mike Necko. This was the first time I saw Kenny Frease play. He was as goos as advertised. Perry won and will play GlenOak for the district title tomorrow. Kent St will get another chance to beat Akron tonight. The winner will play Miami for the MAC Championship tomorrow. Jared is coming into town for the game. It will be good to visit with him.

Tonight the family went to the Perry pool for some swimming. Jarret had a blast. He did not want to get out. Briley's girl scout troup rented out the pool, so it was not crowed. Kent was better in the pool than in Hampton Inn. He had a noodle to play with. Briley jumped off the diving board a few times.

Til next time,

See you Down by the Bayou

Welcome Leighah Hope Bracken. She was born this morning at 5:57am. She, Heather and Jeff are doing fine. She is my second neice and my parent's 10th grandchild.

Tonight was the awards dinner for wrestling. We had a good time eating and handing out awards. Everyone was there but Zach Glagola. I am not sure why he was not there. Oh well.

Welcome Leighah, From Uncle Bayou!

Happy Birthday Jear-Bear! He turns 2 tomorrow. He is starting to talk more and more each day. He says thank you anytime he gets something from me or T. He is going on the potty. We are not pushing him to use the potty, but he wants to use it in the morning and anytime we change him. Hopefully, it want we too long before he is potty trained. We had a small party at mom and dad's. He got plenty of clothes and he loved them. K even got a present. Mom got them Cars bedding for their bunk beds.
After the party Jeff and the boys come over for a couple of hours. The kids played nicely. T went to visit Heather. She ready to have the baby anytime now. It will be their first girl.

This is the view from our seats at the state wrestling tournament. It is tough to follow the action. Nine matches going on at one time. K and I had a fun time. We didnt get back home until 11:30 or so. Hopefully, next year, Mogadore will have a wrestler inaction.

See you Down by the Bayou.

The weather warmed up today. It was in the 40's and the melt off. The snow look bad. I hate seeing piles of black snow melting away. I have enjoyed this week off. Track will start on Monday. If it is track season, then it must be near the end of school.
I am slowly, check that, fastly growing sick off my classroom. In a way I cant believe I have been in there for 2 years, but i am ready to get the h*ll out of there. Moving wont happen until the end of the school. It will be a happy day when I move into my new room.
I am heading to Columbus tomorrow for the state wrestling. I will take Kent after he gets home from school. We had fun last year. Hopefully next year I will be taking a wrestler or two.

See you Down by the Bayou.

The wrestling season ended this weekend. Shayne went 2-2 and that included a thrilling 39 second pin of the #1 seed and #8 Brakeman wrestler in the state. He ended the season 32-15, not bad at all. Joe went 2-3 and placed 6th the district. He won both matches on Friday but lost 3 in a row Saturday. He needed just 1 win in the Saturday morning season to advance to the state meet. He ended up 28-13. All in all it was another step forward for the program. We will a new mat for next year, new uniforms and home matches next year. This should help the program continue to build.
Now that wrestling season is over, it is time to start thinking about March madness. Kent State will need to win the MAC to go the big dance. Ohio State is a lock, and maybe a #1 seed. They have a big game today against #2 Wisconsin. I don't think any other school has played in as many #1 vs #2 games as THE Ohio State University. They played 3 in football and now 1 in basketball.
Baseball has started spring training. I already have a few games planned. I will see 2 opening day games. I will be in Detroit for their opening game and then in Cleveland for theirs. The Labor Day trip will be "Back to the Bronx". We are taking the kids to NYC. It will be more for the kids than the adults. Years from now, they will be able to say to their kids, I was at "old" Yankee Stadium. I also will be making a trip to Texas to visit "my team" the San Angelo Colts. We will spend the weekend in San Angelo while visiting family in Fort Worth.

--Bayou

First, lets review the Presidents' weekend. We drove to T's aunt's house in Uniontown, PA. It is a 3 hour drive. We stopped at CiCi's Pizza in Washington, PA. We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Uniontown. The kids loved the pool. We were able to swim Sunday night and Monday morning. We went to Amana's for lunch. She had the usual spread out for us. I mean to say, she had enough food for my family and two more families. We ended up taking home leftovers for the rest of the week. B picked Eat'n Park for dinner. We really didn't need to eat again, but it was dinner time. Amana just spoils us. We arrived home about 11pm.

Tomorrow, Joe and Shayne will wrestle at the Maple Hts District. We are staying in a hotel again this year. It is a nice reward for the kids. I booked a hotel for next week when the advance to the state meet. I also booked the same hotel for the weekend of state track. It is a nice Hampton Inn with a pool and breakfast.

Mom and dad got back from FLA OK. They had a wonderful time. T's parents are enjoying their last day in Hawaii. They will be flying home tonight. It is a red-eye flight to MSP with a stop in Portland. I am sure they are having a wonderful time.

