Friday I picked her up again around 4pm and she wanted to play with some Connection friends outside. So I hung out there with her and we ended up leaving around 5:30. She then went to Madison’s birthday party and had fun at All Star Pizza and Sportsplex.

She wanted Destiny to stay the night, but since we had another early game, I said no. She came home and we got settled down and I had her do her homework and read her take-home readers to me. She started getting sleepy as we watched a movie on my bed and then she went in to her room and fell asleep.

Saturday, we woke up and got ready for the game. I had bought her some new under armor (generic) gear that was on sale at Academy that she was excited to put on. Got her black leg tights and the long-sleeve shirt. We had a decent game but all the girls looked slow for some reason. They may be getting tired of these early morning games. Half our games this year started at 8:30 and this was the second of our final three that do. Next weekend is the last game of the fall season.

[insert 123 heartbreakers video]

After the game Emmi wanted Trinity to go to a McDonalds magic show with her. It started at 1:00. I told her parents that was fine and Emmi ended up coming back to our house. We chilled out for a bit and they changed clothes. I offered to take them to a park or something and they wanted to go to Shy Pond park to play some. So we stayed there for 45 minutes or such and then headed to the new (playground-less) McDonalds by Brazos Mall.

[insert park tree photo]

When we got to McDonalds, Emmi’s mom was there with her younger daughter so the girls grabbed a spot on the carpet and I went inside to get them a bite to eat. When I came back out, the magic show was about to begin. Right off the bat, I got called out by Ronald for not cheering loud enough. LOL Ronald did a few tricks with a volunteer and then he asked for another. I had a feeling he might call on Trinity because he kept looking at her. Sure enough, he did. She was so shy and tentative – but I somewhat expected it. She helped him do a few magic tricks and got a little stuff Hamburgerler doll for her help. It was fun. After the show they had drawings for some prizes. One of the kids from Tyler’s/Jessica U6 team (the Geckos), Eric Drake, won the grand prize which was a Wii Sports Edition. Pretty cool! I thought Ronald was trying to say Emmi Drabek, as it sounds very similar, at first as he was trying to read the name – and I got excited. Here is some video when Trin was helping him. I stopped the video for a second so I could get a quick picture, then start it back up again.

[insert 2pt video and shoe picture]

After McDonalds we had another birthday party to go to. This one was Darla’s (her friend Destiny’s sister), and it was a swimming party at the Angleton Rec Center. So we hung out there from 2pm until 6pm and the kids swam and I shot a few hoops and watched the Alabama and LSU game in the exercise room. After the cake and presents, Destiny wanted to come spend the night with Trin and Emmi, so she asked her parents and they said it was ok.

We came back home and got some food to eat. I asked them what they wanted to do (that was fairly cheap) and they said go back swimming. So we headed back and this time I swam with them. We were just about the only ones in the pool so that was nice. We stay almost until they closed at 9:30 and went back. I decided to let them all sleep in my bed and they crashed out rather quickly while watching a movie. I stayed up on the computer and bit then went and slept on the couch – which wasn’t a very restful night, but oh well right.

I had asked them that night if they wanted to go to church in the morning if we woke up and got ready on time. They all said yes. So Sunday I woke up and cooked a bunch of pancakes and we all got ready in time to make it to the 11:00 service.

[insert 2 pictures of girls dressed up]

After church, I made a comment about – we need to go do something with y’all all dressed up, so I checked my phone and we ended up making it to the movies. They were torn between Where the Wild Things Are and the new A Christmas Carol. I said, let’s wait closer to Christmas to watch that one and check out Wild Things.

It was an OK movie. As usual, Trinity fell asleep about halfway through, but the other two made it fine. The theater was cold so they were a bit whiny.

After the movie, we went back home and changed clothes and then I took Destiny home. Emmi’s dad called and said he was coming back from Houston and that he would meet us to pick her up. I told him we were about to get something to eat and that we’d be at CiCi’s pizza.

Trin and I went back home and just hung out for a bit. She was acting crazy and eventually I got her settled down and to sleep. I stayed up for a bit and eventually crashed out myself as well.

[insert video of crazy trin bouncing around on bed]

Wow, so much info in this post… I need to try and do a better job like this of blogging right after the weekend so I don’t miss any detail, like previous posts.

Need to rewind my brain and back-blog and add pics.

