Pirate Teamwork

Before I get into this week’s Lego of the week, I want to thank Mandy and the boys for such a wonderful Father’s day. I got coffee in bed in my new Utes mug, had homemade biscuits for breakfast, got some Utes gear, some Poopperi (Google it. It’s really a gift for the whole family), went on a hike, went and saw How to Train Your Dragon 2 (awesome), had dinner at Park Stone at Station Park (three words: Tri-Tip, BBQ, Sandwich. Yup it’s that good), played catch in the front yard with one son and played Lone Ranger with the other:

All in all a fantastic day. I am nothing without those three. They make me who I am and all my life choices are made with them in mind. In the words of Lou Gherig, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man in the world.

Whew, I got that sappy stuff out of the way, on to Lego of the week. Most of you have kids. Most of you have multiple kids. I’m assuming most of you had siblings growing up. Since most of you have multiple kids and were siblings, I will also assume that most of you know about bickering and how it spikes in the summer months. No, you don’t know about that? Then you’re a liar. My brother and I were always pestering one another but we also got along too. My boys are no different. They can be best friends one second and crying the next. Yes I said second not minute. It changes that fast. Another phenomenon is the “I can’t do it” syndrome. If they can’t do something or figure something out in exactly 5.7seconds, we get the “I can’t do it. You do it talk.” However, for a brief couple of hours this weekend, that changed.

Mandy found a Lego set online of a cool little pirate ship for Connor, you know because he likes pirates……and Legos (shudder). The problem was it was an older set with horrible instructions. I mean horrible. I am a Lego veteran and these were hard. It was like Ikea and Lego joined forces to purposely to mess with the general public. Well, it sat in the basement for a week or so, mostly because we haven’t had time get to it (see previous post about baseball season). Alex saw it sitting there a decided to take up the noble challenge. I was proud of him for exactly two minutes until I heard, “I can’t do it. Can you help me?” Normally, I would have tried to help, because this one was hard but he asked right in the middle of me doing yard work and Mandy was at her Mom’s doing a yard sale. I told them to keep trying and I would be inside in a while to help out. They came outside to play for an hour or so then decided to take up the challenge once more. Again, it took two minutes when the call came out again from Connor this time, pleading for me to help. Once again, middle of yard work, figure it out or wait. I came inside a little while later and help them playing great together. I decided to get me a drink and decompress for minute. Then it hit me, albeit half an hour later (hey it was a good decompress), I told them I’d help with Lego. I told them to bring it up when I heard something I wasn’t expecting, “Oh, never mind. Alex fixed it.”

I was proud of my guys. They told me a tale of using teamwork to get the job done. Connor separated blocks and got the next pieces ready while Alex put them together. It took a couple of take aparts and rebuilds to get it right but they did it. I am super proud of them to get through this. I know it’s a Lego and not that big of deal but to them it was a huge accomplishment. Hopefully, they remember this next time they have a challenge and can figure it out together without Mandy or I.

 

Great I got all sappy on the blog again.

Johnny used to work on the docks.....and other 80's references

Quick, think of what you looked like in High School, more specifically your hair. I’ll wait while you reminisce, either fondly (like me) or cringe (say if you were a child of the 80’s). Now that we have that over with, let’s move on. I myself had my moments in High School and shortly after. I shaved my head (twice) and discovered that I have the funkiest hairline in at least three counties. I have what we dubbed the tri-widows peak. It peaks at three places along my forehead and has a nice half-moon in-between the peaks. While I have a fantastically shaped dome, my hairline frightened people and people started asking me to count with an eastern European accent. However, I hit my peak (pun intended) my senior year with hair. It was the mid 90’s. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Nirvana still ruled the radio. X96 went from 96.1 to 96.3 which was a huge deal to a teenager growing up in Bountiful. The 96.1 frequency never worked in B-town but 96.3 did. It was life altering. People still wore flannels, with shorts and 8-hole Dr. Marten’s boots (thankfully those pictures of me have been lost) and Kurt Cobain, although dead for two years was still a huge influence on music and pop culture and on me. I have argued this before and you can disagree with me or not. Kurt Cobain was my generations’ Lennon. Before, you stop following my blog for disrespecting the great Lennon, let me explain. Both of them changed a stagnant music scene in their time. Both were some of our best songwriters and both were underrated musicians. Both married women who were more messed up than they were. Both of their lives were both cut tragically short. I still remember where I was when I heard the rumor that he overdosed. I was walking to 2^nd period art class when, for the record. To a kid of the early to mid-90’s Cobain was a big deal. Hence, this awesome head of luscious locks:

Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite Cobain like, but it was damn close (if you are still reading after my Lennon/Cobain reference thank you for sticking with me. However if you disagree how awesome my hair was, feel free to leave now). At least it wasn’t from the 80’s. That decade single handedly killed our ozone with Aqua Net #4.

