Nashville

We had a great time in Nashville earlier this month. Anne got to meet several stars, and we got a full dose of country music. Some of the acts we saw include: Alan Jackson, Faith Hill, Dwight Yoakum, Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Josh Turner, Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift, and more. I've included some pictures below.

Tracy Byrd

Will and "Abe"

Taylor Swift

Bad News

We found out today that my sister Anne's tumor is starting to grow again. For those of you who don't know the whole story, I'll summarize. Anne was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in the summer of 2005. She had brain surgery in August 2005 that partially removed the tumor. Since then, she has been receiving antineoplastin therapy from the Burzynski Clinic in Houston. It has successfully kept her tumor from growing for nearly 2.5 years. So, this definitely comes as a shock to our family, especially since I personally had become acclimated to receiving the results of the latest MRI to hear "no change." Although lately, Anne has been having some memory problems so we thought something could be going on. Anne had had some other health complications this spring that have kept her from receiving as much treatment as normal, so I'm hoping the new activity can be directly attributed to the increased time "off the pump" as we call it, referring to the pump she carries around 24-7 that sends the medicine into her body. Either way, it is definitely a point in time where several questions are being raised and your prayers are appreciated. Please pray both for Anne's healing and protection and for our family to trust that the situation is in God's hands. The good news is that we have a family vacation scheduled from June 4-9 when we can spend some quality time together.

Marathon Post

So, we've been neglecting our blog lately. If it were a child, CPS would probably have been taken it away by now just like the FLDS polygamists in Eldorado. In an effort to make good, we've compiled a marathon post to document the most exciting things that have happened to us in the last few weeks. We'll take a straw poll later to see if it was a good idea or not.

1. 04/26: Anne's Birthday Party
We traveled to Canyon the weekend of Anne's 27th Birthday. We had a great time seeing the family, and Anne partied like it was 1999. Before the party, Anne took care of all the normal party preparations: compiling CD's for the listening pleasure of the guests and arranging the chairs in the most efficient way possible. Then she blew out her candles. Afterwards, we played guitar hero. We even got to see a dog, a cat, and a guinea fowl eating from the same pile of dog food. What a great birthday. Pictures below.






2. 04/29: A&M-TCU Baseball Game
We were able to attend the A&M-TCU baseball game in Ft Worth. It was a beautiful evening, and we were just glad to be part of the record-setting 4,294 fans (mostly Aggies) watch A&M win in the 9th inning 3-2.

3. 05/07: Jennifer has 2 bulged discs in her back
As some of you may know, Jennifer had back surgery in high school to correct the effects of a cheerleading accident. We had basically a "check-up MRI" because her back had been bothering her more than normal only to find out that she has 2 more bulged discs. The doctor immediately referred us to a neurosurgeon, which we want to avoid if at all possible. So we are going to see Sally and Bill (Scott's aunt and uncle) in Colorado over the Memorial Day weekend so they can work on Jennifer's back. They specialize in neuromuscular therapy. In the short term, this basically means that Jennifer needs to stop running and rely on swimming, biking, and walking for exercise.

4. 05/08: Water Main Burst
We were driving home to find the main road in our area basically flooding, but it wasn't raining. Apparently, a 16" water main burst, and being a good civil engineer, I grabbed my camera and took a couple of pictures to document our nation's aging infrastructure.


5. 05/10: Amber is engaged
We found out that Jennifer's sister Amber is getting hitched! We are not sure when the wedding is happening, but we are eager to meet Chris at our nephew's first birthday next weekend in Evadale.

The Latest

We don't really have anything interesting to share right now, but I just wanted to post something or else this blog would officially become "inactive" in my mind......

We haven't been up too much lately, just working and enjoying Fort Worth. We've been trying to get our house and yard in order before the busy summer season gets here. Jennifer has been training for her 1st triathlon (Iron Girl in Irving, July 20th), and I've been trying to help her along with her biking and running (I'm no help with the swimming). That has been fun running and biking together along the Trinity River, especially with the beautiful spring weather.

My sister bought us some outdoor speakers for our backyard, and we finally got those hooked up. Introducing Jennifer to the wonderland that is the attic crawl space made the whole experience worth it. If you've ever done it, you'll appreciate the image of crawling through a superheated space that is a maximum of 30 inches high, with nails pointed at your head from above, fiberglass insulation all around that is irritating your skin, eyes, and nasal passages while trying to balance on the narrow end of widely spaced 2"x6"s. Priceless.

We've also got some family birthdays coming up. My sister Anne is turning 27 on April 26, so we are making the trip to Canyon for her party. Our nephew Sam is turning 1 on May 31, so we will be heading down to Evadale for his party as well. Also, Christina Whitaker (May 7) and Christi Fling (May 31) are having birthdays soon.

It's Sunday afternoon now, and Jennifer is taking a nap. We went to church this morning, and then stopped by Central Market on the way home. We had a great lunch on the back porch. All things considered, life is pretty good right now for us. I hope you can say the same for you.

Softball

Jennifer is on a softball team with our small group, and I am an alternate by default. So far, I've played in both games. We won the first game by a run rule and lost the second by a run rule. Jennifer played in high school, so she has some experience. She was a little rusty the first game, but is really coming on strong now. On the other hand, I haven't played any kind of baseball since elementary school, and I wasn't any good then. Tonight was a pretty rough game......already losing big and about to get the game called by the ump, I led off in the 4th inning. I got on base and had in my mind that I was going to push for extra bases every time since we were so far down. Our next batter hit an infield grounder and was thrown out at first. I made it to 2nd by about the time the short stop was throwing to 1st, so I turned the corner thinking I could make it to 3rd. They had a girl on 1st and I figured there was no way she could get it to the 3rd baseman......well, she did. I was just about there and I heard the 3rd basemen catch the ball. All I could see was the base, and knowing I should have stopped at 2nd, I wanted to justify myself. So I dove.....

I actually made it to the base, but I went to fast and came off the base and got tagged. OUT!!! Double play. And now I have a scrape on my knee, a strawberry on my side, and beat up hand.

Let this be a lesson to you readers out there (if there are any left): don't slide in slow pitch softball. It's not worth it.

Satisfied?

Congrats Coach Lombard

This is pretty amazing. My high school won the Class 3A state championship (again). With the title game, our coach won his 1000th game (and 14th state championship)--and he is only 55 yrs old. He has a winning percentage is almost .920 You can't write a script better than that. You can read a whole article about him here, but for starters just consider these facts:

No team he has coached - two boys or 30 girls - won fewer than 25 games in a season.

His "losingest" season came in 1991-92, when the Lady Eagles lost eight games. That team won his first Class 3A championship.

There have been 17 girls teams in UIL Texas high school history that have recorded unbeaten seasons. Lombard has coached three of those (1984 and 1985 at Nazareth and 1996 at Canyon).

He has won titles in Class B, Class A, Class 3A and Class 4A.

He has a 61-9 record as a boys coach, leading Nazareth to back-to-back state runner-up finishes the two seasons before moving to Canyon High.

In his last two seasons at Naz, Lombard compiled a 129-9 record and coached in four state championship games.

His 2002-2003 Canyon team produced two Division I players and was declared USA Today's national champions.