Background:

Co-parenting… how to deal with the situation when one parent wants their child to at least try all sports and other activities and the other parent doesn’t agree – or simply just does not care.  I’m not sure which is the case to be honest.

It all started when I sent Trinity’s mom an email asking if she could meet me at the church either Monday or Tuesday so we could get Trinity registered for Upwards basketball.  This wouldn’t take more than 15-30 minutes.  She replied back saying they would not be able to make it as they had plans on Monday and Tuesday was soccer practice.  That was fine, I suppose – but she knew about it in advance, and we could have got her registered Tuesday before soccer practice even started – but whatever.  We had previously talked about the basketball and cheer leading combination – and Christina did not want her to try cheer and when I asked her why, her response was “I don’t like those type of people.”  I said, OK – that makes no sense but whatever.

So in this email, I said I’m fine with the no cheer if it’s that much of a problem for you.  I think it’s the wrong decision, but I don’t feel like arguing with you.

Within her response was also a request to make sure that I take Trinity to rehearsals on Sundays because she is going to be in a church play.  Naturally, this pissed me off and replied with comments along the lines of, you cant carve 15 minutes out of your schedule on a random day and you want me to give up a hour or more of my Sunday’s with her?

Fast forward to Tuesday.  I had a feeling she was going to try and “get back” at me for my comments – which she did.  She did not bring Trinity to practice on Tuesday.  Of course I do not know if something came up or she got sick, but I have my doubts about that.

I contacted the Upwards group and they said I could bring her in on Thursday with the older kids and get her signed up. So that is what I was going to do this afternoon when I picked her up.  But, her mom just sent me a text and said she picked her up from school with an upset stomach, so depending on how she feels – we may not be able to make it.

I don’t think this is fair to Trinity, personally, but everyone is different.  Am I in the wrong here for thinking that all kids should try as many sports and other activities as possible so they can figure out which ones (if any) they like and want to continue on with?  If they try and don’t like it, that is fine – but at least they (and the parents) can look back and said we gave it a shot.

Sometimes Trinity tells her mom she does or does not want to do something… then tells me the opposite – so it makes it hard at times.  For example she should be playing softball right now, but she told her mom she didn’t want to, and at the time I didn’t have a copy of her birth certificate… of course now she asks me why she is not.  Soccer is another one I had to push because Christina did not want anything to do with her playing or getting her registered or something.  It’s almost like she doesn’t want the extra responsibilities to interfere with her personal schedule.  That sounds a lot like one of the main reasons we ended up divorced.  In any case, she is playing now and loves it… all while making new friends.  Finally, gymnastics.  Trinity would love to be in this, but again her mom just keeps saying yah, I will put her in it later.  I guess this is something else I am going to have to try and figure out how to do on my Thursdays during the week.  Like basketball, I have to get her registered and playing on a team (or practicing or whatever) on Thursdays just so I can make sure she makes it to these events.

So if Christina does not have a problem getting her to events she wants her to be in (like the church thing), then why is it so hard for her to get her to activities that Trinity wants to participate in?  I know all of this will catch up with her in the end if she keeps it up… but by then it will be too late for Trin to experience all the fun things she could be as a youth/child.

So what is the solution?  What should I do?   I personally do not know (other than accept it for what it is and hope for the best) and can only hope it gets better at some point in the not-to-distant future.

Even though no one will probably read this, I feel better now.

Phew… I’ll go crawl back into my hole now.

I love you Trin and will see you in a couple hours… hope you are feeling better.

This past weekend was another awesome one in which I had my girl.  It all started Thursday:

Thursday (10/15)

I picked Trinity up from school and we went back to the house.  I asked her what she wanted to do and we ultimately decided we would go swimming at the Angleton Rec Center.  We also “convinced” Jessica that the other Trin did not need to go to soccer practice which ultimately led to her other two kids coming along as well.

Angleton Rec Center Pool

Angleton Rec Center Pool

We had a great time at the pool, again. The kids love it when I chase them around the pool and mainly in the “lazy river” playing a game of sharks and minnows. I had left work a bit early so we got there around 4:30 and stayed until 8:45 when it closed and came back home. Everyone was dead tired so we got showers and settled down. I had Trin read me her book from school so I could sign off on it and she was out shortly after that.

Friday (10/16)

I took Trin to school in the morning. As usual we stopped and got kolaches from Shipley’s on the way in. I told her I loved her and to have a good day, then dropped her off.

