Two Peas In A Pod

Tottenham 4-1 FC Twente

On a rain soaked night under the lights, Spurs won their first ever Champions League game at White Heart Lane 4-1 over FC Twente. In my opinion, we really needed to win this game if we want to get out of this group. One draw and one win in our first two matches against the clubs that we are probably competing against for the second spot in the group is a great start.

There were spells during the game where we looked uncomfortable, mainly due to the large number of injuries we have at the back. We kept things together though and found ways to put them under pressure. I don't remember watching a game where we were awarded 3 penalty kicks, so that was a little bit surprising. I'd say 2 of them were decent calls. Since we missed one and scored on 2 of them, it all evened out anyway. The 4 goals scored and +3 goal differential was another major positive since it may come down to one of those tiebreakers.

Van Der Vaart was outstanding (even though he was given 2 yellow cards and ejected) as well Bale and Huddlestone. It's pretty clear to me considering our lineup and performance in the previous two games (league cup and league) that we are still focusing on the Champions League. This will sound odd, but I really don't care as much about the other cups this year and less about then league then last year. This season is all about enjoying our time (it will probably be brief) in the world's best club competition. In addition, I really hope we advance out of the group so that we aren't demoted to the Europa League and forced to play more matches. A perfect scenario would be to make the knockout round and have a good showing. After elimination (honestly, we aren't going to advance that far) we could focus on the Premier League in the spring and hope the other teams that may challenge for 4th spot are still tied up in the Europa League.

Next up we face Inter Milan, the defending champions, home and away. We can lose both these games (although we may be able to steal a draw at home) and still be in a comfortable spot as long as one of the other teams we've already played doesn't get 4 points out of the next two matches. I'll be pulling for draws or even a home win for each side. That would keep us in second spot with 2 games remaining.

We Have A Winner

Le Tour De Colorado

See Julia work the cycle...

Baby Laughs

We heard Jonathan laugh for the first time today. He's already been acting like a big cheese ball and smiling like crazy at Stacey and me for a few weeks now. Stacey was able to make him laugh with some side tickles and some funny faces. Good to see some more signs that he's good natured. We will try to get it on video if we can perfect the laughing conditions over the coming weeks.

We are enjoying this age a lot since Julia is on top of EVERYTHING and pretty much talks, or asks questions, or sings non-stop. No really, its non-stop. It's incredible the amount of words that come out of her mouth and what she remembers...so much so that we're starting to think that she's exceptionally intelligent. Well, at least way above average or maybe she's just a 3 year old girl. It's hard to tell the difference.

Foundation Painted

Today I finished priming and painting the foundation around the front of the house. Hopefully it hides the bare cement and the division between the siding and the foundation. I think it does mask it when you're not looking for it. So, don't REALLY look when you look - if you catch my drift. Along the driveway we need to put back the side door stairs or something else to break it up though.

I've also included a photo to remind us that autumn is right around the corner.

Early Signs...

...your kid isn't college material.

Old MacDonald

Jonathan The Bouncer

Short Order Cook

Making yummy pumpkin bread in my apron from Aunt Michelle...

PB and JJ

Believe it or not, the jelly and the jalapeno went well together...sweet and spicy. I couldn't really taste the peanut butter even though it was the perfect jalapeno "adhesive". All in all, it actually was pretty good.

Cubba Momma's Cute

Julia today: "Momma, I want to eat you (up)...cubba you're so cute!"

Aspen...For Cabin

Julia's First Email

At the cabin today Julia hopped on the computer to do some "very important work". She said "I'm on Facebook Momma" and then said "I want to email Umpa and Oma".

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Julia Bear The Mechanic

A few days ago Julia started pretending that she was a bear. At first she tried to scare me with her claws and constant "raaaawrs". Considering she's at that age where she'll play a game for hours and days on end, I told her after a few times that I was really scared of "Julia bear kisses". Well, now the game consists of her stalking me with her claws in the air, growling, and trying to kiss me. Of course, every time she kisses me (head, arm, back, wherever) I grab her and then flail around on the floor with her in my arms. She finds this hilarious, of course. I find it fun because I get free kisses and hugs from her and can usually sneak in a few tickles for good measure.

