Entry 596: Yogi Berra

Last night Lance heard that New York Yankees great Yogi Berra passed away and it reminded him of a story that his Grandmother told him about Yogi Berra.  This is by far one of our favorite Grandma Dorothy stories.

Lance's uncle, John, was a huge Yankees fan back in the day.  Lance's grandfather decided to take them to see a Yankees series (you'll have to forgive Lance because he doesn't remember where the series was at, but it was an away series) and somehow or another they were able to get a room on the same floor that the Yankees were staying.  This was great for Uncle John because he was able to collect almost all of their autographs on a ball, but the one he was missing was Yogi Berra.  Apparently Yogi stayed in his room most of the trip and when he did come out it was late at night, so getting his autograph was difficult.

One day they got lucky though because Lance's grandmother and uncle saw Yogi getting onto the elevator, so they rushed real quick and got onto the elevator with him.  Lance's uncle went up to Yogi and asked him for an autograph and he said no which devastated him.  What Yogi did next is what caused Lance's grandmother to lose it and start yelling at Yogi:  he turned to a couple of good looking women in the elevator and flirt with them and signing autographs on whatever they gave him.  Lance's grandma didn't react real well to this and proceeded to start yelling at Yogi and telling him what a bad role model he was and how he should be ashamed of himself (now remember this is what Lance's grandma told him, so the words may have been a little stronger).

When the elevator finally got to the bottom floor, Yogi stepped out and looked at Lance's grandmother and told her to give him the damn ball to sign.  They gave him the ball and afterwards he looked at Lance's grandmother and asked her if there was anything else she wanted him to sign so she would shut up.  My grandmother told him no, thanked him, and walked away.  This is by far one of our favorite grandma stories.

Now this story has never been verified by anybody, but Lance's grandmother is quite spunky so it wouldn't be surprising if it was true.

Entry 595: Now We're Smoking

Lance loves to grill and has been wanting to buy a smoker for quite some time.  Lance had been doing some research and decided that he wanted a charcoal/wood smoker because it had a better flavor.  Granted an electric smoker would be easier, but the taste just isn't the same.  Saturday as we were walking through Lowe's, there it was a smoker that met all of Lance's criteria and was on sale.  Julie allowed Lance to pull the trigger and thus we are now the proud owners of a smoker.

Naturally we had to give the smoker a trial run, so on Sunday we prepped a pork butt and proceeded to smoke it.  Three and a half hours later we were able to eat the fruits of Lance's labor and it was great.

Entry 594: Postseason

Anyone that knows us, knows that we are huge, huge Kansas City Royals fans.  Last year we decided that we didn't want to purchase postseason tickets because of the price.  This year we thought long and hard about it and decided that we would purchase post season tickets, but split them with another couple that we know.  So basically we would go to the first game and they would go to the next.  Why did we decide to do this you ask?  Very simple, this is the last season that we are going to do season tickets to the Royals.  It has been fun, but we just don't have the time anymore.  So the playoffs will be our last hurrah at the stadium.

Entry 593: Babysitting Duty

     Last weekend we has the pleasure of babysitting Julie's niece and nephew while their parents went out on a date night.  It's been a long time since we did the babysitting thing, so we sat down and planned out some activities for the kids to do.  We went to the Dollar Tree before hand and bought some stickers, coloring books, markers, and poster board.  We also decided that for dinner we would do what Lance's mom used to do and that was have a make your own pizza night.  We bought some English muffins to cut in half and all the ingredients for the kids to make their own pizzas.  We had a great time watching the kids and as you can see it ended with Julie's niece curled up with Julie getting ready to go to sleep.  

Entry 592: Weeknight Date

Last night we decided to mix it up a little bit and go catch a movie.  Lance recently received an email that said since we are AMC Stub card holders that every Tuesday we can go and see a movie for half price.  Yesterday being the hottest day all year we decided to take advantage of this.  Lance picked Julie up and we went and grabbed an early dinner at Dickey's BBQ and then went to see Paper Towns.  Julie had been wanting to see this movie for awhile and Lance was just kind of lukewarm on the idea if seeing it.  Julie won out and in the end we both decided that it was a good movie up until the end where it was just confusing.  In the end we both decided that we were glad that we didn't have to pay full price to see it.

Entry 591: Me, My Mom, And The Royals

Lance's mom passed away from brain cancer a little over four years ago and every day there are little things that Lance will see that bring back memories of his mom and remind him of what a great woman she was.  Today was one of those days.

