Another Halloween

Another successful Halloween in the books, our pictures just suck. The kids had a great time, in a very busy day. Ella had school in the morning, and they had a little party. Then the kids got all dressed up and everyone came to my work to trick or treat around the office, and they had a little Halloween party. We hurried home to have some pizza and go trick or treating.

Sarah's parents came down, and we have some friends from Brazil visiting, they were trying to get down from South Carolina to see the whole Halloween phenomenon. They did make it a bit late, so we were not able to show them much, but they saw some stuff.

We went trick or treating in our old neighborhood with our old friends. Its is good for trick or treating, a lot of people, everyone walks around with drinks, it is good fun. One house goes all out and builds a haunted house in their garage every year. It is actually really good. Ella ran through it and just loved it. Max had the daylights scared out of him by a kid dressed as Joker hiding around a corner, he dropped all of his candy and spilled it all over the floor. Joker was nice and helped clean it up. Ella took Timoteo (our Brazilian friend) back through after he finally made it down. The guy who owns the house was amazed that she isn't scared by anything, she just keeps saying "it's just a costume".

Jacob (our old neighbor) was Harry Potter, and Ella was Hermoine, so they made a good team. Max was Anakin, and he was definitely sweet.

Here are a few photos, I'll see if anyone else has any better ones.





VICTORY!, Oh how sweet it finally is

The Apopka Pirates finally got their first win of the season tonight with a 9-3 victory over the Yellow Jackets. We were tied at halftime at 3-3, and we just came out steaming for the second half to put up 6 goals. We won due to one of these three reasons:

1) We just stepped up to play in primetime under the lights. None of our kids are really morning people, so this could be it.
2) The last few of weeks of intense physical practices are starting to pay dividends. The kids were attacking the other team and driving to the goal like mad tonight.
3) The other team just happened to not be as good as us. They did lack a superstar like all the other teams have had.

We'll see how these last 3 games play out to see which one is true.

Mr. Barrack "The Liar" Obama on TV Tonight

Mr. Obama is going to be all over network TV tonight, apparently he has purchased 30 minutes of time on a lot of the major networks (I'll watch baseball instead thank you). Everyone should remember that it was not quite a year ago that he promised to stay even with his counterparts in campaign financing. Boy, did he break that in a hurry. Don't just take my word for it, even CNN is calling him out.

Link to story by CNN

If he gets elected, his lies will never stop. Tax cuts, hah (you will notice that he has never said when he would put these tax cuts into place). Health care reform, good luck.

All he will do is sit there and waste a whole bunch of our money putting this country in an even worse position.

Good cartoon



Courtesy of Mr. Benedict, appropriate for the holiday.

Apopka Blue Darters are ranked #1 in Florida

Our own Apopka Blue Darters high school football team is currently ranked #1 in the state. They have 1 loss on the season, but it was a game where they went up to Mississippi to play some team that has won 73 straight games and 94 out of their last 95. It was even televised on ESPNU.

Their QB, Jeremy Gallon has committed to play for Michigan next year at WR, which works out well because the helmet design is the same.

Their most famous alumni is the future hall of famer Warren Sapp.

Oh, and apparently a blue darter is a type of bird.

I thought we were going to get that first win

The Apopka Pirates were playing well this morning, we played a tough first half, but were still loosing 4-2 at the break. I made a few adjustments, I felt like we were just a small effort away from getting the W. But, even the best laid plans can be demolished and we ended up loosing 12-2.

The kids played well as a group, they all played hard. We were just missing the individual effort that we needed to score some goals.

It is a busy soccer week with a game today, practice on Tuesday, another game on Thursday and then the following Saturday.

Sarah is in South Carolina for the Week

Me and the kids dropped Sarah off at the airport this afternoon. She is off to Greenville, SC for the week for work. Just me and the kids all week, this should be interesting.

Food and Wine Festival



Epcot is running their annual Food and Wine Festival which is one of our favorite events. They setup all of these little booths all around the World Showcase and you can buy food items, wine, and beer from all over the world. We usually go 3 or 4 times while they run the event for a month and a half each year. This was a our 2nd trip this year.

