Merry Christmas 2013

Getting in the Christmas spirit! The kids gifts are wrapped and sent out, and the holiday preparation has begun. The house is decorated, looks and smells like cozy winter, and the kids stockings and ornaments are all hung waiting for Santa, ha ha. Hey, in my house, Santa still comes, you might not believe, but I do and he hasn’t failed me yet. 

I’m making pies for Christmas and managed to finally perfect a scratch pie crust recipe over Thanksgiving, thanks to my friend Steve who gave me a great tip. I got three deer this hunting season – well actually, I got two and my neighbor gave me one because he already had enough – so I made tons of jerky (which is already gone) and tried my hand at sausage, which came out great. Will be making some of that for Christmas as well. I even tried making breakfast sausage and it came out awesome (if I don’t say so myself). It’s amazing what you can do with spices, who knew.

The Christmas cards with photos have been arriving each day. My cousin Marty’s boy Evan is getting so big and super smart, and my cousin Brady’s kids are so cute and a ton of fun to watch on Facebook. They live in DC and got a bunch of snow a few weeks ago, so they got a nice taste of winter and made their share of snowmen and forts. My friend who had a little girl and named her Cecilia (same as my daughter) is getting big too and even has the same big blue eyes as my baby girl. Just love watching all these kids grow, including my own. Life is good.

Excited to talk to my nieces in a few days. My oldest niece Sydney graduated high school and started college this year, can’t wait to hear how her first semester was. Rachel has been doing great in school and traveling all over playing soccer. She should be ready for volleyball soon, I’ll get an update in a few days. My god-daughter Abby has completed basic training in the Army National Guard Reserves and is living down south, not sure if I’ll get to see her for the holidays. Her sister Katie is busy with school and working at Savoia Bakery preparing to be a pastry chef in college.

My parents are hangin’ in and enjoying their retirement. Dad is feeling pretty good despite going in for a routine stress test and ending up with two heart stent surgeries. He’s feeling much better now that he’s had them done though. He and my step mom have been busy with some charity work they do for the Ocala Forest Children nearby their home in The Villages. I think my dad works a lot in retirement, but it’s a good kind of work and he certainly seems to be enjoying himself. My mom is doing good too. She didn’t stay here long this summer because she and my step dad bought a new house, literally right across the street from their old one, right before they left in the spring, so she was late getting here and left early to take care of things down in Florida. One of these years I’ll have to spend the holidays in Florida so I can see them both for Christmas.

I’ll spend New Year’s with friends nearby as I have for the last few years. They are friends that I snowmobile with and there is a whole mess of kids in the group. I think I mentioned last year that they put on a “New Year’s Spectacular” right after the ball drops that is so great – singing and dancing and performing. Love it. Speaking of ball dropping, wonder if my daughter knows about the Time Square Countdown app for her phone. It’s pretty cool. You can keep track of the count down in NYC and even get live streaming video. My daughter is crazy about NYC, pretty sure she’ll live there someday when she gets a job on Broadway. Who knows, maybe both my kids will be there - my daughter on Broadway and my son playing for the NY Giants ;)

I’m sure my kids will be busy through the holidays as well, despite the two weeks off of school, between play rehearsals and wrestling tournaments and family time with their mom’s family they will be plenty busy. Wishing them, and their friends and their mom’s family, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2014. They too have a whole bunch of younger kids around to make the holidays extra fun. Love and miss ya both very much and would love to see you….just call or email, I’m here for you, always will be, with open arms and an open heart. xox

Funny How Genetics Works, huh

I'm sure I've said it once or twice before on here, and the JeffsKids.com Facebook page, and the JeffsKidsDotCom Twitter page....that my kids both look exactly like me, there is no mistaking the fact they are my kids. My daughter looks like me now - the shape of her face, her eyes, her smile, some of her mannerisms, and definitely her sense of humor (ok, so that last one is not appearance related, but it is genetic). And my son looks like me at his age - his hair and hair line, ears, eye and face structure, his nose and lips, when he smiles, and of course his book smarts (same disclaimer as above), all of which is becoming more and more evident as he gets older. What really struck me was this old photo I found of me in college. I looked right at it and said "whoa, there's Patrick." Those of you reading who know him, and me, can probably guess where I am in this photo. Good thing I wasn't sporting a 'stache yet at that point, lol. Science is a wonderful thing :)

Fall - Summer Catch-up

What happened to summer? One minute my kids are wrapping up the school year and getting ready for chillin' and summer camps, and the next minute they are right back in for another full year of games, meets, reports, projects, concerts and theatre performances. Wish I could have spent some time with them over the summer, there were so many fun times they would have enjoyed....maybe next year.

