Merry Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas one and all!

If you are reading this, we survived the Mayan apocalypse.  Hurray!

I should probably put all that money back in our retirement accounts. And maybe I can get that 911 Turbo back to the dealer before they notice.

Soccer has taken on undue importance in our household.  Emily’s team in the fall of 2011 was stacked with some really great players, and they made a playoff run that lasted eight weekends: parents were groaning with jubilation.  It seems now that the fall season lasted until April for her.  Claire’s team had the misfortune of being coached by me, and we came in a solid fifth out of ten teams—never in danger of extending the season.  We watch the highlights of the English league and have become the annoying people who discuss how soccer should really be called football, and that American thing with helmets could get a lesser name.  If my girls were unattractive boys, I would foresee many beatings in middle school.  Claire is improving dramatically, both as a keeper and a field player.  Secretly I enjoy every minute of soccer with them (I can’t let them know how much or they’ll hold it over me).

Adorned with her awards

Ready for battle

The girls’ activities have become the focal points of our lives: music, church, girl scouts and soccer.  Every once in a while, I get a stray thought on some intellectual topic and then reprimand myself for not focusing on laying out cones for practice or sorting out the cookie boxes quickly enough.  Claire is playing the violin and Emily the flute.  We tried to record the Winter Music program but our iPad was acting up.  We were quite embarrassed to be the only parents there enjoying the event without recording it.

We got a couple of good trips in this year.  Over spring break we saw Death Valley with Holly and Rich while it was only dad-blasted hot, not %$d-d@*+ed blasted hot.  

Not too hot??

Badwater - the lowest point in N.America

 The girls, my father and I took a week-long road trip from CA back to Wisconsin at the end of the school year.  Don’t we all have memories at staring out the window at the desert Southwest?  Of course, this time part of it was on fire.  Jenn couldn’t come along as Mickey Mouse takes a dim view of his employees taking the busy season off.  She had been to Santa Fe with her mother in the spring and recommended we see Mesa Verde and its ancient cliff dwellings.  Two days later we met up with my brother and his family, Carolyn, Natalie, Magdalene, Emma, Camden and Kedzie at Wind Cave, but we were traversing the continent in opposite directions and couldn’t stay together long enough.  Lots of stories from this trip: double rainbows, fire, wind and ice; so if you’re interested please ask.

At Bishop's Lodge - Santa Fe, NM

Mesa Verde, CO

Wind Cave, SD

We became good friends with a lovely family down the street with a daughter Claire’s age and a younger son.  The mother has been dragging me out running most mornings, so I berate her publicly and thank her privately.  We ran a 10K in April and are training for a half marathon in May 2013—we have our doubts, too.  The Kims have been a true blessing.  So much so, in fact, that Mrs. Kim has helped secure some employment for me, making math videos for an education company.  Better days ahead.  We also had them along on our annual pilgrimage to Joshua Tree over Veteran’s Day.  They are still thawing out, but hope to have feeling in their extremities by February.  Mr. Kim and I were bemoaning the pathetic state of the wisps on our heads that try to pass themselves off as hair, when I half-remembered a report that said men with excessive testosterone experience early hair loss. “Ahh, we are so manly, it scared the hairs off our head: I like it!” he said.  It’s good to live next to happy people.

On the rocks

The trail blazers

Jenn also upgraded her employment situation by taking the management training program at Disneyland so that she can switch over from hourly to salary with benefits—full exhale.  We celebrated with a dinner at the new fancy restaurant in California Adventure, Carthay Circle.  We are all very proud of her.

Fall 2012 Emerging Leaders Class (I'm just to the right of Mickey)

Claire is now nine years old and growing up quickly, but some subtleties escape her.  The other day in the kitchen I was focused on making sandwiches when she said with a note of self-criticism, “I’m not a very good cracker.”  My Father Warning System shot from zero to Defcon 4.  I was trying to simultaneously pin down where she heard that particular Southern term (not on our road trip surely) and wondering how to respond to her not claiming membership in that group (“That’s okay, honey, you’re not supposed to be a good cracker” seemed insufficient). Then I noticed she was handing the ice cube tray to me.  She couldn’t get the ice cubes out for her water bottle.  Parenting crisis averted.

This has been just another crazy year in the ongoing chaos of the Leeb family.  We hope you all are well and enjoy the Christmas season.

The Leebs