In related "news", Julia helped me fix my truck this afternoon. While I was changing my oil I discovered that the bracket that holds the tailpipe snug to the underside of my truck was completely rusted out. She helped me fix it with a new part. After I was done replacing the bracket she wanted to continue using the tools (screwdriver, hammer, pliers) on my truck while I went to water the flowers. She's smart and compliant enough to only use the tools on the areas I tell her she can (e.g. the hammer on the tires but not the wheels) - so, I don't worry she's going to hurt anything or herself. I watered the flowers in the front yard and went back to check on her in the garage. Without missing a beat, she looked up and said, "hey man!". That's not exactly the kind of greeting she usually gives me. She's already one of the boys...

I Really Depreciate The Effort

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Werder Bremen 2-2 Tottenham

Spurs opened their first Champions League campaign in decades tonight in Germany. In the end, I'm happy with a draw. I would have taken a draw before the game. Although we jumped out to a 2-0 lead and gave up 2 goals on either side of halftime, I think we put in a respectable performance. In 2 weeks time we host FC Twente. Since they and Inter Milan also tied 2-2 today, I think we probably need to win this next one if we want to advance out of the group stage. I'm assuming we'll get 0-1 points against Inter Milan in the next 2 games (home and away) after our match against against FC Twente.

I haven't posted much about the season lately, mainly because I'm still struggling to get into it. The major changes in my life probably didn't help, but it has more to do with the way the league schedule is set up. We played 3 games and then all leagues took 2 weeks off for international play (Euro 2012 qualifying, etc). The weather is still warm and we have another international break coming up the first full week of October too. I was relieved to hear Steven say today that the season doesn't really start for him either until after that break in October - at least I'm not the only one that feels this way.

In reality, this season is all about the Champions League. Even though some of the major candidates for the 4th spot have struggled out of the gate like we have, I don't expect 4th this year. It's pretty clear that we are going to try to compete on both fronts but that we are saving our best players in the rotation for the Champions League. We picked up Rafael Van Der Vaart from Real Madrid at the end of the transfer window - a really good signing for us in my opinion. Due to a recent rash of injuries, I'm glad we also picked up Gallas on a free - even if he played for our arch rivals in the past. Both players are veterans and both have played in a World Cup Final, so you know they are going to bring some positive things to the club even if it's only off the field.

Here's looking forward to the leaves changing color, the weather cooling off, and the season hitting its stride. It's supposed to stay in the mid to low 80s with a few days in the 70s pretty much until the end of the month. Rubbish! I'd take this weather in late January/early February though.

One-Off

Today is my one-month "last day at work anniversary". It's gone fast. I'm beginning to get a sense what retirement would be like...well, except for the whole 2 kids under 3 years of age thing. Speaking of...Julia just woke up from her nap as I sat down to type this post. Seriously, that was great timing. SO, I guess this will have to wait to finish this until after dinner tonight...

Things are going well in the Sudduth household. We've finally gotten past the first few weeks and are "getting into the groove". We've been able to do a lot of things together (see the other posts in this blog) and have a lot of things planned for the coming weeks. I think the first few weeks were always going to be slow - that is, it was always going to take a little bit of time to get adjusted and plan out the coming weeks/months.

Stacey and I have been able to do a lot of talking about our future plans. We've been open minded about pretty much everything - even whether or not this is the place where God wants us to be. Sometimes, having too many options makes things difficult. We can pretty much do what we want, which is a good thing, but sometimes it's better to not have many options. It makes the decisions easier. For right now, we're just kind of "being" and sticking to the original plan of me taking a few months off and then really looking for a job.

Personally, I'm holding up pretty well and enjoying this time. I think once I get started on my last major home improvement project I'll be occupied for awhile. When that's over and it's the dead of winter...that's when I think I'll wish I had somewhere I needed to be. For now we've got plenty of things planned to keep me busy though...

Cuddle Bugs

Goodnight Moon

I'm so glad I had my camera with us last night. I pulled over to the side of the road and took these pictures shortly after leaving my parent's house. Gorgeous. I haven't done any editing to the pictures...and since pictures never quite capture a scene in real life you can imagine how awesome it was to see this.

I took these pictures seconds before the moon disappeared behind Pikes Peak. Click on each one to see more detail. In the first picture you can make out the craters on the moon and the building at the top of the Pikes Peak. The second picture is a nice view of everything: the peak, the moon, and a house with the occupants presumably watching television. The third picture is a nice panorama of the entire scene.

...goodnight room, goodnight moon, goodnight cow jumping over the moon...goodnight little house...goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere. Where are you silly cow?

