It's now a five game contest. Two months ago Spurs had an outside chance to win the title...now, with five games remaining, fourth place and a spot in the Champions League is up for grabs. When you only win one of the last eight, you drop like a rock in the standings.
I really don't know what went wrong. The timing of our manager being linked to the vacant England National Team position coincided with our recent poor run, but I can't believe that's the only reason we've been playing so poorly. At this point we're still in a decent position with five games to go, since we play the teams in 15th through 18th place in four of our last five games. We have by far the easiest schedule compared to Newcastle and Chelsea and they still have to play each other.
However, the recent run of poor results doesn't fill me with confidence, meaning this race is far from over. I think most supporters have given up the dream of finishing higher then Arsenal, the FA Cup trophy, and third place. The FA Cup and a Champions League spot are still real possibilities, and if so, the season should be viewed as a big success. It's just harder to accept since we were flying so high for almost two thirds of the season.
We celebrated Easter over at my parent's house this year. As soon as we arrived, the hunt was on. Both of the kids were really cute, but we all got a good laugh watching Jonathan's reaction to finding an egg. Although the video is a bit long, it's worth watching all the way through. The kids are both getting pretty big.
This Easter was a lot more fun then last year, considering we spent the holiday last time in the hospital.
This is what happens when Julia gets a hold of the Toys R Us advertisement in the Sunday paper. She pulled it out of the stack, sat down, and flipped through the pages. Every once in awhile she would point out something that she wanted, but when she saw this doll it was a different story. I was pretty surprised that she wanted a doll, since she hasn't been interested in dolls up to this point.
The next day Stacey took her the store to look at other dolls, but she still wanted this one. This doll came with a sippy cup, soap dispenser, and little toilet with sound effects. We'll see how long she plays with her "princess and potty" doll and if it's ever elevated to "B" status. Here are pictures of the first night. As you can see, the doll has already joined the "inner circle" of stuffed animals and blankets that are allowed to share Julia's pillow each night.
Julia decided that we should be rabbits while we were eating lunch. So, she and I munched on our food with our big front teeth and lapped up our water with our tongue. After a few minutes of eating like rabbits she looked outside and yelled, "Oh no! Hide! Here come the creditors!" After having a good laugh, I had to explain that the word she was trying to use started with the letter "p", not the letter "c"...
80 degree weather on a Saturday in March can only mean one thing...yard work! It only took an hour or two without my shirt on to get a minor sunburn on my back. Gray states, eat your heart out.
It's been two years since we landscaped the backyard. Over that time it became clear that the sprinkler arrangement wasn't perfect, leaving certain areas of the lawn too dry to grow grass. The large area was behind the garage and a smaller area, right off the patio. Behind the garage the grass wouldn't grow because it was too hot against the cement foundation and the sprinklers below couldn't reach that high. The small area by the patio just wasn't getting water because of the way the sprinkler heads were arranged.
My hope was that I could solve both problems in one shot. I moved the grass area away from the back of the garage. This should fix that problem area. I also swapped out the 180 degree heads for fully adjustable ones. By moving the head closest to you in the pictures forward and adjusting the spray to shoot back just barely past the gutter drain, I'm now dumping some serious water on the other problem spot. In fact, it looks like that area might now be one of the wettest in the backyard. That's a good thing since it's also a high traffic area.
I'm pretty happy that I didn't need to add another sprinkler head, just move the current ones. If not for one of the new edging spikes hitting and breaking a connector, the project went pretty well. We've got to add a few minor things, like window well covers for the kids and decorate the backyard, and then we'll be done.
Today Julia started her first Soccer Buddies class. Although she didn't want to play at first (more tears because she was scared) she eventually warmed up and had a great time. Keep an eye out for the gray pants. I put together this highlight reel of her first class for any scouts that may be following the blog...
I thought about it some more and decided to chisel off the plumbing epoxy and leave a plug. I also decided to use two PVC collars for the most permanent solution short of cutting into the pipe. Thanks to Josh for suggesting this idea (cutting off the ends of a connector for a perfect fit). I used way too much glue on purpose.
This is going to require hollowing out the back of the new sheet rock because the pipe now sticks out a quarter of an inch, but that should be okay. Better that then a leaking pipe. I'm probably going to have to paint the closet and re-mount the shelves to cover up my first ever attempt at drywall.
I've included a picture of cute kids, because otherwise this would be a really lame post.
