Baseball, Kitten, and sailing
May through August
By: Jennifer Stillman
In May, we decided to volunteer to host a baseball player for the Brazos Valley Bombers. A few days before the season started we were told that we were going to host a pitcher from Arkansas. Arkansas was hosting a regional, so we went to the meeting thinking we weren't bringing a player home. At the last minute, they decided to send us home with a red shirt freshman from Rice University, Doug Simmons. We borrowed a bed from our neighbor and put it in our spare bedroom. He stayed with us for about two months. It was definitely interesting to have a teenager live in the house. One thing that we learned was that we couldn't have enough milk in the house.
The bombers had an excellent season for it being their inaugural season. They made it into the playoffs. As a host family, we were given complimentary season tickets. They were great seats. Unfortunately, Doug didn't play as well as he was hoping to. He ended up playing an inning or two every two to three games. Anyway, we are glad that we had the experience and if we're not into a boat by this time next year, we'll probably do it again. (Let's hope not!!)
For the last game of the regular season Scott
was First pitch thrower outer guy. Also, before the home play-off
game, I won a Bomber blue topaz necklace.
We had a more permanent addition to the family on July 1st. We returned home from an afternoon Sunday Bomber game and our neighbor Judy came rushing over to tell us that there was a Siamese kitten in her wood pile. So of course Scott, being the manly man that he is, went over to rescue the kitten. The kitten was more flea than kitten and was close to deaths door. The kitten was so young we couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. So for a while, we called it Sharkbait or Ivy. Finally, after Scott took him to the vet we found out that... it's a boy!! So, obviously we didn't (and neither did Doug or Judy) want to name him Sharkbait, so we now have Quinn. He is a hyperactive kitty, that loves to chew on everything. I suppose that is better than scratching on everything, considering that our new (04) furniture still looks rather new.
Grant Wolf invited us to go sailing again in early August. So, we joined him for a ride to Kemah. On the way he asked if it was okay that we went on a buddy's 38 footer instead of his 35 footer. As we just wanted to go out on the water we said sure. Martin was a gracious host. Since we mainly bobbed instead of sailed (there was no wind) he left his generator running so that we could go below and sit in the air conditioning. That is definitely a nice feature for this Texas heat. Chris and Hayley Scotti also joined us for the afternoon bob. A great time was had by all.
And finally for our summertime activities, we spent the day in Kemah looking at marinas. I had a continuing education class in Houston on Friday the 24th. As this was two days after Scott's birthday, I told him he could do his annual mope on Friday while I was in class. As it turned out, while I was in class he want down to Kemah/Seabrook and scoped out marinas. So when he picked me up from class, he already had all the brochures for the various marinas. We drove down to Kemah, ate dinner at Pappadeax's, and found a place to stay. The place probably only deserves 1/2 a star. I did not get a good night's sleep. (Also, I had forgotten my tiger that I sleep with every night.) Anyway, on Saturday morning we went to look at the marina's together. By noon, I believe we both agreed that it was time to head back home. It was very nice to dream about where our boat will live (for a little while) and about how our guests will be able to come join us for a day sail, or a weekend.
By Scott
I looked at a bunch of marina's but we ended up narrowing it down to 4. Surprisingly there was a tie for first and second so listed below are the first tier and second tier marinas.
Tying for First tier is:
Both have good amenities, nice access, are easy to give directions to, floating docks, and nice management.
Tying for Second tier is:
Lacking some amenities or far away. Not quite as nice.
The other's either didn't have the beam for our dream or the manager's sucked.
Change
In the spirit of "we're going sailing" we have made some changes in our lives.
We have disconnected our home phone. For those of you who want to call us use the cell phones. We hooked up the laptop with a cell card and have about the same speed as DSL. Yea team Stillman.
We also found out that we were watching way too much TV preventing us from getting off our asses and finishing house projects. We disconnected that too.
Revised: August 26, 2007
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