The year was 2003.  For the past year Lance had to have a heart operation to repair a leaky aortic valve.  It was a difficult year because he was also told that he had a genetic disorder and that if they did the operation there was a greater than 50/50 chance that he would die on the operating table.  He was also told that he would not live to be 35 and that he would be in a wheelchair within the next 3 years, but that he still had to have the operation.  Lance went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and his life completely changed.  He discovered that the genetic disorder he was diagnosed with what incorrect and that they were extremely confident that they could perform the operation successfully.

Well the operation was a success, but unfortunately Lance really couldn't do anything for a month (driving, lifting anything over 10 pounds, and walking for long periods of time uphill).  It was decided that Lance's mom would move in with him for a month to help take care of him.  They eventually fell into a routine of walking, going to see a movie, and watching the Kansas City Royals.  The Royals had been terrible for many, many years but in that year that were making a run at the playoffs.  Lance remembers many nights where he and his mom would sit and yell at the TV and celebrate the wins together.

One of his greatest memories of his mom was when she decided to get him a birthday present and bought him and his friends tickets to the Royals/Cardinals game.  Now Lance's mom had no idea where the seats were and when we got there we showed the usher our tickets and he pointed all the way up to the top.  They were cracking up because Lance wasn't supposed to walk long distances uphill and lo and behold our seats were 4 rows from the very top (we counted a little over 80 steps to get to our seats) and it was extremely hot that day.  What made it even a little funnier was that one of the friends they brought was pregnant.  We made it through the game and it is a memory that Lance will always fondly remember.

Now lets fast forward to today.  We were doing our normal thing of going to get our free drink coupon when we walked by a table for the Head for the Cure Foundation.  This is a group that is close to our heart because of what Lance's mom went through, so Lance stopped and talked to them for awhile.  Lance noticed the shirt that you saw up above and it made him cry a little bit because it reminded him of that summer of 2003 where it was just him, his mom, and the Royals.

Entry 590: Southpaw

Lance found a website (Gofobo) that lets you screen movies at the theaters before they are released.  We have seen a few so far (Maze Runner and Age of Adeline to name a few), but we were lucky enough to get passes to go and see Southpaw last night.  We were both very excited to see the movie because the preview of it looked really good, good enough for us to give up our Royals tickets.  We were not disappointed at all.  We went in thinking that the movie was only going to be about boxing, but we were wrong because it honestly was only about 10% about boxing.  It was an amazing story of a man having everything taken away from him and having the choice to either give up or pick himself back up and try to get his life back together.  It was really an emotional story honestly had you rooting for the main character.  The ending was really good because usually with these boxing movies you know how it is going to end, but with this movie it continually kept you guessing about the ending.  Amazing movie that we both highly recommend.

Entry 589: New Passion

Many of you who know us, know that we love baseball and especially the Royals.  Every summer we try to take a trip to go to a different ballpark until we see them all.  We still plan on doing this, but we have kind of changed our passion and plan on taking trips overseas now.  Julie has always wanted to go and visit Ireland and Lance has always wanted to go and visit Italy.  After much discussion (honestly we flipped a coin), we decided that we are going to go to Ireland next summer.  So we have postponed any baseball trips this summer and have decided to go to Ireland next summer for 10 days.  We are going through the travel company Globus and they are taking care of everything.  They take care of the accommodations, meals, airline travel, transportation to all of the different cities, and getting us into all the different places.  Want to see what we'll be doing, click here and then click on the itinerary tab.  Let's just day that we are both pretty excited.

Entry 588: Vegetable Garden

Ever since we have been married, Lance has been begging Julie to let him put in a vegetable garden.  Julie always resisted saying it would be too much work, but this year she relented and we put one in the backyard.  The biggest concern that we had was making sure that the dogs stay out of it, so Lance put a fence around it to keep the monsters out of it.  We decided to plant some zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, and green beans.  We both had our doubts about if we would get anything, but this past weekend we had our first "harvest".  We ended up getting quite a few beans, some cucumbers, and a huge zucchini.  More vegetables are coming in each day, so we should be good to go with our vegetables.

Entry 587: Royals Fan Fest Day One

Today was one of our favorite days of the year:  Royals Fan Fest.  We go every year and we have a great time every year (some more than others though).  This year was different thought since the Royals were in the World Series, so we were super pumped.  Enjoy the pictures and descriptions.

This is a very rare occurrence when you see the Royals owner, David Glass.  He was probably the most hated man in Kansas City for many years and this is the first time we have ever seen him.  Probably is one of our favorite autographs ever.  Nice man when Lance talked to him also.

Julie talking to the Royals new right fielder, Alex Rios, while getting his autograph.

Julie and her friend, Brenda, posing next to the AL Champions trophy.