All of this brings me to this week’s Connorism. My fantastic in-laws celebrated their 27^th wedding anniversary last week. They decided to post their wedding picture to Facebook.

*editor’s note, this is not actual wedding photo but a representation of the decade in which it was taken. Yes the hair is almost spot on.

Mandy decided to show this to the boys. Alex responded with a simple, “Woooooooowwwwwwww.” Connor was predictably Connor, “What’s up with Grandma’s hair? Looks like she tangles it up like a monkey.” While I have never known a monkey to want to look like David Coverdale (Google Whitesnake you’ll get the reference), it was still worthy of a Connorism. But wait Grandma’s response when she was texted the statement is worthy of mention. “Hilarious! Tell Connor that when he gets older he will learn why Grandma’s hair looked all tangled up like a monkey. He will read about it in history class. It was 1980’s, a very dark time in U.S. history of fashion.” I could not agree more. Although the decade gave us Def Leppard, Poison, Bon Jovi and most importantly U2, it also gave us Warrant, Slaughter, leg warmers, pegged pants, and New Kids on the Block (shudder).

 

P.S. Thank you to Linda for being a great sport and allowing me to lampoon her hair and the decade. She is much better person than Madonna who was represented above.

P.P.S I can still peg my pants on request.

Sad/Happy Weekend

Another weekend here, another weekend gone. Seriously, where did this one go? I feel gipped.  As always here are some quick hits from this weekend per the Hedrick household.

I have mentioned before that I am on the school board for the boy’s charter school, well President of the school board but no matter, I’m on the board. We had a little board retreat/work session Friday night. So yeah…….moving on to Saturday.

Saturday consisted of yard work, Mandy showing houses and more yard work and ebelskivers.  It was mowing, trimming and weeding. Wait, what is an ebelskivers. I’m glad you asked. An ebelskivers is a traditional Danish pancake in the shape of a sphere as demonstrated here:

And here is Connor demonstrating the proper way to eat said pancake:

Next to Mandy’s homemade biscuits, this is by far the family’s (or at least the males in household) favorite breakfast. We break them apart and put on an assortment of fillings: lemon curd, crab apple jelly, raspberry jelly, honey, honey butter. They are the best. However, they are a colossal pain in the derriere to make and we appreciate them even more because of this. Thanks babe.

Back to yard work, I left off at weed pulling and contrary to what the boys will tell you, it’s ok to make boys pull weeds. It is will not kill them I promise. We did have a little adventure after yard work. Mandy needed to swing by a house she just helped some people purchase, so we tried to do lunch after. Our first choice is a little Mexican joint off of 2700 North in Pleasant View but the sign on the door informed us that due to a power outage we could eat but only a limited menu. Seeing as it was 130 and she had three hungry boys to feed, Mandy decided on TFI Friday’s instead. When I tip a waiter I start at 20% and move up or down from there. It has been a long while since I have only left 10% and it was well deserved. Waited 20 minutes even to see any server, and then it was an I’ll be with you in 2 minutes, that turned into 5. As we were getting up to leave he finally came back and was perplexed as to why we were upset. We received our drinks 10 minutes later, our food came back 25 minutes after that. Food was fine expect mine was a burger not chicken sandwich like was ordered. Not willing to wait the extra hour needed to kill and pluck the chicken I made due with the burger. We would have complained but every server or manager was about the age of 18 we sucked it up and left.

Now comes the sad part of our tale. We have numerous trees in our backyard, upwards of 50. We have 7 cherry trees and one of those is around 18” in diameter and taller than our house. We discovered that three of our cherry trees, including the giant one that shades most of the central yard, has brown rot. From what we’ve read there is no saving them. We are going to research more and call in a professional to see what can be done. It would truly be sad to lose such wonderful trees but hopefully they can be saved.

This concludes our Saturday (there was sprinkler repairs and garden upkeep but it’s always better to leave a story on a sad note or cliffhanger. You just got both. Man I’m good). 