The day before she was asking if her friend Destiny could come over and go to the pool and spend the night. I said not on a school night, but it would probably be ok if she wanted to Friday night because our team was playing their team and it was a later start time at 12:00… and we could take her to the fair Friday night if they wanted to go, so she said she would talk to her about it at school.

pumpkin patch
castle park
Go to the fair.
Destiny stays the night.

Saturday (10/16)

Get ready for soccer, blue hair paint
Game against express
Go to the park in brazoria (birthday crashers)
destiny’s sister comes over to stay with madison
Go back to angleton rec pool

Sunday (10/17)

more household experimenting with the chick-fil-a toys
everyone goes to the brazos river county park (birthday crashers)
come home, shower, do reading and get to sleep

One of the coaches I know followed up the email with a reply saying he is on-board with the idea and then the President of the Association also thought it was a good idea to start thinking about.

The coach (Steven Cook, who I assisted when Chanley was younger) on the Board gave me a call and said it might be a good idea if I were to put a small presentation together to present at the next board meeting on November 3. I said, sure – so I have been slowly working on that.

My plans, as outlined in my volunteer solicitation is to get a real domain name and hosting (and get rid of EZTeams or whatever it is) and then use a open-source Content Management System like Joomla, Drupal, or maybe even WordPress. Then also create Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites that will tie into the main site.

It’s progressing slowly and my goal is to get as much of it in place as possible by November 3 so I can have a few PPT slides that show, this is what I’ve done, here is where you can see it, look forward to your feedback at the next board meeting… and that I will be happy to answer any questions via email and will continue to work on getting it to a final product.

In my solicitation letter, I mentioned ideally we could get this developed, or close, by the end of the year and have it ready to give live around the first of 2010 in time for spring ball… which I hope Trinity will be playing. If her mom doesn’t get her registered, then I am going to and no wait around like I did for this fall.

I’ll check back in after I get more complete and meet with the board. It should be fun. I’ve always wanted to do some volunteer web work for local Lake Jackson organizations…. and I am hoping to do the same for the Soccer association. They are in better shape than softball, but they could use a major update as well.

It might be fun to be the “webmaster” for a few years of both while Trinity is involved with the sports.

It’s like they dont really care.  I cant blame her and Jason for wanting him to be involved in her life, but there is a time and place.  They have all the days that I am not around Trin to be together – this afternoon was the second time now for a school function where I’ve had to put my emotions in check.  The first being Meet the Teacher day where I showed up at the same time they were there.

Is it wrong for me to ask why he is coming to those events?  I asked Christina and she said Trin wanted him to.  That is fine, but we can’t always do everything our kids want.  I know that is a fine line to walk.

What really crushed my heart is when I was walking with Trin to her classroom and she looked back at her mom and Jason then looked at me and asked “why are you here”.  I just sucked it up and said because I love you.  And the open house is for parents to come and see what you’re doing right.  And she said yes.  It’s so awkward and I feel so bad for her.

He is a good guy, but I just think he needs to understand appropriate timinig.  I have always went to school events with Trin and Chan over the years and even let Christina know that I am still coming – yet it doesnt seem to matter.  When Craig was around Chanley, I would always respect that and give them their space.  I didnt feel it was right to be interferring with another dad and his daughter.  We had our time together when he wasnt around I let them do their thing when he was around.  What is going on now with Jason, seems to be the opposite.  I actually got rude with Christina one time and said if he wants to be a dad, then just get pregnant.  It was a mean thing to say, but honestly – why try to step in and fill the shoes of a loving father that is always around for his child?  That just makes things so much harder on the kid.

It’s funny, I used to be the one to take them to these events, ice cream socials and stuff… now it seems like maybe she is still in “impress-mode” with Jason and being great mom.  Guess time will only tell eventually if she stays that way.  I hope so, for the kid’s sake.

Guess that is enough whining for the day, suck it up and be a man right?

…..

When I arrived I went and talked to the teacher about Trin and how she was doing.  She asked me to sign in and noticed that her mom and them had already been here.  After talking to the teacher for a bit and looking at Trin’s work, I walked down to the library to check out the book fair.  I saw them standing at the table and Jason buying a book for Trin.  I almost walked off then, but decided to just stand behind them until they finished.
Trin turned around and saw me and came over.  I went down on one knee and gave her a big hug and talked about her new book.  She then wanted to show me her pictures and stuff so I walked with her back to her room.  We were looking at things and then she walked back over to her mom.  I told her good bye and that I love her and would see her tomorrow at soccer practice.

