Family, Fun, Food, and Futbal!

Last Saturday was my 37th birthday and we celebrated it how I wanted to celebrate it and then some.  For months, I've been looking forward to Copa America Centenario which, if you didn't know, is an international one-time tournament with countries from all of the Americas to celebrate CONMEBOL (South American Football Confederation) turning 100 years old.  The kick-off game was last Friday night between USA and Columbia.

USA may have lost that match 2-0, but I still really enjoyed the game particularly since for the first time ever I got to watch from home.  We signed up with Sling TV which is a really awesome app.  We get to try if for free for 7 days and then it's only $20 per month for the basic package (a trimmed-down version of a standard cable package).  For an additional $5 per month, I got the sports add-on package which included Univision Deportes Network.  All of the Copa America games will be aired on this channel.  The only caveat is that it's in Spanish, but that doesn't really matter since I don't care to listen to commentators anyway.

Fox has the broadcasting rights to Copa America and the only way that I could find to get the channel was to get cable or satellite.  Fox does have an app called Fox Soccer2Go for $20 per month which supposedly allows you to watch sports games broadcast by Fox on your phone or tablet.  However, I read a bunch of reviews and nobody likes it.  Complaints are everywhere that the app freezes or kicks you out almost all the time.  And, I didn't want to watch it on a small screen anyway, let alone if it is going to be so buggy that I'll miss parts of the games.

So, I'm really liking Sling TV.  Unlike, Fox Socer2Go, I can watch a game live or I can stream it later.  Plus, Jodi likes it too since it also has HGTV.  And, when we're done with it, we can cancel it.  This is how easy it's supposed to be, but never is, with cable or satellite.

Sorry for the infomercial, but clearly I have enjoyed this new concept of having affordable, no-nonsense "cable".

My birthday celebration was awesome from even the night before.  Friday night, we had brats and dogs on the grill and ate outside enjoying the beautiful weather we have been having.  Jodi worked her butt off making 20 lbs of fajitas that we had on Saturday and were amazingly good.  I will forever judge all other fajitas by this new standard.  Then, she surprised me with a mulberry cobbler that her and the children picked from our mulberry trees.  If you've never had it, you're missing out. We watched four more games between Saturday and Sunday and still had some time to piddle around with a few things that I wanted to do.

Overall, it was a very relaxing and delicious weekend enjoying some great international soccer from the comforts of my own home.  Even Cute (our cat) got in on the action.  Here she is getting extremely upset about a bad call the referee made.

Cute and I share a birthday.  I forgot to mention that she turned 2 on Saturday.

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Ezra Montagne

I just realized that I've never written a blog announcing the birth of Ezra. So, better late than never, right? Sorry, Ezra. No doubt you will be reading this some day.

As a matter of fact, with that in mind. This blog is addressed to you, Ezra. Everyone else can read this if they please, but it's not for them, to them, or about them. It's about you, for you, and to you, my beautiful daughter.

I love you, Ezra. You are my first and only daughter. I don't know how old you are now (your time, when you are reading this), but I hope that you know that I love you. You are two and a half months old (my time), and I know that even as you grow older, you will never be able to shake that image of you from my mind. You will forever be my little girl.


Having a child is strange by itself. I don't know that any parent fully realizes the enormity of the role. Your oldest brother Jacob is eleven and a half. He's getting close to being a teenager and resembles one even now. You would think that I'd be used to the idea that he is my child and I am his parent and in more ways than not I am used to it. However, when I think about, I'm still shocked on so many levels. How did this happen?! Maybe I'm alone in my thinking. Maybe not, maybe every parent feels this way. I don't know. It's wonderful, exciting, terrifying, beautiful, unsettling, rewarding, etc. Parenting is a roller coaster of emotions.

So, if I'm still getting used to being a parent of two boys who've been around for years, how much greater am I feeling unprepared for you, a daughter, a girl, a woman in the making? I'm scared to be one of two of the most responsible people for you in the world. It holds the potential to frighten me to no end.

That being said, I am also unimaginably thankful for the opportunity to be that person in your life. I'm honored that God would place you in my care and entrust me with such a role. I may know that I am unequipped to raise you and teach you and guide you, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that God is perfectly equipped to do such a job. And, with He as my guide, I will never fail you in any way.

I love you, Ezra. And, I will seek to treasure every moment we have together.

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1979 Celeb Guessing Game

I did this a couple years ago for my 29th birthday. I thought that it was kind of fun to see who all in the celebrity world is about my age. At 29, most of the celebrities still looked like they could pass as teenagers. Maybe not so much at 31?

This year, I only found 6 celebrities. One, of which, isn't even alive anymore. I wanted to get all new famous people without repeating any from the last game. The problem with that was that after these six they started becoming very obscure. I didn't recognize anyone else, in fact, with the exception of the young blonde girl from the movie Jurassic Park. Although, I doubt anyone else would have recognized her. I didn't until after I saw what all she had been in on IMDB.com.

So, good luck. Oh, by the way. The name of the game is easy. Name all the celebrities. Be the first to do so and leave them all in a blog comment and you'll receive honorable mention in an upcoming blog, bragging rights for a whole year, and you get to choose my next blog topic! Exciting, isn't it? And, as always, click on the picture to make it larger (in case my audience is getting older like me and needs it bigger to see anything).

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