Dinner, Anyone?

Anyone interested in a dinner for five? Menu is undetermined. Probably chicken or beef. You'll be seated in a quaint little dining room along with 2,000 or so other guests. Oh yeah, did I mention it's in Philadelphia, so it's two plus hours away? All this for the incredible price of $270.00! Alright. The truth. The only thing incredible about this deal is how incredibly stupid Pop Warner Football must think we are. That's right. For us to attend Collin's Scholastic All-American Banquet, just the dinner will cost $270.00! Here's the breakdown. $40.00 per plate per kid (including Aaron. He's such a big eater at three years old.) and $75.00/ea. for Linda and I. Are they freakin' kidding?! They must be crazy if they think I'll pay that. The way this whole thing is supposed to work is the awards ceremony is on Friday night and the banquet is on Saturday night. So if we were to go, we would also require a hotel room. Which brings me to my next gripe. Their website says that the Marriott, which is actually attached to the convention center where this is being held, is offering "special" rates for attendees. $149.00/night! I checked out Expedia and found the Hilton (that's the Hilton, mind you) directly across the street for $94.00/night. That's special alright. But wait. It gets better. For everyone to attend the awards ceremony on Friday, we have to pay $5.00/person for that! (Although Collin gets in to that for free.) Oh, and don't forget the Pop Warner jerseys you can buy for only $49.00! So, needless to say, we will not be attending the banquet. Although we will attend the awards ceremony on Friday and drive back home that night. Me thinks something stinks around here, and this time, it ain't me. I think Profit Warner... Oops. sorry. I mean Pop Warner, has lost their way. (or their minds) just a tad. So let's do some simple math and summarize, shall we? Award ceremony - $20.00. Hotel - $149.00. Banquet - $270.00. The satisfaction of teaching our son that there will come times in your life when you have to stand up for what is right, even though it may not be popular, and say "No".... Priceless.

Science Fair Update!!

The Cape Henlopen School District 5th Grade Science Fair was tonight. Collin's "Spud or Dud" project, based on the potato cannon, won fourth place in the "Physical Science" category! Who says blowing up stuff isn't educational?

UPDATE! UPDATE!

A few posts back, I mentioned how Collin was nominated for Scholastic All-American. That puts him in the top one percent of all Pop Warner players nationwide. He would either be chosen 1st team, second team, or honorable mention prior to going to the national banquet in Philthy-delphia in May. We were told that the decisions on who made what teams would not be made public until April 1st, but they came out today. Collin made 2nd team! I put a link to the PopWarner web site page that has his name in it. We are super proud of him! Anyway, that's all for now. We'll keep you updated.

http://www.popwarner.com/scholastics/2010scholars/5thGradeFootball10.htm

Dancin' Fool

In a previous post, I mentioned how Aaron loves dancing to the "Cops" theme. Well, I finally got it on video. We really need to find him a hobby.



P.S. If you want to see something really funny, after the video has played, grab the little doohickey (technical term, you wouldn't understand) and back it up to the beginning of the video. The still shot that it shows is better than the whole video. He reminds me of Lucky the Leprechaun!

You Want Fries With That?

Hey Guys. Check out our new potato cannon. We made it as part of Collin's science fair project. The burning question he's going to answer is "Which type of potato flies farther when shot from a potato gun; russet, sweet, or white?" The first video yielded no conclusive facts. Truthfully, I think our cannon needed some Viagra. It's hard to tell on such a small screen, but the potato flies out of the barrel and goes a whopping 3 feet. Hence the laughter you hear. We made some minor adjustments and in no time, we had spuds a flyin'! The second video shows the potato flying across our yard into our neighbor's yard. At the end of the day, the white potato flew farthest with an average distance of 361 feet. We'll let you know how he does in the science fair. The longest shot we got off was a killer 396 feet! That one actually went past our yard, past our next door neighbor's yard, and landed in the neighbor's yard two houses down! That one sent the boys running. When we were done, we took the left over potatoes and shot them in the opposite direction into the pond behind our other neighbor's house. We're expecting the strongly worded, well organized list of grievances to arrive any day now from the homeowners association. "You might be a redneck if your homeowners association files a complaint against you about firing your potato cannon!" There goes the property values.

P.S. Thank you Karen for the book on how to build the cannon! You should take pride in the fact that you contributed to my children's delinquency.