The early summer brought an early start to the garden this year. I planted all the usuals - corn, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, squash, onions, garlic - and had a great design layed out, but an early frost and waaaaaay too much rain kinda ruined it. Well, that and the second year in a row of deer over-population. I think they thought I was growing a food plot for THEM! Will have to do my best to counter that this bow season, ha ha. Starting to get a little bit of veggies now. The corn half survived and what I did get was fantastic, so that's good. Not sure I'll have enough tomatoes for a pot of sauce, but the tomato-cuke salads with fresh basil so far have been amazing.

My dad and step mom came for a visit and stayed with me for a few weeks, in the kids' bedrooms. They keep pretty busy when they are here - visiting friends and my step brothers - but we had plenty of fun dinners on the deck and the usual (what's become an annual) family BBQ with my aunts, uncles and cousins from Naples. All the kids are getting so big. Austin is playing soccer, Evan is smart as a whip and really knows his hunting and outdoor stuff. Even Cassidy is getting quite the little personality on her. Aunt Candy retired this year, so her and Uncle Gene are whooping it up with friends and making plans for where they might go next, maybe Florida with my dad. They've been talking about that for years.

While my dad was here, my daughter had a theatre performance, so my dad and step-mom went to see her. They were thrilled. They didn't get to actually talk to her or anything, but they said she looked like she was having the time of her life, definitely in her element. At one point in the show, my daughter was dancing in the aisles among the audience and stopped right in front of my dad. He could hear her sing loud and clear and was absolutely beaming when he got home - chattering on like a teenager himself. I'm so happy they had a chance to see her while they were here. They try to call my kids to make arrangements to see them while they are here, but their calls go unanswered and unreturned, so they too miss out on seeing them. Also very cool was my dad ran into the guy who was making and selling videos of the performance and he ordered a few of them, one for me. So I will get to see her too, as soon as the video arrives, can't wait!

My sister, brother-in-law and nieces also came in for a few weeks, right before my dad came so their visits didn't overlap enough for all of us to be together at once, which was kind of a bummer. Things change as kids get older, their schedules and activities change the way families spend time together, especially when everyone lives in different cities. This year my sister's visit was so short we didn't even go to Ohio to see my grandmother like we usually do. I will have to capture my mother one of these weekends and take a ride out there. Gramma is 93 this year, every year counts! My niece Rachel was in a regional soccer tournament in Thunder Bay (google it, it's far) during the beginning of the trip, so she only got to spend a few days here, but at least we all got to see her. Spent some time with my niece Sydney who is going off to college this year, well, not exactly going off....she will live at home, but she's got a lot of hard work ahead of her, on top of a little job to help pay for it. Can't wait to hear how her first year goes! After my dad's visit here, he went up to Nova Scotia for 10 days to spend time with my sister and nieces, so they did get to see him afterall.

Also earlier this summer, a friend of mine had her first baby and named her Cecilia, they even spelled it the same....I was so stinkin' excited you would have thought "I" was having a baby, lol. She's the cutest thing, tons of curly brown hair, and will hang out and "talk" with just about anyone...not unlike my Cecilia. Yes, she too will be keeping her Aunts on the phone for hours at age 5, I'm sure of it. Sadly, my friend's husband got a new job in Florida and they just moved a few weeks ago, so I won't get to see Cecilia as much, but the pictures and stories on Facebook make my day.

Like many people in Rochester, I got to spend some time at the PGA Championship while it was here in town. I hope my son went. I would have loved to take him, but perhaps his Papa or Uncles took him instead. A rep from one of the companies I work with gave me two grounds passes to the 2nd round. So instead of my son, I took a friend of mine who works across the street from me. We had a blast. Spent nearly the whole day there and got to see a lot of players. We're so lucky to have such a huge event come to Rochester every 10 years or so. I went to the last one too. Maybe by the time the next one comes around my son will want to go with me. I sure hope so, it was a ton of fun and my son used to like golf, hope he still does because....