Sunday was a fun day. The family headed down to Ruth’s diner to have breakfast with my mother in law’s cousin and her brood in from Ohio. They were in town to travel to Moab and point’s south but were able to meet them and have a wonderful 2hour breakfast with them. Tony I didn’t thank you in person, so thank you again for breakfast. You and Peggy have four great kids. Enjoy Moab.

Insert family picture here. I have pictures of the families but as a general rule I don’t post pictures of other peoples kids on any social media without their permission and I forgot to ask, so here is one of Connor, “Surviving the tornado.”

The rest of the day consisted of me replacing the rear brakes and rotors on Mandy’s vehicle. Small victory here, I only had to run back to the parts store once (they gave me front brakes instead of rear) and the bigger victory: I only made myself bleed once! And it was a small cut. SCORE! After that is was a small bike ride with Alex, baseball practice in the front yard, helping Connor water Mandy’s flower pots out front and Lego pickup( you thought I was going to go a whole blog without mentioning those damn bricks. You were wrong. They even got more Legos from the Ohio cousins at breakfast. AHHHHHHHHHHH). Well, there it is another exciting weekend. I really do hope we can save these trees.

Baseball picture. It's my blog and I'll post one if I want to. 

Pink! Not Pink!

Sports people are very superstitious. From fans that think that wearing their favorite Ute Hoodie will spur them to victory over the “team down south”( and it worked the last four years so Ute nation you’re welcome), to players believing that not washing a favorite pair of socks will help you shoot better on the court. Well, baseball players I think are the worst of the lot. Pitchers that will hop over the baseline to and from the mound; others who will step on the baseline to and from the mound; eating the same meal during a hitting streak; I could go on but you get the point. This superstition starts at a young age. When I was growing up playing soccer, I refused to let my mom wash some shorts while we were on a winning streak; to this day it was those shorts and not the play of my teammates that won us all those games. All of this brings us to the laundry pic this week.

My father came to visit us last week and brought the boys a little gift that my stepmother made for them. It was some fun bath towels that had their respective names sewed on them with some little sports logos. They were fun and the boys were very appreciative of the towels. Well, on Saturday I grabbed a load of towels and Alex’s bed sheets to do a quick load of laundry, mostly so they could use their new towels. I grabbed the laundry, dumped them in the washer and let er rip. All was well under I went to put them in the dryer. Did I mention the towels were red? I did mention that Alex’s baseball pants were white, right?

 

Not actual photo of pants. Could not bring myself to take a picture of my failure. The color is no lie, about the same.

I had forgotten that Alex had put his baseball pants straight in the laundry after his game two nights before. If you remember that Wednesday last week, you’ll remember that it was windy as all get out that evening. Dust was flying everywhere and he pitched that night. When he pitches, he grabs dirt and rubs his hands in it, then brushes off his hands on his pants. He had done what I asked him to do. He took his pants off, threw them in the washer and headed straight up to the shower. When in pulled the pants out of the washer I knew the proverbial storm that would follow. Well so much not a proverbial storm but an actual s*@t storm that came next.

“Pink! Papa I am not wearing pink pants. What am I going to do now? I pitched awesome in those pants last game.” Quotes are spot on and I felt not so good with myself. I know the superstitious nature of ball players and I would expect nothing less of my son. The picture above is not the actual pants but the color was not far off. There was no picture because they immediately went back in the washer, with some strip sheets that were now tan, blue and pink, to wash out the color. Well, four washes later and the pink is gone (whew). He did pitch Monday is some loaner pants (thanks Noah and Melissa) and he pitched well but Alex will tell you he hit two batters because he didn’t have HIS pants. And I believe he’s right.  

Pssst, Not sure if you know this but this is not big Leagues.

Allow me a little rant this morning. For those dads and moms who decide to coach your kids in any sport, please do NOT be THAT parent or THAT coach. Be supportive of your kids, especially when they are 9-10 years old. Do not raise your hands to the heavens every time they don’t swing at a pitch. Do not shake your head or roll your eyes when do swing and miss. Do not turn your back to the field and shake your head when they miss a grounder or fly ball. And for everything holy if your kid, your own child, is crying after the game because you are constantly on him missing balls or overthrowing the pitcher (he was the catcher), you need to stop coaching and stay home from the games. FOREVER. This is little league. This is a rec little league. Not a comp team. This is not the majors or minors or even an automotive league. You are not Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa, or Tommy Lasorda. However, when you act that way you are more like Lou Pinnella (don’t know who he is. Google or YouTube Pinnella temper tantrums you’ll understand). Walking down the third base line to about 10 feet of home plate to distract the pitcher is bush league at best and as a grown man (boy?) you should know better. Constantly berating these boys because you failed as an athlete sometime in your life is not acceptable. I will say this again; THESE ARE BOYS! Not men, not even teenagers playing high school, but BOYS. Most of them are playing there first time in a kid pitch league. What is it about coaches that as soon as the score is being kept, they turn into this? Let the boys enjoy the game. This is a release for most of them. Let them have fun. I know this is a foreign concept in today’s little league but please try to grasp it.