I walked back down to the book fair, but my emotions were already out of whack so I just sort of zombied around.  Was going to get her a Spongebob book, but decided to put it back and then left.

Man this stuff is hard.  I hope one day things will be better.  I’m trying to overcome these emotions and become better friends with Jason and Christina as I think that would make things easier on me and Trin, but it’s just so hard to do knowing that he is one of the main reasons I lost my daughter/family in the first place.  I know it takes two, but if you’re single why even mess around with someone’s family.  There are plenty of other single fish in the sea.

Wow, I’m back whining again.  Better end it.

A.P. Beutel

I picked up Trin on Thursday and we went to the house and got a bite to eat.  She was in rare form and of course I was loving every minute of it.  Being wild, silly, fun, sweet, cute, etc.  After we had a little snack we got ready and went to soccer practice.

Soccer practice was good and we got the girls back to some of the basics.  I had them doing some battleship drills to practice passing and shooting accuracy.  At the end of practice I asked them what they wanted to do since it was getting a bit late for a scrimmage, they said play freeze tag.  So we did.  I took them to the middle of the field and said they couldn’t go outside the mid-field circle.  So they played freeze tag for a bit and burned off some energy.  I started with one “it” then progressed up to 3 to make it a bit more challenging and work on their body movements and cutting/change of direction skills.  I think chopped the playing area in half and told them they would have to stay inside half of the circle to make it bit more challenging.

One of the main things you can do as a coach is to make sure that your team has the most fun at the end of practice so that they are anxious and ready to come back for more.  So many coaches in the past have made the mistake of running kids or whatever at the end of practice where they are dragging ass and have the mindset of, man screw this… then when it’s time for the next practice all they have is the running in their head.  If you want to build stamina then it’s best to do it at the start and middle or just incorporate more running into the drills.

After practice we headed to Wal-Mart to get some snack for Saturday’s game.  I was bringing them this week so we ended up getting some Gatorade, Water, Oranges, Fruit Roll Ups, Fruit Stickers, and Cheeze Cracker things.

We then went home and had another snack, did some reading and watching TV in my room and then she fell asleep.  We woke up the next morning and I took her to get her favorite breakfast, kolaches, from Shipley’s on the way to school.  I walked her up to the building and told her good bye.  I then went into the office and picked up a packet of information the teacher had put together for me.  I had talked with her teacher via email and let her know the situation about how I miss out on a lot of things since her mom doesn’t really keep me informed or involved – so she said she would try to get me the important handouts and stuff from class.  Which I appreciate.  I also mentioned I would follow up with her on days the “GoFolders” go home, Monday, and ask if anything important for that week was included.  We’ll see how it goes, so far, so good.

When I picked her up Friday, I had plans of taking her swimming.  She had an early game and I figured a few hours of swimming would wear her down and get her to sleep early.  We ended up going with Jessica and her kids to the Angleton Rec Center and stayed from 6:30 until 9:30 and had a great time.  I was probably more tired than the kids as I was swimming after them and playing with them almost the whole time.

Saturday morning I woke up and started to get things ready.  I then woke Trin up and asked her if she wanted to help me with the oranges and get the snacks ready, which she did.  She washed them, I cut them, and she put the slices into baggies.  We got the rest of the stuff ready, grabbed a bag of ice from Buc-ees and headed to the field.

I sort of knew what was coming as I spoke to the coach we last played and he was talking about one particular girl on this team from Angleton that was silly good and should actually be playing up a level.  Sure enough, this girl scored all of their points and they were playing with a goalie (oh, I mean “sweeper”) so again our girls struggled to get it past them and into the goal.  I think there is going to be a coaches meeting to talk about this because really at this age, we are not supposed to have players guarding the goal like that.  Some of the parents were getting a bit upset, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.

At halftime we broke-out the orange slices and water.  This was the end result.

{INSERT ORANGE SMILE PHOTOS}

The second half was about the same with the one girl scoring all the points.  She was twice as fast and twice the skills.  Not sure why her parents weren’t playing her up a division – but none of my business really.  I felt bad for the other girls on their team as they hardly got a chance to touch the ball when she was in the game.

After the game, Trin and I gave out the Gatorade and other snacks.