Happy 60th Birthday Dad

Happy 60th Birthday Dad! Here's to you and all that you mean to our family.

Although we've celebrated your birthday already, I thought you'd enjoy this card. The card isn't for you per se - my hope is that it just brings you some more smiles on your birthday!

Too Cute For Words

Manitou Incline

Today Stacey and Jonathan made it up the Manitou Incline for the first time. We dropped Julia off with my Mom as usual (on Wednesdays) and hit the trail at about 10 a.m. We went up the Incline but took the Barr Trail down. Round trip was about 5K - 2,000 vertical feet each way. Jonathan slept through most of the trip on the way up. On the way down he did a little sightseeing though. The top of the incline is at about 8,800 feet, so at the very beginning of the descent we had some good views of Pikes Peak. Not a bad way to spend your morning.

Coors Field

About 10 days ago I went to a Rockies game with some guys from Focus. The Rockies beat the Dodgers. I love Coors Field - so nice.

3 Months Old

Jonathan turned 3 months old today!

After breakfast we headed up to Rampart Reservoir for a hike and a picnic lunch. The trees are already turning color at that elevation. We hiked in and took in some food and scenery before heading back to the car. Julia wouldn't go potty in the trees and Jonathan pretty much slept the entire time. We'll post better pictures of Jonathan in the next few days so you can all see how much he looks like Stacey (and her Dad).

Soccer, T-Minus One Week

The adult outdoor soccer league starts one week from today. I've been practicing the past few Sundays with the team in preparation. The guys are very skilled - all played at least high school and some played D1 and D2 in college. It's fun to actually play with guys who know what they are doing. Unfortunately, I'm one of the younger guys. Most of the other guys are in their mid to late 30s - so speed, fitness, and endurance is a problem. Luckily we should have enough subs and can just rotate players in and out at will.

We'll see how it goes. Yesterday we practiced on a field that was 120 by probably 70 yards. It was huge so we only used 1/4 of it. I don't know how I'm even going to cope and I'm only 32 and in decent shape. A lot of the guys are probably better then I am - but I am faster and in better shape so it sort of evens itself out. Since we're starting in the third division I hope that means we're not going to play a bunch of kids right out of college! No matter how good we are, we'll probably get beat just because we won't be able to keep up. We should probably put the ambulance on standby.

Optimus Primed

I'm "primed" for my final outdoor project this summer. Today we hit up the 30% off Labor Day sale at Sherwin Williams and picked up some concrete primer (the white in the pictures) and a bunch of exterior paint that matches the house (gray, not yet painted).

For some reason John Laing decided to stop the siding on all of the houses in our neighborhood about 2 feet from the ground. On the houses that aren't stucco, bare cement is one of the exterior "features". Luckily for us, a gray house against gray cement is not as noticeable as some of the other houses that have color. Regardless, the houses lack a finished look because of it.

Here are the pictures of the large visible section after I've primed them. The goal here once painted is to hide the cement and make the house look like it actually goes all the way to the ground. The stucco houses provide a good example of what it will look like, so I know the outcome will be worth it. The third picture shows two houses across the street - one painted to the ground (stucco) and the other not. Once I finish this section I'll load a before and after shot so you can see the difference.

Fore "Closure"

Woo-hoo! The bank finally came today and changed the locks on the house across the street. I don't mean to sound happy at someone else's misfortune - I'm happy that this situation has finally been resolved. This has been going on for about 18 months at the property directly in view as I type this blog.

This wasn't a normal situation. The previous owner was not a nice neighbor. He (Kyle) would swear at his kids, liked a lot of beer, and liked loud rap music. You could hear this "playa" coming blocks away. I won't go into other things about him I've heard from other neighbors - let's just say everyone was glad when he left. In short, the owners got divorced in late 2008/early 2009 and she left the house. Kyle eventually walked away from the house at the start of last summer. The property sat vacant for a few months and then some shady characters moved in around August of last year. At first I wasn't sure if they were squatters. It turned out that they were friends of Kyle.

