He's In

Friday night, my dad was inducted into the Oak Hills High School Hall of Fame. I am so proud of him! My brother and two nephews were able to make it down for the event. It was great to see them! It was also so good to see folks from church, some guys who used to wrestle for dad, and even a former MatScot (OHHS wrestling "cheerleader" responsible for cheering, score keeping, stats, etc.). There were at least 20 people that came on Dad's behalf to share in this moment. As he was being congratulated by his former wrestlers, my dad, in his incredible humbleness, said this award was because of them. If they hadn't won, he wouldn't be getting all this attention. While that is somewhat true, if they didn't have a great coach that knew how to coach and motivate them to be the best, they probably wouldn't have had the success they (and he) had. Congratulations, Dad! We love you!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

...except when I'm driving to/from work...

We were allowed to leave work an hour early yesterday as a winter storm was moving in and had dropped snow and was bringing ice later. I made it home with no trouble. Well, it rained/sleeted for most of the night. I started about 6:30 a.m. this morning and could not get up the hill on our street. I saw the plow come through, then decided to try again. This time, even worse results. I then got word that our company was not going to open until 10:00 a.m. I decided to try again about 7:45 a.m. and, after backing all the way down the street, got a running start and made it! The roads were not good. Oh, by the way, it had started snowing by now, too. Big flakes, then it was snowing like crazy...about an inch per hour. Fortunately for us, it stopped by late morning. Now, the sun is out (occasionally), and the road crews should be able to make some progress by the time I'm ready to head back home (actually by the time they let me go home). Everything looks beautiful, though!

Thank you, Jesus, that I still have a job to go to during days like this (or any day for that matter)!

Homeschooling

As I indicated in our "Christmas card," we made the tough decision to take Livvi out of her 2nd grade public school situation mid-term and would finish out the year homeschooling her. Heather and I are big proponents of public schools and this was in no way a bad reflection on our schools. In fact, we moved to this area BECAUSE of the great schools. However, due to limited resources at this grade level, Livvi wasn't getting the extra work she wanted or we thought she deserved. She was pretty much bored most of the day.

On January 5, Heather began teaching Liv at home. She did extensive research and chose the Ohio Virtual Academy. Unlike the stereotypical home school experience, OHVA provides pretty much everything you need (curriculum, books, workbooks, art supplies, computer, printer, etc.). It is pretty fantastic (at least what we've seen so far)! It is technically a public school where Livvi has to check in with a teacher periodically (online), but Heather is the one teaching her. She has control of the spin placed on the curriculum. They go at a pace that is comfortable for Liv. She can go as fast or as slow as she wants. In addition to the assigned curriculum, Tae Kwon Do, Wii Fit, etc. counts as gym time, reading before bed counts as reading time, watching things like our DVD of Schoolhouse Rock counts as learning, etc.

The challenge in all this is Heather NEVER gets a break! She is either teaching Livvi or she is entertaining Joie. We've had offers of help and we may start to accept. It is a very difficult thing for a mom to give 100% of her attention to BOTH kids all the time. However, being a good mom, that is exactly what Heather wants to do. Livvi is learning a LOT. In fact, I would venture a guess that she's learned more in the last 8+ days than she has over the last 6 months-to-a-year. Please keep Heather in your prayers as she definitely has the harder job in our family. She would like to post an update on this from her perspective, but finding the time is the problem. Stay tuned!!

Livvi's a Red Belt

We are more than happy to have our kids try all kinds of activities (and we encourage it). Olivia has danced, played soccer, played t-ball, and done gymnastics, and all were fairly short-lived. She started in Tae Kwon Do October 23, 2006 in the 4-and 5-year old class. When she turned 6, she moved up to the 6-and 7-year old class. She really loves TKD and seems to do really well at it. Late Monday afternoon, she was the first in her class to earn a red belt. The only belt higher is the Lil' Dragons All-star belt (you can't get a black belt at this age level). We are so proud of her accomplishment and her determination to stick with something she loves and excel at it. Congratulations, Livvi! We love you!!

Frank Shaut, Sr. - OHHS Hall of Fame

My dad has received many awards and much (deserved) recognition over the years. He will get to add another accolade to the list when he will be inducted into the Oak Hills High School Hall of Fame on Friday, January 30 around 7:00 p.m. While my brother and I agree this is WAY overdue, our whole family is so happy and proud of him. Here is the official press release from OHHS. In addition to being an outstanding wrestling coach at Oak Hills, he actually helped coach the University of Cincinnati team while he was on it, as the head coach, Glenn Sample, was pretty new to the sport. A collegue of mine found this UC Paper from March 22, 1962 online. See page 10 - viewer discretion is advised :-)! He is also in the UC Hall of Fame.

While he is appreciative of the recognition, he is very embarrassed by it and would probably prefer to not be recognized for the most part. Nevertheless, I love it and wish he'd get more. In fact, while he has had many sports-related accomplishments, I would love for him to get recognized for the stuff he's done since he stopped coaching in 1974. I'm not even talking about his time as a great assistant principal and principal, but rather his seemingly tireless love and service to his Lord. He helped start a church in 1978 (New Covenant Christian, later changed name to Oak Hills Christian) with a team of people who, over time, left the church for whatever reason. There were times (years) when he was the only elder in the church and was soooo involved over the years. People kept giving up while both of my parents stuck it out and did whatever they could. There were times of great rejoicing as well as times of many tears and wonders of what God had planned for them and this small church (down to about 40 people at one point). After years of praying that God would send people to our church, we got up to about 100-150 or so and in 2004, we merged with another church of similar size (maybe a tad bigger) and changed our name to iMPACT. Combined we were about 250-300 each Sunday. We now have three services (one of which is on Saturday evening) and are getting consistently over 400 people each week (Note, they attend all three services each week, if possible). He's still praying for more (unsaved) people and now we have the good "problem" of trying to figure out where to put them! :-) Praise the Lord!

I hope I wasn't rambling. I didn't intend to go into all that (and there is PLENTY MORE), but it just seemed a natural progression from what I set out to do initially.

Dad, forgive me for posting this as I know on some level you don't like it, but you and Mom deserve so much recognition for stuff outside of sports. I hope you know MANY people love and appreciate you two for your love of Jesus and His church here at iMPACT. I happen to be one of them!

Wii Are Family

With some of the Christmas money we received, we decided to go ahead and get something we've wanted for a while that might also help us get a little more active. We purchased a hard-to-find Nintendo Wii system last weekend and are having fun with it. It came with the sports package (Tennis, Golf, Baseball, Bowling, and Boxing) and that is pretty much all we've done. We got Wii Music a couple of days ago, but we really haven't gotten to use that one much (yet).

There is one part I don't like: Isn't a father supposed to be better in sports than his 7 year-old daughter? It is somewhat humbling to know Livvi has beaten me on more than one occasion in bowling, baseball, tennis, and, yes, boxing. I just have to keep telling myself that it is just an electronic game and that in really life, it would be different. Right?!

I'm currently sitting here watching Heather beat the holy crap out of Livvi in boxing. There is something about seeing a mother beat her child in the ring. Nice, Heather, nice! In fact, I just boxed Heather, too, and there was a similar result: me face down on the mat.

Joie has also gotten into it a little as well (as best as she can). Boxing is about the only thing she can do. She can punch and put a hurtin' on some of the computer opponents. In fact she won at least two matches. Here is a clip of her with a virtual punching bag.

By the way, at the end of the video, after Heather asked if she could play, Jo's response was cut off. Any guesses? You got it. She said "No!"