Student in Need

A student of ours was in a very serious accident. He is in critical condition at one of our local hospitals; please keep him in your thoughts and prayers!

Career Best

You all know that my favorite hobby is golf.  Over the past two years I have committed to playing in competitive golf events, and have really enjoyed the improvements in my game.  When I started carrying a USGA handicap about 3 years ago it was over 15, it currently sits at 10.5 and is on the verge of breaking into single digits for the first time ever.

Anyway, I decided to play in a Men’s league at one of the local courses here in Nampa this spring.  I got paired up with a nice older guy named Bruce and after 7 weeks found ourselves in 4^th place. Thursday night we moved up at least one spot by demolishing the team ranked in third.  I can’t take all the credit for the win, because my partner overcame a quadruple bogey on the 3^rd hole to finish with a nine hole score of 40.

During the round I managed to play the first 7 holes 1-under par with 2 birdies and 1 bogey.  On hole #17 (we played the back nine) I hit my tee shot under a tree on the right side of the fairway and had to punch out into the fairway.  I was able to advance it forward and had about 100 yards left to get up and down for par. From there I hit a 56* wedge to about 12 feet below the hole.  I lipped out the right-to-left breaking putt and settled for a “good bogey” considering my tee shot.  I followed that by making a regulation par on hole #18 and finishing with an even par 36.

I’ve shot 36 a handful of times but have only broken 80 twice, so I decided to see what would come of the full 18 hole round.  Since it was the longest day of the year yesterday I had plenty of time to make the turn and finish all 18 before dark.  I met my brother in law JP on hole 4 so I didn’t have to play by myself.  I continued the good streak by making par on holes 4, 5, and 6.  A bad shot on 7, an unlucky break on 8, and a regulation par on 9 left me 2 over for the day so I set off to the #1 tee box knowing I had a chance to shoot a really good score.  Hole #1 proved to be no challenge at all as I laced a tee shot to nearly 300 yards, stuck the green, and two putted my way to par. 

My first real adventure of the day came on hole two, the shortest par four and easiest hole on the course.  It was getting hard to see the ball in the fading daylight, but I knew I hit my 3-wood down the left side of the hole.  When I got to the landing area I couldn’t find my ball lying in the rough and began to panic. After walking up and down the roughly mown waste area I found my Taylormade 3, marked with a green line for Michigan State, sitting on a patch of dead grass.  I was fortunate that it had been mowed recently and my ball was sitting up.  I lofted the ball onto the green and made an easy 2 putt to make par.

Every golfer understands the fickle nature of the 18^th hole.  It seems to give the struggling player one great shot to keep them coming back, or steal a stroke or two from a player trying to have his best day.  For me this was hole #3 and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it.  I popped up my tee shot and was left with 150 yards downhill from the left rough.  I was in between clubs with the pin in the front so I settled on going with an easy swing 8 iron.  The rough grabbed my club a little and caused a severe under hit that only travelled 60 yards.  I followed that up with a 60* that rolled past the hole and onto the fringe.  A mediocre chip and two putts later I had made my only double bogey of the day and finished with a 4-over 76, my lowest score ever.

June 21, 2012: a 76

It’s always great to set a personal record and we’ve all had them in different arena of our lives so of course I am very excited.  However, as I sat reflecting on the round there were two responses I kept having. 

The first was that it seemed almost easy. Even though it was my best round ever I didn’t feel like I had to overcome any obstacle.  Maybe that means there is better yet to come, or maybe it is just the sign of me coming closer to mastering my own game.  Either way I sure won’t complain if I keep shooting scores in the 70’s.

The other was an emotional response that I experience quite often regarding all sorts of things in my life.  I really wish I have shot that round playing with my dad.  I am very blessed to have met and married Faith, a phenomenal wife, and my very best friend.  I have a great job and good friends out here in the northwest, but I wake up many days wishing I could play golf with my dad, sit and talk with my mom, or go goof around with Marty.  I miss you all so much, and wish we were able to share more milestones and accomplishments together.

So here is to shooting your career best, and having a great big loving family to share it with.

-R

Summer Projects, Continued

The newest addition to our dining room:

Long story short: my grandpa had a bunch of old window frames from a house he was remodeling and I was lucky enough to save a couple before he took them to the dump.

I scraped and cleaned it up, applied three coats of Behr Interior Paint + Primer and voila, a masterpiece for our dining room. Rob helped me hang it with four heavy duty picture hangers (we drilled them directly into the frame and then drilled large screws into studs in the wall - it's not going anywhere!).

It's not completely symmetrical, but I love it: flaws and all!

PS
The brown paint on the dining room wall extends into the living room and it is relatively new, too. I didn't blog then (silly me), so I didn't take very many before and after pictures. Believe me, the after pictures are much nicer!

Look for more soon!
-F

Exciting Sunday!

Today, we cleaned our garage.

It has been a long time coming, since we haven't been able to park in it since April. This is primarily my fault because I've taken on a few too many projects in the last four months (when you find a good deal at a second-hand store, you buy it. Period. Even if you don't have the time, or really even the energy, to begin yet another project).
We divided our garage in two:

The "man" side:

Rob hung two shelves: one for each of us. You can
barely see the one in the upper right-hand corner in the
above picture!

And the "woman" side:

See the cute wooden table in front of my potting supplies?
That's my next project! Stay tuned for pics!

I've always sworn that we would NEVER be those people who can't park in their garage, and if it got to the point where we couldn't, it meant we had WAY too much stuff. It was touch and go there for a while, but now we are super stoked to say that we are going to park in the garage tonight! Woo-hoo!

-F

Our Newest Addition

We have a new addition...to our backyard! After many months of talking, planning, changing our minds, re-planning, and more talking, we did it. We built ourselves a patio cover or "pergola" as we like to call it.

Like most projects, it took way longer (and was a leetle bit more expensive) than we anticipated. But, we now have a stylish backyard space where we can entertain family and friends comfortably.

Before:

Justin and Faith - taking a break from
taking a break.

The Process:



Supplies, supplies, supplies!



Todd and Rob - hard at work!

Progress!

After:

The finished product - just in time for an early Father's Day
celebration with the Sacht family.

Our neighbors should be jealous!

The final and finished product!

We are so happy with the final outcome. Rob did such a great job of being the true mastermind and artist behind the whole project: it truly was his vision that caused it to turn out so well! 

Our next backyard project will be flower/herb garden boxes built around the patio. Stay tuned for more pictures (but it will probably be after our next pay day)!

-F

2012 - Second Anniversary

We celebrated our second anniversary at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (we saw Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap- it wasn't our favorite but a play performed out of doors is always a good time). Todd PR (one of Rob's good friends from Michigan) was in town, so we were a party of 2, +1.

Thanks to Pinterest, we started an anniversary tradition: we are going to take a picture of ourselves holding a picture (of ourselves) from the previous year. That way, we will have a record of all of our anniversaries spent together. Isn't that a cool idea? I wish I could claim it as an original idea, but I'm not that creative. So, thanks Pinterest!

-F

Summer School

Summer school began today: 7:45am-3:15pm with some of the nicest kids you will ever meet...are you picking up on the sarcasm? Our goal is to completely burn ourselves out by the end of the summer, just in time to start teaching again in the fall. Woo-hoo.

Here's to hoping we don't look like this:

or this:

at the end of the day, let alone at the end of six weeks!

More to come soon,
-F