At this point things started to get weird. I noticed that lights were on the middle of the night, I wasn't sure they had the heat turned on, and they were piling all of their trash on the side of the house. What pushed me over the edge was the increase in unique traffic outside the house, usually for only a few minutes at a time. People would show up, be inside for a few minutes, and then leave empty handed. I assumed that he was dealing drugs - hopefully just weed and not cooking up meth or something else. At any rate, I didn't want to get directly involved if these really were shady characters. Eventually, the trash pile got so large that I was able to take some action and ding them on a "technicality" and to send a message. I typed up an anonymous letter asking them to move the trash "or else" and slipped it under their door mat. They didn't do anything about it so I contacted the city and a day or two later what looked like a policeman (code enforcement?) showed up, knocked on their door, and posted a notice. A week or two later they hauled away the trash. The trash wasn't so much an issue for me as letting them know they were being watched and that they couldn't just do whatever they wanted. For example, one morning I woke up and saw they had left a King Soopers shopping cart in their front yard. All this time, since the beginning of the year, I had been tracking license plate numbers and vehicle descriptions. Over the course of 3 months (December to February) I recorded about 25 different cars coming and going...about 2 a week from just what I saw. Of course, since I wasn't home all the time I'm sure a missed a lot of them. Later on I found out that other neighbors had noticed the same thing and had also suspected something going on.

The shady guys left a month or so after I reported them - around March. Since then, no one has been living there. I don't know what really happened, but I'd like to think it was because they knew they were being watched. In reality, it was probably that the house was pending foreclosure and that they needed to get out before that time. Well, at the beginning of August the house went up for auction and no one bought it (not surprisingly). Wells Fargo took possession of the house on August 11 (I have a realtor source) and today someone showed up to change the locks and start the clean up process. The curtains were taken down and I peeked inside after the guy left. In addition to a few items left behind, a big water bong had been left on the kitchen counter. I still think they were using other stuff too though. The good news is that the house looks in reasonably good shape. It's really true - from the time of the first missed payment the entire foreclosure process takes about a year to complete.

My hope is that someone decent ends up buying the house and moving in - ideally, a family. My wish is that it'll be someone who will keep their yard clean and green since it's what we have to look at. At the very least, for my and all the other families (many with small children) sake, we're just glad that we're finally rid of these shady characters.

The Game Plan

Now that I've had a couple of weeks off and some time to talk through things with Stacey, it's pretty clear to me that taking some time off was a good decision. On one end of the spectrum, I've been able to do things like clean and vacuum the mud from May 2009 out of my truck. On the other end of the spectrum, I've been able to spend a lot of time with Julia and grab coffee and go for walks with Stacey. Amazingly enough, I seem to have time for everything. Due to our "low overhead" position, Stacey's salary is going to be able to cover our month to month expenses including insurance. So, we could probably do this for quite a long time if we wanted.

The good news for everyone is that we aren't planning on doing this for an extended period of time. The plan right now is for me to take about 6 months off and then to start looking for a job. Around March 1 I'll hit the streets. If it takes 6 weeks or 6 months to find another job then that's just bonus time with the family. In the meantime, I'm going to stay busy with the family, playing soccer, and am going to tackle the last remaining indoor project on my list: crown molding. Oh, and GT5 comes out in November, so I've got plenty of things to keep me busy during the winter in addition to the holidays.

Most likely I will look for a military contractor position (like my neighbor's job). Really, I can't think of another job that I would be better qualified for and that would pay as much. You see, if I got a job like my neighbor (I have more experience and education then he did) then we could meet our financial goals very fast. Specifically, we could pay off our house in about 3 years. Also, that would give us options for Stacey's job too. If all goes according to plan, by the time Jonathan starts kindergarten we should be debt free and have a full time stay at home Mom.

We've had a lot of fun talking about our future these past few weeks. It's great to finally see our hard work, discipline, and blessings about to pay off.

The Family Handyman

For my birthday Michelle gave me a subscription to the "The Family Handyman". Believe it or not, the last issue I received in the mail addressed a repair project I was going to tackle in Julia's bathroom.

The linoleum was starting to peel up from the tub. This seems to be a common problem. Builders (or installers) take the linoleum all the way up to the tub and just glue it and caulk it down. Over time, water inevitably falls over the edge and causes the linoleum to peel back. Short of a major project involving new linoleum or putting in tile, the easiest/cheapest/simplest solution is to put some more caulk over the area and hope for the best. That was my initial idea.

That doesn't really sound like a long term solution nor effective. It's shocking to learn that a little bit of caulk isn't enough to hold down peeling linoleum (sarcasm added). The magazine recommended gluing a very expensive piece of corian over the area and caulking the seams. Instead, I picked up a $10 piece of nylon quarter-round at Home Depot and nailed it to the sub-floor. I caulked the seams and now have an attractive, cheap, and sealed edge that should last for a long time.