We had some light plans for Saturday but when she came over and asked if she could go with her new friend (the other coaches daughter) to a beach house they were staying at and spend the night, I had to put my personal feelings aside and say YES since I know that is really what she wanted to do.  I said, if you want to stay the night, I get to come out later and visit with you.  Of course that was fine.  The coaches wife’s boss had rented out a beachhouse on Surfside for the weekend, so I knew she would have a lot of fun.

Later that afternoon, I went out to visit with her and say hello.  We played some volleyball, went out to the water and just hung out for a hour or so.

{INSERT BEACH PHOTOS}

I told her to be good, gave her a hug and I love you and then left.

Sunday, I picked her up and we went fishing at the beach with some friends.  We got out there a bit late, but some rain had just passed so the water was very calm.  We got into a mess of sand trout and probably caught 30 or so of them ranging in size from 10 to 20 inches.  We also caught a few other random things like:

{INSERT FISHING PHOTOS}

We had a great time and stayed until just about dark.  One of her friends (the other Trinity) got stuck by a hard head and was in pain.  I know this hurts after getting stuck with one while I was younger.  I felt bad as I should have warned them to be careful, but I guess I assumed they already knew.  She knows now.  Ouch!

We get back home and I have her get in the shower.  She wanted a small snack before bed so I made her some macaroni and cheese and sat with my arm around her and watched some TV as we unwound.

A great end to a fun weekend.  It’s getting late, I’m tired, and feel some carpel tunnel coming on – so I’ll end here.

I knew the second I read the Tweet I would be whining even more to get my grubby paws on the phones flashy hawt new cousin.

Here is the link. http://theappleblog.com/2009/06/26/iphone-3gs-puts-youtube-mobile-uploads-through-the-roof/

It basically says that since the launch of the new iPhone, YouTube has seen a 400% spike in video uploads.

iPhone 3GS

I am sooooo craving the video camera hardware, but unfortunately I messaged AT&T at a number they provided to see if I was eligible for their phone updrage special pricing.  Got a message back saying I was NOT until January of 2010.

I am honestly not sure I will make it that long.

The one silver lining I am holding on to is that reports say that the camcorder hardware can capture video at 720p but Apple does not have it “turned-on”.  Hopefully when the new year rolls around this will become a reality and I can upgrade.

Most likely at that is when I will have to move this blog from the WordPress servers and onto my own domain becuase instead of all the lightweight pictures I’ve been posting, I will be posting fun short video clips of the adventures of Trin and I.

Wish me luck as I battle my upgradeitis.

This is a really cool video that was posted to the above Apple blog entry.  It basically shows the 3GS getting dropped into a swimming pool.  The dude fishes it out, and turns it back on… wild!  Need to follow up to see if it’s STILL working.

I think the reason is because last weekend we went to Dallas for Kaitlyn’s graduation and went to a pool in Keller near their home.  They had a smaller, slower slide similar to the Rec Center’s that Trinity went down and had a blast.  Of course, over and over and over again.

So on the way home she kept talking about she was ready to go down the “purple” slide.  We got home last Sunday and she backed out…. we decided to go to the outdoor poor that has a small tunnel slide.

I picked her tonight for a few hours.  We had some quick dinner and watched… what else, Monsters Inc. for 30 minutes or so.  After that we decided to go for a quick swim at 7:45.

When we got there I told her I was not getting in the water unless we went down the slide.  She said no a few times but then finally she said OK.  We walked up to the top and I sat down first and pulled her over.  She was a bit hesitant again, but it was too late.  We were going this time.

And of course she loved it, as I expected.  So for the remainder of the hour… over and over and over and over again.

I am so proud of you love.

She didn’t want to leave but she is coming back over tomorrow and I said we could go again.   She is about 3 inches to short to full stand in that depth but not much longer and I wont have to be at the bottom to help her.

Her swimming skills are getting better, but she is still not getting up on top of the water.  Her form is improving – but it’s still mostly just treading water inching forward. LOL

That will be our next goal… better swimming and more practice doing things without always holding her nose.  I hope I can get her into swim lessons soon.  She loves swimming so much I think she may really enjoy it and hopefully end up getting really good and on some swim teams.
I just hope her mom will work with me to make it work out and not give me grief about it.  Ugh, that’s a whole ‘nother story I’d rather not get in to.

I don’t have any photos of you at the Rec Center Slide, but here is one at the park in front of the pool with the smaller slide I mentioned above.

I love you and I am so proud of you tonight!

Trin at the Water/park in Keller, TX by Cennamo's House