House Guests

Rachel and Ellie have joined us in Loveland for a few days. The boys are ready for Ellie to play football with them, and the cat seems to like the way she smells.

Here's a pic for Jim. (Eat your heart out, Daddy Mac.)

Win some, lose some

The boys each started their regular season schedules in football this weekend.

Zach's team got off to a good start on Saturday, as they thumped the Sharonville Eagles 31-20. They had a good lead for most of the game, which was good for the kids as a lot of the 2nd teamers played a lot. It was also tough on Zach, because the kid who usually swaps into his spot on the offensive line was not at the game. So, I think Zach played every snap of the 2nd half (offense and defense). He made his first real tackle while playing defensive end, which was a nice one for a five yard loss. He also went in for a series as a half back. And on the first play of that series, they called the one play in which he gets the handoff, but on that play the QB fumbled the ball and they lost possession.


Cole's team wasn't quite as lucky on Sunday. They fell in a heartbreaker to the Kings Knights 7-6. They had the lead up until about 1:30 left in the game, as Kings marched down the field on their last possession and scored to tie it at 6-6, and then pushed in the extra point to take the lead. The Tigers got about half way to the goal in their last drive, but ran out of clock. Cole got to play some D-line, nose guard and tackle. He likes to play the those spots even though he's usually the smallest guy on the line.

I'll follow up with some pics also.

The First Win of the OH HS Football Season

I don't usually cover HS football here on the What's Happening, but I had to relay this news item. The first win of the OH High School Football Season goes to .....the Loveland Tigers. Loveland played the first OH HS football game of 2007 and beat the Roger Bacon Spartans 10-7 on a FG with 10 seconds to go in the game.

Pam & the kids and I went to the Skyline Crosstown Showdown at Princeton HS to watch the game. The Loveland Youth Football org sold tickets as a fundraiser, so there were a couple hundred or more youth footballers running all over the stands. It was blazing hot for the 6:00 start, but the Tigers played well and scored 10 points in the 2nd half to take the victory.

A Tough One

Zach's Loveland Tiger football team had another pre-season game Saturday. They took on a tough squad from Kings, and the Knights gave them all they could handle. The good news is the Tigers didn't lose, but the bad news is they didn't win either. It was a back and forth game that ended in a 13-13 tie. That's a big deal, because Zach's team won every game they played last year. I'm pretty certain the coaches will have some extra work for the kids in practice this coming week.

(Cole suits up for his first game on Sunday morning.)

Zach's Football Debut

Zach enjoyed his first formal game on Saturday, although it was technically a preseason game. Zach's Tigers took on the New Richmond Packers in the "Death Valley Bowl" at Mt. Healthy, which is about 30 minutes from Loveland. It wasn't quite Death Valley but it was close to that hot. It didn't seem to bother the kids too much. The Tigers rolled over the Packers 28 - 0. They were up 20-0 midway through the first half.

Zach got to play offensive and defensive guard (he's the 2nd biggest kid on the team.) He did a good job and thought it was fun, because he could hit the other team as hard as he could (as opposed to practice where they tell them to take it easy quite often.) Hopefully he'll continue to like it as he's got a game every weekend for the next 2 months.

(Cole's first game will be next weekend.)

My Running Partner

Some of you who read this site were kind enough to give me some Amazon gift certificate $$ for my birthday. I used that head start to buy my Garmin Forerunner 305. It's my full time running partner.

It has built in GPS so that is tracks my position and speed during my runs. It can tell me how far I've run, how fast, etc. This version also has a heartrate monitor that works with it (unlike my old 205 model), so I know how close I am to having a heart attack (just kidding). When I get home from my runs, I can download all of the workout data to my pc and track my progress (or lack of progress) over time. The picture here is a map of my route on the run I took today near our house - click on it for a bigger version.

It's not helping my get any faster, but it's definitely a fun gadget to fool around with and makes the runs a bit more fun. Dad has the older 205 model that I bought for him a while back and he uses it on his bike rides. (If anyone would use my old 205, let me know. It's just gathering dust right now.)

Cousin Ellie's First Baseball Game

Cousin Ellie went to her first baseball game last night. Much to her dad's enjoyment, she got to see the Nationals beat up on the Reds as the Nats were in the midst of a 3 game sweep of the suddenly again hapless Redlegs.
Jim better take her to another game soon against the Mets or Braves, because I'm afraid Ellie will start to get the impression that the Nats are a decent baseball team.




















I believe that's Griffey Jr. striking out in the background.

R U Ready for Some Football?

Football practice has started for both Cole and Zach. Cole's in week #2 and Zach started this week, and of course it's nice and hot and humid.

Below is the game schedule for Zach's team.

			Game
Date	Type	Location	Time
Aug 11	Death Valley Bowl	Mt. Healthy	4:30 PM
Aug 18	CYFL Preview Game	LYF Field	10:30 AM
Aug 25	CYFL Week 1	LYF Field	5:30 PM
Sep 1	Tiger Bowl	LYF Field	10:00 AM
Sep 8	CYFL Week 2	Milford	4:15 PM
Sep 15	CYFL Week 3	LYF Field	12:30 PM
Sep 22	CYFL Week 4	Lakota	1:45 PM
Sep 29	CYFL Week 5	LYF Field	12:30 PM
Oct 6	CYFL Week 6	Kings	4:15 PM
Oct 13	CYFL Week 7	TBD	TBD
Oct 20	CYFL Week 8	TBD	TBD
Oct 27	CYFL Week 9	TBD	TBD

Here's the link to Zach's Team's webpage. It should stay up to date with any schedule changes.


We don't have a full schedule for Cole's team yet, but his games will be on Sundays. Will post them when we get them. Here's the link to the (so far mostly empty) site for Cole's Team.