Gavin's Birthday Party

Boy, time is sure flying between these blog posts. My apologies to those of you that still check back on a regular basis for not posting new material more frequently. But, ya know. Life happens.

We hosted Gavin's 5th birthday party on Sunday. It was a much smaller crowd than usual, with the Posadni's out of town, Scott and Jessica attending a Hewitson family birthday, and all of the Schreiner Goons grown up and out of the nest. A mere 14 people in attendance. Minimal numbers by Welch standards.

The numbers didn't matter. What did matter was that the birthday boy (Gavin) had his cousin Ryan there, along with Mema, Papa, Gramma, Grandpa, and lots of Star Wars stuff! The makings of a perfect party. Not to offend the rest of those in attendance, but you know the priorities of a 5 year old. Donna and I appreciate you coming.

This was the first year that the August weather had us huddled in the garage as we dodged periodic raindrops, but noone seemed to mind or let it dampen any of the fun.

The feared Darth Gavin made an appearance, along with his apprentice Darth Izzy. The loyal guests weren't scared off, and those that stuck around got to enjoy the Darth Vader pinata.

Editorial Note: When did they start making pinatas with pull strings? Talk about a disappointment. I was so looking forward to some dizzy kids with a wiffle-ball bat. Pulling strings one by one to see who gets the lucky string that opens the pinata is so anti-climactic. Anyway, back to the blog....

The evening was topped off the presentation of the donut cake (5 dozen donuts). A special request of the guest of honor. I stuck with the Star Wars theme, and made a valiant effort to recreate R2-D2 in pastry. I'll let you be the judge as to my success. The good news was, that whatever it looked like had nothing to do with how good it tasted. Yummy!!
Another great family gathering, and another birthday into the books. Gavin spent the following day in a "new toy" after-glow, so I will take that as a definite sign of a good birthday. Now, we are off for a weekend camping, then kindergarten starts on Wednesday. Where did this summer go?!?!

5

Gavin turned five on Friday. Happy Birthday, Little Buddy. From the palm of my hand, to Kindergarten, in the blink of an eye. My little boy is five. Time is flying.














In 2005, I made one of the best decisions of my life. At the time, I was working in a Management role, and burning the candle at both ends. Long hours, late nights, high stress, impossible workload, and we had Gavin in the house, and Isabelle on the way. After many long nights of toiling over the decision, I finally decided to choose what was right for me, and right for my family, and walked away from my Management role. I needed to have the time and mindset to be a father, while my family was still at the age that they cared about having a father around. EVERYTIME I think about making that decision, I smile.

And now, Gavin is 5. And in the last three years, I have countless, irreplaceable memories of times spent as a father, playmate, educator, jungle gym, role model, healer, and coach. And now, as my 5 year old heads off to Kindergarten, I am as excited as he is with the anticipation of the experiences, and memories, that we will get to share and live together.

Happy Birthday Gavin. I love you Buddy.

Racing in Rochester

The action was fast paced. The crowds were heavy, and screaming at every turn. The racers put on an incredible show. Nope, I didn't spend the weekend at Watkins Glen with the NASCAR folks, I stayed right here in Rochester for the fifth annual Rochester Twilight Criterium Professional Cycling race. For those not familiar with cycling, a criterium is like a NASCAR road course on bikes. Around 80 cyclists do about 20 laps of a course a little greater than a mile with top speeds around 45mph. There's bumping, there's pushing, there's drafting, and even crashes. Only when these guys fall, they don't have a car around them for protection.

To have an event on the Professional Cycling calendar held in Rochester each summer is just incredible. What an experience to be able to take in year, after year. Each year it is held, it grows bigger and better than the last in both the caliber of the racers attending, and the quality of the overall event organization. This year, me and the Bob's (Anderson and Welch) headed downtown in time to catch the start of the Men's Masters event. Now, before you start dreaming of a bunch of gray haired men riding around in spandex, in cycling, Masters Class is age 35 and up. So the racing was still very fast, and very well contested. A friend of mine from work raced in the event, and it was great to cheer him on all the way to the finish. He's the one in black.


The event dealt with on and off rain throughout the night, but it did nothing to dampen the action of the races, or the enthusiasm of the spectators. The evening even treated us to a rainbow over the racecourse to set the right spirit for the event.

Once the rainbow faded into darkness, the Men's Pro race kicked off around 8:30pm, under the lights. Oh yeah. As if the event itself wasn't crazy enough, the Pro's race it after dark. And, on Saturday night, they also raced it in the rain. Not the best of conditions, but being true professionals, they still gave us an amazing event. Criterium races offer an opportunity to get right into the cycling action. If you want to test your nerves, try standing on a corner as 80 cyclists pass just inches by you at 45 mph. Not sure it's fast? Check out the videos I took as a sample (yes, that is Bob Welch hanging his head out there to test his mettle).




Me and the Bob's hung in as long as we could, but decided to pack it in around 10pm when the heavy rains started. Didn't matter, we had a blast, and can't wait until next year. We talked about our amazement of the event, the racing, the quality, and how lucky we are to have it right here in Rochester, all the way home.

I am already booking my calendar for next year's race. You should too.

Juicy-Juice

That's what Isabelle named the skunk that spent the day in our garage yesterday. Don't know where the name came from, but she's two, and really cute, so who can argue? I much prefer Gavin's name of Stinky Pete. Seemed much more appropriate both in physical attributes, and in actions based on the mess he made in my garage.
We must have left our garage door open a little too late on Monday night, and Stinky Pete came in to nose around. Well, we ended up trapping him in the garage for the night when we closed the door, and I discovered the after effects of his efforts to get out when I came out for my morning ride Friday. In poking through the piles of insulation to try and determine what had happened, I stumbled across Stinky Pete's tail. That's all I needed to see. Out of the garage I went!

Not wanting to spend the entire day avoiding the garage while he caught a leisurely nap in my insulation, I called the Town of Greece Animal Control for advice. They were very helpful, and told me that it is actually very difficult to get a skunk to spray. They said I should just take a broom handle and poke Stinky Pete a few times to wake him up, and he should move along. Ummmmm, nah. There is something in my internal wiring that just makes it physically impossible for me to walk up and poke a sleeping skunk with a stick. Besides, I couldn't help but think in the back of my mind that this is how Animal Control Officers have fun. Telling innocent civilians to poke skunks, and then laughing as they go back to their ham 'n cheese sandwich, knowing that I will be taking a tomato juice and vinegar bath in about 20 minutes.

Seriously, Animal Control was very nice, and agreed to come out and try and remove Stinky Pete for me. Didn't work. He tried, but just ended up spooking the little skunk further into the wall, where we didn't have anything but the "business end" to work with. We both decided it would be best to just wait him out. So, wait I did.

Mano e skunko. It was going to be a long day. I had already covered the threshold of the garage door with flour (master skunk hunters trick), so I could see Stinky Pete's tracks if he snuck out when I wasn't watching. And, at the advice of Animal Control, I constructed a nice "guiding" path to the outside to make sure he didn't do any additional exploring of the garage once he woke up. Then, it was just a waiting game.

I checked on him every hour or so, to make sure he was still tucked in snug and warm. By dinner time, Donna was even commenting that she might miss him a little when he was gone, as he was almost part of the family now. Then, once the sun was down, success! The hole in the wall was empty, and tracks leading out of the garage.

An exciting day that I don't want to repeat, with, thankfully nothing to show for it but a bag of ruined insulation, and some lasting stories.