I will check in with everyone later, Bayou

Congratulations to Joe Bailes the 103 lbs Sectional Champion. He went 3-0 with 2 pins over the weekend. Shayne Stewart also advanced with his 4th place finish. They will wrestle next weekend at the Maple Heights District. Zack Glagola and Josh Bailes finished 5th and are alternates at 145 and 152.
The snow is falling again. A clipper from Canada is handing us some more snow.
Went over and played some cards tonight. Did alright. I broke even, minus the beer money.
I received an email from mom. They are having fun aboard the ship. They will return home monday.

That is all from the Bayou tonight.

Back to school for everyone. I thought maybe we would have another day due to the cold (-6 on the drive to school), but I am glad we have one day left just in case of something crazy happening.
Joe, Josh and Shayne got seeded in the sectional tournament. They should advance to the districts next week. I dont think anyone can remember the last time Mogadore had more than one wrestler advance to districts. We may get lucky and squeeze someone else to next week.

Good Luck to all the wrestlers, from the Bayou.

Yea for me!!!!!

Yea for the kids!!!!!

My parents are enroute to Florida. They may be late, but they are on their way.

This is from last night. We still have not heard from my in-laws. I am sure they are having too much fun to call.

T served a wonderful dinner tonight. What a wonderful Valentines' Day gift. We spent this snow day like we did yesterday. The kids played outside for about an hour. It was colder today than yesterday. But the sun did come out this afternoon.

Happy V-Day from the Bayou.

I turned on the Christmas lights today. It looks like Christmas here in Ohio and it feels like Christmas vacation with all the snow days. Oh by the way, SNOW DAY #4 is tomorrow. I got the call about 8pm tonight. Again, it is nice to know ahead of time. Perry is closed tomorrow as well.

This was my breakfast this morning. T is so good to me!

Here is a picture of the kids with the next door neighbor. They spent about an hour out playing in the white stuff. I looked out a minute a go and their tracks are covered up already. I shoveled the driveway and it looks like I didnt even shovel at all. Oh well. It looks like this stuff will contiinue to fall all night.
T's parents are enroute to Hawaii. Their flights were on time and not effected by weather. The weather in Hawaii is high in the 80's and lows in the 60's.

I think it is safe to say, the Bayou has frozen over!

SNOW DAY#3

I was about to get in the shower, when the call came in. I guess flushing the ice cubes worked last night. The kids and I flushed them before we went to bed. This is because of snow. We could get 7-14" of snow. There is a good chance of another snow day tomorrow. I will cancel wrestling practice. I believe the road will be too bad for the kids to drive to school. I will call Rich and see what other teams are doing.
I am glad I went to Columbus yesterday. I had a good time. I enjoyed the sessions and the keynote speaker was really good. I got some good ideas I hope to use with the kids. I would like to go back to the ITEA convention next year. I seem to get a ton of stuff there.
We talked to T's parents and there are at the airport. It looks like the will make their flights to Hawaii ok. It may be tougher for my parents to get out tomorrow on their trip to Florida.

We finished 11th in the PTC ahead of Rootstown, Waterloo and Field. Joe placed 3rd at 103, Josh 6th at 152 and Shayne 5th at 160. We look forward to sectionals this week. The team went to see Kent State wrestle Ohio. They won 19-16.
I am heading to Columbus tomorrow to attend the etech Ohio conference. It will be interesting. I havent attended a conference like this since the last time I went to an ITEA conference. I am sure I will have fun.
This is the week both sets of parents are heading off on vacation. T's parents are heading to Hawaii and mine are heading to FLA for a short cruise.

The weather is not as cold, but still well below freezing. It does not look like any warm up in sight.

Til next time, Stay warm from the Bayou.

The Cowboys hired Wade Phillips as the new head coach. I dont think Wade was on anybody else's short list. I dont think Pittsburgh interviewed him. I don' think he was the "hot" candidate out there. I wish him nothing but the best. I want him to win a Super Bowl in Big D. It has been 11 years since they last won a Super Bowl.

It is so cold here, my car did not start this morning. I had to take the van to school. T had to take care of it. She let the car "warm up" and it started right up in the afternoon. The battery is ok, just freeze over night.

Til the Bayou warms up, see you next time.

SNOW DAY #2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I received the call about 5:30pm yesterday. The best snow days are the ones you know about in advance. I am pretty sure we will be back in school tomorrow. Current temp is -3 and wind chill -18 according to my computer.

I talked to Jared and made up our minds to head to Yankee Stadium this year for our Labor Day trip. This one is for the kids. We went to New York in 1999 for the famous 2 games, 2 stadiums, 1 day trip. Oh yea, Jared proposed to Erin on the trip as well and the second most famous quote on our trips, "It is not our Budget!" K will get to see the Devil Rays play the Yankess that weekend. I am planning on taking him to see the Rays against Cleveland as well this season.

I think the Bayou is freezing over.

SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The word came right before the Super Bowl. Then, Perry and Louisville called off as well. I think just about all schools are off tomorrow. The forecast is for -20 wind chill tomorrow and it could continue into Tuesday.
Went over to Brian's for his birthday/Super Bowl party. We played cards as well. I played terrible. It was ugly. I need to start playing on-line more.

Til next time from the freezing Bayou!