It can get pretty raucous for Disney standards. There are always groups of people on pub crawls around the world. The usually get the custom shirts made up, that say stuff like "We aren't leaving until we're heaving", stuff like that. Then, there is this other weird element where they dress up in themes. This last trip there was a group that were all dressed like 80's tennis players. Big socks, short shorts, headbands, kind of crazy. If the groups are not into theme dressing, then they go for the crazy hat approach and try to buy the craziest hat that they can find in Disney.

Score: 14-3

We were the 3.

The Apopka Pirates will be launching a private investigation into the use of Performance Enhancing drugs by the opposing team. Also, birth certificates will be examined for authenticity.

The Pirates played well, but this other team was ridiculous. There was 3 kids on their team that each one of them on their own were probably the best kids in all the league. This one kid in particular was like the Tiger Woods of 5 year old soccer, he could score from anywhere on the field, I am pretty positive that he could play with 10 year olds and be competitive.

Good article on Mr. Obama's Proposed Tax Cuts

Wall Street Journal just put up this excellent article on Senator Obama's socialist regime that he is pushing through as tax cuts for "middle-class" families. All it is, is redistribution of wealth packaged in a way that makes it sound good.

Don't be fooled by the wolf in sheep's clothing my friends. Typical left wing rhetoric that could very well do more harm than good.

Link to WSJ article.

Fall Festival in Celebration



We made our 2nd annual trip down to the Fall Festival in Celebration. We go with some of our friends down here, and their families, it is usually a pretty good time. Celebration is a planned community close to Disney that was mostly designed by Disney architects. It is a cool little town, and they do this Octoberfest festival each year. They close all of the city streets and have food vendors, drinks, etc. Then, every hour or so they blow fake leaves all over main street. I had my first ever boot full of beer. It is not that exciting really, just a big plastic cup that is shaped like a cowboy boot with a strap around it so that you can put it around your neck (I was not that dorky, I just carried it around).



At the end of main street, they setup a stage and have a bunch of bands come in and play music. This year, they had this guy, Robbie Carrico who was on American Idol last year. The crowd was going pretty crazy for him, and he actually wasn't that bad up there live on the stage.

They had some face painters setup, so we let Ella get her face painted. Despite me trying to talk her into the girly designs like flowers, or a princess, she wanted to be a skeleton. So, I let her, she really enjoyed the power of being scary, she ran around scaring all of her friends, screaming at them.

Oh boy, 0-4

Despite a really good week of intense practice, we still lost our 4th soccer game of the season. It wasn't even close, we lost 10-3. Now, in our defense, the other team had the Ronaldinho of the Apopka Under 5 soccer league, the kid was incredible.

I think the focus on defense has been taken a little too literally by the kids, that was all they were interested in all game, we generated almost no offense.

I pulled myself out at halftime (the coaches are on the field with kids and act as refs in the Under 5 league), and put in my assistant coach, Matt for the second half.

I received a vote of confidence at the end of the game by some of the parents, they thought the kids played better. I'm not sure that we watched the same game.

Preview of Max's costume

Max wanted to be Anakin Skywalker for Halloween, but no one made a costume small enough for him. So, Grandma Linda made him one. He is really excited about it. It is a little sloppy in the photo, he wouldn't sit still and we need to make a couple of adjustments. He is pretty excited for Halloween.

Ella's First Field Trip

On Friday Ella's class took their first ever field trip to the local fire station. This was particularly exciting for Ella because her uncle Gene is a firefighter in Michigan.

She learned to call 911 in an emergency, and to freeze, drop, and roll if there is a fire, which she has been practicing over the weekend.

She said that she wants to be a fireman when she grows up now. She asked Max what he wants to be when he grows up and he said that he wanted to be a pirate. Ella told him that is only a costume and you can't be that.

The Chants for "Fire Wynn" Begin

The Apopka Pirates dropped their 3rd game today by a score of 10-6. We were the better team today but lost due to a lack of discipline. Rumors are beginning that my practices are too soft, nevertheless, they will remain closed to the public for now while we work on internal team issues.

We were down by 5 points early, but mounted a comeback to get within 1. We started the second half with no intensity and let the other team walk all over us, before I knew it we were down by 4 again. There was no coming back this time.

We are going to try a more intense practice this week, get the kids to start paying attention. Ella is going to get some one on one attention as she was a little afraid of the ball today. She had an easy goal opportunity, but failed to take the shot because there was another player nearby, so she let up going after the ball.