My son turned 16 a few days ago and many of the gifts I sent him were golf related. I know he mostly plays football now, and lacrosse and wrestling, but hopefully he still enjoys golf and gets out once in a while with his friends or his mom's family. If not, maybe some of the certificates will entice him to get back out there and give it another try. He's kinda an all-around sports guy, so perhaps. When he was younger, he was on a golf league with his friend Jason and Tyler-  they loved it. We used to take them out to Latta Lee to golf. Not too far from where he lives now. Like a lot of kids, baseball and football sorta takes over because that's what is most popular. Golf is something that your family needs to be into, we used to go quite a bit. I know his Papa works at a country club nearby and his uncles still go quite a bit, so maybe he still gets out. For his birthday I sent him a little souvenir from the PGA - to remind him that we have a father-son date for the next time, and a gift certificate to Dick's so he can get something he needs for football or sneakers or something. I'm sure he needs stuff every time you turn around. I sure wish he would call and ask me to help. I would call him, but that's kind of hard when your phone is blocked. He'll just need to find a way to call me. I'll be waiting, for as long as it takes, call any time.

In the mean time, here comes another year of fun. First football game was yesterday. Sure he played great. Hope he's still getting a shot at quarterback. Chorus and the school play are my daughter's thing and the play runs in November, so this is her busy time for that. Homecoming will be here shortly and my kids always seem to enjoy that too....the parades, pep rallies, bonfire and games. Have a great time kids and enjoy these years while they are here. My daughter is a senior this year, so I'm sure this year is extra special for her. After that, who knows. Sure hope she's making plans to pursue her talents, there are a lot of good performance schools around here and she certainly knows enough people in them to teach her the ropes. Love and miss ya both, very much. Keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter for the quick updates and snarky comments, ha ha....and I'll post another longer update as events warrant. Love ya!

Happy 16th Birthday Son!

Could it be? My son is 16 already? I'm so proud of the fine young man he's becoming....all the sports he plays, his good grades and nice friends he has in and out of school, and how I'm sure he helps his mom with all the man stuff around the house (I hope!). No doubt he's running out right away to get his driving permit...what 16 year-old boy doesn't do that on his birthday?!? Sure he's itching to get behind the wheel and go places with his friends. What an exciting time. Any time you'd like to go out driving, son, just give me a call. Happy to take you any time. Birthday gifts are on the way, will wait til I'm sure he got them before talking about them on here. Enjoy your day my son ~ love and miss you very much ~ always your Dad <3

Father's Day

I celebrate Father's Day with the same joy I have for the last 17 years ~ because I know in my heart that my children love and miss me as much as I love and miss them. I hear their silent prayers and pray for them in return. Hang in there kids, keep love in your heart and we'll be together again when the time is right. Enjoy your Father's Day with your Papa and uncles, I'll be thinking of you both!

This year, I will share Father's Day with my beautiful goddaughter Abby. Abby just graduated with National Honors from high school and will have a graduation party all day at a park on the lake. In a few weeks Abby will leave for boot camp, that's right boot camp! She has joined the Army Reserves and will serve our country for eight years. In return she will receive a ton of help paying for college, which she is going to need because she wants to go to med school to become a clinical child psychiatrist with her own practice. I'm so proud of her and thrilled to share in her special day with her.

Also this year, I share Father's Day with my beautiful niece Sydney who's 18th birthday is today and is also preparing to go off to college. She is headed for Dalhousie University in the fall with an academic scholarship - go Syd!. Hugely proud of her and know she's going to be all she wants to be - she's got the brains, the talent, and gosh darn it - people like her :). Can't wait to see her and her sister this summer when they come to visit.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to all the other Dad's out there reading my blog who also won't get to see or talk to their children on Father's Day (or any other day of the year for that matter). It hurts, but know they love you and keep the faith. If you need someone to talk to...you know how to find me.