The both of us taking a selfie with the AL Champions trophy.

Lance taking a selfie with the 1985 World Series trophy.

Waiting in line to get Louis Coleman's autograph.

Julie and Brenda with the man who hangs the W after every Royals win.

Entry 586: Finally

Anyone that knows us knows that we like to get autographs of the Kansas City Royals players.  Oftentimes we are standing for 1-2 hours at a time in close quarters to others to get these autographs.  This gets a little tiring on the legs and we noticed a few years ago some people bring foldable stools to sit on as they wait.  This looked like a great idea, but we could never find one.  Finally today our 3 year search was over.  Lance was walking through Dick's and out of the corner of his eye he noticed the stool we have been looking for, but it was even better because it had a back to it.  Lance quickly snapped a picture and sent it to Julie while he grabbed the stool (it was the last one) and went to check out.  Julie loved it and Lance bought it.  Now those marathon autograph sessions won't be so bad.

Entry 585: Day Trip

Friday morning Julie's sister Carolyne texted us and asked if we would like to go to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha with their family on Sunday.  We love spending time with them so we jumped at the chance.  We met up with them early Sunday and began the 2 1/2 hour journey to Omaha which was fun in itself.  We had never been to the Omaha Zoo before and it was amazing.  We didn't get to see everything, but we plan on going back and doing it again sometime.  Enjoy the pictures (all shot by Julie) and video (shot by Lance).

Entry 584: Lion Julie

Well it is official, Julie was sworn in last night as a member of the Lions Club.  She is thrilled about this and even got a cool vest.  Lance is in the process of joining next.

Entry 583: Experimental Dog Food

Lance is part of an online group that pays him to take some surveys and give his opinions now and then.  Julie laughs at him for doing this, but she gladly takes the free I-Tunes and Starbucks gift cards that he trades in his points for.  Recently Lance took a survey about the kinds of dog food that the dogs eat, and was given the opportunity to get a free month of dog food that they are about to put on the market.  Lance of course jumped at this chance so for the next month Bobby will be eating this "new" dog food while Lance videotapes him eating it once a week while filling out a survey about it.  Lance is excited about this because one of the dogs is actually contributing back to the house.  We'll keep you updated.

Entry 582: #Fabulas

Some days Lance thinks he is making progress with his students, but then other days he sees things like this written on his board and he just shakes his head.  The scary part about this is that the student actually had the word fabulous written on her shirt in big letters.  At least they didn't spell it fabulass.

Entry 581: Birthday Party

Saturday we celebrated Tyler's 6th birthday at Fun Run.  Fun Run is just basically a big indoor inflatable park which has games to play inside.  It was a good time and lets just say a little bit noisy.  Below are some pictures of the event and some I also stole from Mary (Tyler's mom).

Entry 580: Trivia Crack

The big thing out there right now is Trivia Crack and Lance swore that he would never play it.  Well unfortunately Lance downloaded it onto his phone and he is now addicted to it.  For those of you that don't know, Trivia Crack is an app for your phone where you compete against others answering questions in art, entertainment, sports, history, science, and art (Lance's worst subject).  The winner is the one who answers the most questions correct.  If you want the chance to play Lance he is listed as @jayweekly.

Entry 579: Picture A Day

We all know that Lance has tried this in the past, but once again this year he is going to try to do a blog where he takes a picture a day.  He has been doing good on it so far, and if you want to view it click here or on the link on the side.  He promises that he is going to try to make it through this year.

Entry 578: Just Another Day

     Lance is really enjoying his job this year probably due to the fact that he has some really great students he is working with and that fact that no day is boring. Let's give you a little sample of one of his days:

• One of the students became upset and came to see Lance because he is upset that the social studies teacher is spending too much time teaching about other religions and not focusing enough on Christianity.
• Another student came to Lance and asked him what he thought of Barrack Obama.  Lance said that he thought the President was okay, but the student then looked and Lance and said that he hated Obama.  He said that anyone that thought global warming was real he hated because he can't believe people think that "hooey phooey" stuff is real.  He got to be really upset about it.
• Yet another student is becoming a germophobe and won't use any writing utensils because he doesn't want to get his hands dirty.  Our solution:  we not get a pair of surgical gloves to put on before using a writing utensil.

     Never a dull moment in Lance's class.

Entry 577: New Year, New Car???

     November rolled around and something great happened; we finally paid off our car.  Now our Torrent has been a great car and has really gotten us through a lot, but we have decided that it is time to look for something that is a little bit more fuel efficient since we want to start taking more trips.  We have our choices narrowed down, so stay tuned to see what we end up with.