I hope I am not being sanctimonious on this. That is not my intent. I am not perfect either. I am still learning this too. The main point is get to know the boys you are coaching. Different boys respond to different ways of coaching. I have learned in the last three weeks that my own son wants me to shut up while he is pitching or batting. I only tell him words of encouragement but still, he wants me to be quiet. It’s hard for me but I am working on it. I had to learn the hard way to be more encouraging instead of constantly telling him what he did wrong. Focus on the positive and let him know how he can improve, not what he did wrong.

Now last night again I was not perfect. I was muttering under my breath at this other coach and baiting him at times. Instead of letting roll off my back or politely asking him to stop being such a distraction, I sunk to his level. For that I am sorry. Instead of being an example to the boys on how to act, I was part of the problem. This is not sour grapes because we lost. This is not sour grapes because he was constantly distracting my son on the mound. Alex only gave up one hit; walked one, hit two but five of the six outs that happened while he was on the mound were strikeouts. They deserved to win. His kids played hard (because I think they feared the consequences if they didn’t) and were very respectful. They out hit us, out threw us and deserved the win but the boys deserved it, not the coach. Thank you for allowing me this rant. I now return you to your normally scheduled blog.

 

I will have another baseball/laundry story tomorrow to lighten the mood back up.

Tenth Circle of Lego

What a week last week. My father was in town, we golfed, we had baseball, Mandy was working, I was working, baseball practice, we took the boys and hit some golf balls, Dad left, swimming lessons and oh yeah it was Connors birthday this past weekend. Normally, this day is for this site is either Weekend Recap or a Lego of the day segment. We’re going to combine them today.  

I have spoken at length about my love/hate relationship with Lego’s.  They are fun way for our family to spend some time together building. They are the bane of my existence when I find them in every room of the house. I mean every room. It gives the boys hours of enjoyment. They cost so much money for something that stays in one piece for maybe a week but took hours to build. So for his birthday this year, naturally we had a Lego themed birthday party with Connor and six of his closest friends.

So Saturday was wake up, make Connor his birthday breakfast, which is the same as his normal Saturday breakfast, my pancakes (mine are the best) and bacon. Clean the house (why we cleaned before we unleashed 7 7-year olds in the house was beyond me), go to swim lessons. While Mandy picked up pizza and cupcakes for the kids. We got home from swimming and got ready for the party. This is what the counter looked like before the party.

Yes those are faces on cups made to look like Lego heads. Mandy went above and beyond on this one. What you don’t see is the ice in the shape of Lego blocks and figures (it’s hard to get a picture of ice. Well at least small ice).  Did you see the candy Lego bricks on the cupcakes? After the boys arrived, we fed them pizza, root beer, Sprite, Smarties, and then proceeded to the tenth level of hell. Yes, I said ten. When Dante was writing his Inferno, I am pretty sure the Lego Movie had not been made, or else he would have included it. The movie itself is fun, I really enjoy it. Seven seven year olds singing Everything is Awesome for the next two hours, yeesh. Getting them hopped up on soda, candy and popcorn before movie and Everything is Awesome may have been a mistake in retrospect. I kid of course, all the boys were great and there was only one puking incident, so that was a bonus. Not a bonus:

Not pictured is the Minecraft shirt and stuffed animal (ok the Minecraft stuff was fun). Yes this is what my week is going to consist of this week. Baseball and Lego’s.  For those that cannot see very well that is a Monster Fighter set, two Lego Movie sets and a Lone Ranger set. That is 1,620 bricks of fun. And that is just from Saturday. Ok, in the interest of fairness, Connor did do the 122 piece Lego, so it is only 1,498(wow math in my blog. Maybe I have grown up a little bit?).

Now we proceed to Sunday and the combined bday party for Connor and his uncle.