Be sure to check out the great photo collage on my facebook page.

Fourwheeling Fun

Spent a great day outside clearing paths in the woods near my house where the guys in the neighborhood and I hunt for deer.  One of my neighbors and I took a big field mower and a chainsaw out back and cleaned up last year’s trails and made a few new ones. Saw a ton of tracks and rubbings and even a few turkeys and a bunch of young deer running through the new corn fields. Another couple months or so and we won’t even be able to see them through the high corn. Checked on our tree stands and made sure they were still intact, and after all that hard work and a nice sunset dinner on the back deck, we went for a long ride on the fourwheelers and just enjoyed the scenery.

The trails go way out through what used to be swamps until we figured out where the beaver dams were and asked the town to clean them out. Now they are nice open grass fields with big old trees, lots of bedding shrubs and a creek running through it. The trails twist and turn all through the field trees and then go up the hill around the farmer’s fields and down through the ravine between the fields and a huge bog on the other side of the hill. Despite all the rain lately it wasn't all that muddy, even in the thicker parts of the woods and the bottom of the hill near the bog.

My kids would love the trails, they would be out there every day either walking or on the fourwheelers with the other neighborhood teens. My daughter loves to hike in the woods and my son has been driving wheelers since he was small. Plus they would love the views from the top of the hill. It feels like you can see forever. Great start to the long holiday weekend….hope you are enjoying yours too....here comes summer!

In other news, my daughter just went to her junior prom...yep, junior prom, where does the time go? My princess is growing up so fast, next thing you know she'll be off at college and exploring the world. She's also got auditions for next year's musical coming up in a week and her music banquet the week after that, then final exams and then, finally, summer for her. Busy couple of weeks. Glad to help in any way I can...rides, driving lessons, study help, checking out colleges...you know how to find me baby girl, just ask and I'll be there.

My son is on his way to academic stardom. His grades are phenomenal and he will once again receive an award this year at awards night. He is super smart, just like his Grampa Chapman, and school has always come easy for him, but still I don't know how he does it. In addition to good grades, he plays sports all year round...and really intense sports too. This year he played football and was quarterback, then he jumped into wrestling, and from there he switched to lacrosse. So he does all that and still keeps his grades up. I am so proud of him! I'll be thinking of you son as you accept your award next week and go to your sports banquet the week after that. Good luck on your finals and have a great summer. Would love to take you out for some golf, or shooting, or fourwheeling this summer...oh wait, you're going to be 16 soon, we can go out driving...that would be fun...call me anytime!

Love and miss you both very much. Hope to see or talk to you soon.

Happy 17th Birthday Baby Girl

Can you believe it, she's 17 already?!? Hope my daughter is having the time of her life, as she always does, traveling with her school chorus friends on her birthday. I'm sure they will do something nice for her to make her birthday special. Every day my daughter gets smarter and more beautiful. I'm so proud of the wonderful young woman she is becoming. She's doing well in school, keeps very busy with singing and acting, and has lots of really nice friends to surround her with love and friendship. I sent her a package of gifts that I hope she gets when she returns. It arrived the day she left so she hasn't opened them yet, so I can't tell you about them yet. I'll do that in a few days after she's had a chance to see them first...wouldn't want to spoil her surprises ;) In the meantime, sending love and hugs your way baby girl ~ love and miss you very, very much! Can't wait to hug and see you soon!

UPDATE: So I'm pretty sure my daughter has opened her gifts by now, so it's safe to talk about them now. Plus she's had a lot going on - SAT's last weekend, Junior Prom in two weeks, and of course lots of school work catch up after being out of school for two days traveling with the chorus and then several days of in-school music activities right afterwards....poor girl is probably spending every waking moment catching up! Gotta keep up those good grades from the rest of the year, would be a shame to let it all go downhill now. Junior year is so important!