Bad Boys

Hey all. Just thought I would write a bit and let you in on all the excitement at the Mattia house. Well, not really, but here goes. Aaron has taken a strange liking to the show "Cops". As I write this, we're watching an episode. Lucky for him, it's on TruTv every night. He runs through the house with his handcuffs and his gun (or his shoot gun as he calls it) shouting "GET ON THE GROUND!, GET ON THE GROUND!" Don't even get me started on how funny it is to see him dancing and singing when the "Bad Boys" theme song comes on! That's a video I've got to get. I've spent many a night handcuffed, stuffed behind the recliner (that's jail) waiting to make bail. And now since American Idol has started, and we all saw the audition with the man singing "Pants on the Ground", we run around shouting "PANTS ON THE GROUND!, PANTS ON THE GROUND!" It's a little disturbing. Anyway, baseball has officially started. I'm managing Matthew's team. Try-outs are tomorrow and Sunday. Then we have the draft. It should be great. The pressure is on though. Matthew's team, the Indians, are the minor league champs two years running. Now the team is mine. Yikes. Wish me luck. Collin's team, the Braves, should be pretty good this year. They have a lot of talent (including Collin!) coming back this year as well as some good players moving up from the minors. It should be a good time. Work is picking up. We've ventured into new territory. We built our first entertainment center. I've included a picture of it. It's all from scratch. I even made the raised panel doors myself. Our customer is very happy with it, and it was profitable, so what's not to like? What we would like to do next is make wood patio furniture. I know it sounds crazy, but it could be good. We're still checking it out. I'll keep you posted. Well, that's all for now. I just made bail. Thank God. Bubba started singing "Pants on the Ground!" Talk to you soon.

We're Still Here

First, let me say, I know this is the first post since like Christmas, or something. Hey, get over it. Honestly, it's been quiet here. Nothing really to talk about. Unless you consider cutting firewood or suffering from dry winter skin itch, interesting topics. Yup, we live in the fast lane here. On the cutting edge, baby! We did survive the "Blizzard of 2010". We lost electric from about 1:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. Saturday. Luckily, we had the fireplace going and plenty of wood stockpiled, so we were good to go. This is the boys' first big snowstorm. They were diggin' it. Literally. They lasted about an hour into the big Sunday dig-out when the urge to assault each other with snow took over. That was all she wrote. I flew solo for the next 5 hours shoveling while they were in search of the biggest drift to bury themselves in. I managed to get a little over half way down the driveway when my neighbor from two houses down showed up with his industrial size snow blower. Thank you Ron! The first half took me six hours. The second half, 15 minutes! He is a Wilmington firefighter and was on duty during last weekend's storm. His wife was by herself stuck in the house, so after I plowed our driveway, I plowed them out. My tractor and plow didn't have a prayer against this storm, though. The snow in some spots was actually taller than the tractor itself! Anyway, enough of that. We all have our snow shovels to bare. On a different topic, Collin and Matthew both made honor roll again this marking period. Collin originally had a "D" in social studies, which would obviously take him out of the running for honor roll. The only problem was we didn't receive any notes or e-mails or calls from his teacher. He got an "A" in this class last marking period. We couldn't understand how this could happen, and with no courtesy call from his teacher. They both bring home "Thursday Notes" which sums up that week in school. If you bring home home a note marked "good", then no problems. If you bring home an "unsatisfactory" note, that means you got a bad grade on a test or didn't turn in an assignment or something. We received no "bad" Thursday notes or anything. Our first clue something was going on was when he brought home his report card. Well, needless to say, this did not sit well with us. I called his teacher the following day and asked her what was going on. She said Collin didn't turn in a report (that we knew he turned in because we helped him with it) and two Weekly Readers. So he received zeros for those three assignments. Her original answer was that she should have notified us sooner of his issues, but that she'll definitely do better at communicating this marking period. But the grade stays. No,no,no,no,no. I don't think so. Anyway, to make a excruciatingly long story a little less long, a call to the principal and a face to face with his teacher Friday morning and viola! Honor roll assembly Friday afternoon. The truth was he turned in the report and they lost it and he didn't put his name on the two weekly readers. Stupid on his part, yes. But worthy of zeros? No. We already told Collin that next time he gets marked down for forgetting his name, he owns it. Not only that, but we expect "A" honor roll this marking period. No excuses. Well anyway, that's all for now. I've bloviated enough. (I learned that word from Bill O'Reilly!) Talk to you soon.

A Joyful Noise!

Well, here it is. Our 2009 Christmas video. I wasn't even planning on finishing this thing today, but everything just kinda fell in my lap and it all felt right, so I went with it. Hope you like it.

Merry Christmas!

"And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men."
Luke 2:12-14


From the Mattia Family to yours, Merry Christmas!

A Journey To Bethlehem

Friday night, we made a "Journey to Bethlehem". Well, Angola actually, but you get the idea. Conley's "Living Nativity" is something we try to go to every year. If you want to learn, or maybe just need a refresher, on the true meaning of Christmas, this is a must see. The kids really love it. A shephard/tour guide leads your small group of about 10 to 12 through the journey. You stop at several different scenes and actors tell you a story and how it relates to the birth of Jesus. From the threshing floor of Bethlehem, to the visit of Gabriel to Mary, to the wise men and King Herod, to the birth in a manger. It's all there and very well done. They even have Roman soldiers, who occupied Bethlehem at the time, collecting taxes and swearing their allegiance to King Herod. I'm glad we went Friday and didn't wait until Saturday to go. We wouldn't have made it with all the ice and snow. I've included some pictures of the manger scene and the three crosses. I've also included a picture of the other "angels" that visited Bethlehem. As you can tell from the picture, the Bethlehem Wawa has a thriving business this time of year. I'm pretty sure I saw the three wise men in line in front of me. Gold, incense, and pumpkin spice cappuccino. God IS good.