Memorial Day Weekend!

Got a nice surprise this last Memorial Day Weekend, and got to have Griff from Sunday to Tuesday. We had a blast as always. The weather was awesome, we played football, Frisbee, Croquet, went hiking, the whole 9-yards! Here are some pics:


Big Griff looking ready for summer!

Griff and Blakers!!!

Griff on a bridge on the South Fork Trail (made me wish I had my bike!!!)

A couple pics of the two good-looking guys together!


Blakers and Aunt Amy. Blakers was a hiking maniac!

Griff and Jax skipping rocks with Paul.

Jax getting ready to hike! With Amy and Andrea bringing up the rear.

Griff, Paul, Blakers, Kaja and Dave heading to the trail.

Griff up skateboarding at Gramps' place with Kamas.

G-n-Q

Griff loves hanging out with all his cousins. I think the two that love to hang out with him the most are Quincy and Jaxon, which is so funny! Just a side note, I'm really happy Griff gets to play with his cousins so much, I think it's something I missed out on growing up. So, I'm glad all us kids are close enough that we want our kids playing together, I think it's really cool watching them all grow up together!

Anyway, the other night, Quincy was copying EVERYTHING Griffin did, it was so funny. Here are a couple of pictures:
Q had to drink when Griff was drinking, sit just like him, and she even tried to go play baseball with the big boys when Griff was practicing with his team...she is so dang cute! Then when she couldn't play with Griff she went over to terrorize some little blonde kid on the big toy. Not sure why she was so attracted to him, but she'd gravitate to his mom too. Sean thinks it's because she was skinny with long brown hair like Stacy. Hahahahaha.

This was dinner time. Q would watch intently to see what Griff would do and then do and say exactly the same thing. Griff would say he did something at school and Q would say she did the same thing. Griff would sit in a catcher's squat while he was eating and so would Q. It was pure comedy.

We really like hanging out with Sean, Stacy, Q and W - thanks guys!!!

Grand Slam update

Griff got his Grand Slam last night at his game!!! The hit wasn't as good as the other day, BUT it was deep and this time he actually hustled! I think the official scoring might include an E7, but everyone came around and scored this time. Pretty fun, he loved it.

Big Griff had his second coach-pitch game today as a member of the Angels! This should be a good season for Griff. He has a coach that (other than what you'll read in a minute) is really teaching the boys some good things and it's already showing. The boys hit and fielded really well today. And all I can say is Griff may have found his sport! Here are the pics:

Griff in his catcher's mask. I think he mostly just liked looking like a Star Wars character, but he did well behind the plate!

There he is in action, not a bad catcher's squat. He even got after the opposing coach for pitching too fast, so Griff couldn't gather all the baseballs fast enough, pretty funny.

This is a second before he DRILLED a deep shot to left field with bases loaded!!!! The bases cleared but his coach held him at 3rd for some dumb reason and cost him the grand slam! I loudly told the coach not to hold him, but apparently we're playing new-age wuss baseball where we show compassion for the other team (another dad told me to show some compassion, I just laughed to myself and let it go.) Regardless, it was an AWESOME hit by Griff, I'm so proud of all the good things that kid is doing! :-)

That is a big 7-year old! Hope he likes football too! He does tend to tackle people on the soccer field, so maybe that's a sign. :-D

Oh, we did go out shopping on Thursday when he came over and we got me a matching Angels hat so I can rep the team. B-)

Amy's mission companion - Melanie Hanna - invited all the kids over for horseback riding. Kaja was the only one who got to ride the horse alone, because the big boys spooked the horse (he's not used to big people apparently) and he didn't want anyone riding him. Jaxon did get to ride with Mel for a little bit and Kaja went a 2nd time with Mel as well. Here are a few pics (blow them up, they're pretty good) from our outing to Mapleton - Thanks Mel!

Princess Pey Pey :-D

Blakers and Peyton

Griff, Ryder and Jaxon

Jaxonian

Miss Q

Miss Kaja - I like this pic, it actually kind of looks like she's riding him on her own

Big Griff in his clothes that he has ALREADY grown out of, with his new haircut, courtesy of moi!

After hanging out in Mapleton, we went over to Paul and Andrea's for pizza and garlic bread, it was a really fun time with the fam!

Soccer Season!

The EPL is winding down, looks like ManU will take second, not too bad I guess but a bit of a let down after 3 straight championship years. RSL has started up and has looked OK. I think we expect more after a championship year, but really they had a crap season up til the end and pulled it out, sooooo, let's just hope for a better season and a similar ending. And finally Griff has started his soccer season! The other day in practice, the kids chose the name Red Devils all on their own, I was so stoked! (That's the ManU team name, for those that don't know). However, in the days since practice, it changed to The Rockets - lame. I'm guessing some uptight mom made them change the name, so no more Red Devils. At least their Uni's are still red.

Griff played Goalie and Defense last night to great success and the Rockets won 1-0. A teammate of Griff's should have had like 4 other goals, I've never seen someone so unlucky! He hit the post, scooted two just past the uprights and had the opposing goalie make a phenomenal stop on one (seriously, I even cheered for the stop, it was unreal for a 7-8 year old.)

Here are the pics, I can't wait to see the team pics, there is one other kid who might be as tall as Griff, but no one else is as big overall, he looks like he's 10 :-D

Clash of the Titans

I remember seeing this film when i was pretty young, maybe 10 or so? And I think the original, despite it's lack of technology may have been better than this modern version. I'm sometimes amazed at the quality of actor that these low-budget (well, I'm not sure that's the right term, as I'm sure this film cost a fortune to make) B-movies can pull. I mean the producers must be shelling out a fortune to get the likes of Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes to play these hokey parts, right?

This story is LOOSELY based on the story of Perseus, demigod son of Zeus, but they don't even really stick to the accepted origins of his life. So, we suspend all belief in the movies anyway right, I mean the Kraken? Really? Looked like Alien and the 20,000 leagues under the sea squid had a kid - ridiculous. Soooo, I just went into this hoping for some cool effects and maybe a cool fight scene or two and to hang out with some friends. Didn't even get that - well, I guess the scorpions were kinda cool (and the friends part happened, so PHEW!) Medusa was 100% CGI and not well done - kind of Sci-Fi channel-ish, I mentioned the Kraken, Fiennes as Hades was nowhere near as good as James Woods in Disney's Hercules (yep, I just compared this "real life" Hades to a cartoon version and the cartoon won.) And Sam Worthington who played Perseus was just the main character in Avatar, so I couldn't stop thinking about that and expecting him to turn blue, or grow a tail that would meld with the flying Pegasus, or SOMETHING. I can't say TOO much more or I give away the whole story, but even the comic relief was SO weak and way too thin to almost even notice. Oh, and the fact that Muse isn't included in the soundtrack detracts from the films potential epicness. The Muse concert the other night was more epic than this "epic"film. bah.

I left just praying that someone like Jerry Bruckheimer redoes "Jason and the Argonauts", which I always felt was the superior movie anyway. And lo and behold: 2012 - "Jason and the Argonauts: The Kingdom of Hades". Apparently, Hades is SO HOT right now. IMDB doesn't say who the producer or director is, so let's hope for the best.

Save your money, wait for RedBox. Maybe 2.5 out of 5.