This year there are a bunch of new books out that my daughter would just love, she's an avid reader, always has been, would pour thorough books in mere days, even hours, but I obviously have no idea which books she has already and which ones she needs, so I thought an Amazon gift card would be a good bet. That way she can get whichever books she wants, or something else if she wants. Also sent her a panda bookmark from Chinatown in NYC that she can use in her new books. And what birthday present would be complete without a few cute purse things, she was always into that kind of girlie stuff. One was a purple patent leather alligator imprint mini-wallet and the other a hot pink velvet makeup bag with hand lotion and nail stuff. To go with her nail stuff, I found these tat-toes - no that's not a misspelling - they are tattoos for your toes. They were a really cute pink flowery print that is just sooo my daughter. A friend of mine also told me about an interesting video called MisRepresentation. It talks about the media's obsession with focusing girls on beauty instead of brains. It has interviews with teenage girls as well as Condolezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Gloria Steinem, Katie Couric and other smart women. I hope it's good. I didn't watch it myself, so I could send her the unopened package, but I'm pretty confident in the person who recommended it. My daughter also likes to write stories, so I sent her another monogrammed journal and a fancy pen that she would like. And for her love of NYC and drama, a key chain from Broadway. Lastly, and probably the simplest but most fun, was a package of glow bracelets. Hope she saves them for her camping trips this summer with her friends. They would be perfect around the camp fire!

As for me, I'm plugging along with spring clean up around the office and the house. Have gardens in both places, so it's a bit of work every spring, but I do enjoy it. Love seeing the results of a neat clean yard, nice flowers and a lots of delicious organic vegetables. Just about finished with the clean up, still have some mulching to do but I think I'm ahead of the game this year thanks to the good weather. Need to stop by the town DPW for the free mulch...I'll take free any day. All the vegetables are already in the garden, hoping for an early corn crop again this year. Wishing everyone a happy spring, and my kids a good final push to the school year....keep those grades up and let me know if you'd like to visit some colleges this summer....be happy to take you around to see a few! Love and miss you both, and the other half of your family sends their love, hugs and kisses!

Well Happy New Year!

I know, I know, we're half way through January already and I'm just getting to the Happy New Year post. It was a crazy busy holiday this year, probably the busiest I've had in years, and it was great! Had stay-over company for nearly two weeks, did a lot of nearby traveling and visited with many of my friends and family in town. New Year's Eve was a lot of fun at a friend's house ~ all the younger children put on a special New Year's "Spectacular" Performance just after midnight, it was the cutest, funniest thing, reminded me so much of my kids. Perfect way to ring in the new year.

As promised on my Christmas post, here are the pics of the kids' Christmas gifts.

Now you know why it was hard to put up a photo ahead of time. It's pretty hard to disguise an acoustic guitar for my musical daughter and the family starter shotgun for my sports enthusiast son. You should have seen the size of the box I had to use to ship them both in together. Good thing my neighbor bought a really big deck box in the fall and had it shipped to his house...yep, recycling is a good thing, saves money. And yep, I had their gifts picked out and ready to go by the summer. I'm getting pretty good at planning ahead. You should have seen the look on the postal worker's face when I walked in to the post office to mail it. He laughed at why I would mail such a thing just a few miles away across town. We both got a good chuckle when I explained to him why. Seems everybody knows somebody who has gone through an ugly angry divorce, alas I'm never alone. I sure hope my kids enjoy their gifts. Would love to hear my daughter play something someday, and would love to take my son out for his first hunt. I'm sure they both know I'm just a phone call away.

And now it's mid-winter break time for my kids. Hope they have power at their house, with all this wind. Mine went out for a few hours this morning, but it's back on now. Both my kids are kicking butt in school this year. I'm so happy to see this, especially for my daughter. She really struggled the last few years, in some classes just barely passing at the end, but this year she actually has a 99 in trig going into mid-terms. I knew she could do it, just needed to buckle down and focus. Grades this year are super important to having choices with what you want to do in life after high school. Always best to have more choices than to limit yourself. My son, of course has always done well and continues to. I know he'll have lots of choices. I wonder what he's interested in after high school. He may not have even thought about it yet, he's just a freshman and really into sports, so I'm sure life after high school probably isn't even on his mind. Wishing them both the best of luck on mid-terms and regents. They've got a full week of exams ahead....study, rest and eat good! I'll know in a few weeks how they did.

In the mean time, think snow and enjoy the winter break! Too bad our Giants aren't in it this year, but I'm rooting for Baltimore. Who do you like? Love and miss ya both very much!