Holy mother, Mary and Joseph we’re adding 587 blocks of terror. For those keeping score that is now 2,085. Plus the two Mixels his Aunt got him, but again Connor stepped up and had those done before we left.

Here is Metalbeard, Castle Lego Movie (it can transform into a Castle hover craft thingy), two Mixels, two Micromanagers, and the extraction chamber. For all my bitching and moaning about how evil Lego’s are, last night made it all worth it. Connor wanted the Silver Mine Shootout set from the Lone Ranger built. I made him deal that if was good and cleaned the living room I would build it while watching the Hawks game (really they lose on the softest damn OT goal I have ever seen).  The building started well, until we opened the box and discovered six bags of bricks and two instruction booklets.  Those Lego pro’s out there know if you see two booklets your night is over.

It was the most fun I have ever had building a set. Connor was awesome. He would skip ahead and have the pieces ready to go. He separated all the bags into the different color piles. Three hours later the job was done. I had to finish the last bag by myself because, well there is still school tomorrow and it was 9 o’clock. We should have just let him stay up another 30 minutes. He kept opening the door to peek out to check the progress. Here is the finished product.

The best part of the whole endeavor, we were two hours into the project when Connor stops dead and says, “Papa, when you are done, Can I give you a giant hug?” Who says Lego’s are evil?

Lego Subs!

This week’s Lego of the Week was an undertaking and by undertaking I mean I didn’t do a damn thing. However, the boys had a great time reworking different Lego’s into their own creations to become MASTER BUILDERS. If you have seen the Lego Movie (yeah right if you have any kids between the ages of 3-33 you have seen the Lego Movie) you know what I mean. Did I mention that Lego Movie is now available on ITunes and your Apple TV? You didn’t know? No worries, if you need to know anything about the movie just ask one of my boys. They will gladly rehash the entire 100 minute film in chilling accuracy for you. I am venting now to you (and to let off steam. Damn Blackhawks pull you s*%t together. I shouldn’t blog and watch hockey at the same time) about Legos because a certain little boy has a Birthday the end of this week and all I will hear about for the next three, maybe four weeks are Legos and which ones he received and which ones he now wants. Sigh. (Speaking of sigh. They need two fonts. One for sighing and they definitely need a sarcasm font. Of course I would only type in the sarcasm font but it would be helpful for text messages and Facebook posts. In fact I came to the realization last week that my sarcasm and dry humor is so advanced that people just think I’m jerk. Sigh. Back to your regularly scheduled blog post.) On to their Lego’s. 

Connors entry this week comes to you courtesy of Lego Atlantis; yes there is a Lego Atlantis, thank you Netflix. We don’t own any sets from the Lego Atlantis series, mostly because we didn’t know they existed until last Thursday, but never less Connor decided we needed a set.

This is his interpretation of a land sub. Land sub? Oxymoron much. 

Stay with me on this one, it will make sense. In the cartoon of Lego Atlantis they all are in submarines that they build from vehicles. One of the subs they build is a sub that crawls on the bottom of the ocean floor, land sub. I had the same reaction I’m sure you all just had when I typed Land Sub but it was explained to me plainly by Connor, “Papa, you know drives on the ocean floor.” Insert eye rolls here. See that is why there are wearing helmets, I mean “air masks,” so they can drive in the ocean on the land floor. 

Yes that is a Stormtrooper helmet. 

This is literally about the tenth reimaging of his Lego. Just when I would take a picture of it to post, he would come and change it. Hence the undertaking I mentioned earlier. Alex’s was a much easier process. 

Alex also stayed with the submarine theme but took a different tact.  He made a Bat Sub, as in Batman sub for you Marvel comic snobs. (I know marvel is bigger but Batman is better. Suck it Wolverine. Yes I still will see the new X-men movie. Looks epic.) Alex took this:

I had to find a picture online because as you know, the sets never stay in their intended state for long!  

And transformed it into this:

Batsub! (patent pending) 

I am always amazed at how they can think of this stuff. Connor’s randomness is fun but Alex’s attention to detail to use all the parts, no extras from other sets, from one vehicle and morph them into another is awesome in my eyes. I was never that good with Legos. I build an awesome tower or staircase but that is the extent of my abilities. He did this in about ten minutes. It would have taken me ten hours just to come up with a schematic to begin to build. I know it doesn’t look like much but they are my boys and I’ll brag about them as I see fit.

 

Really the new X-men looks AWESOME!