Autumn is approaching

As the title of this entry says, I'm afraid that summer is on it's way out and autumn is just around the corner. That's not totally bad news, we're all back to school/work and getting back into the whole getting up early, doing homework, etc rhythm of things. But, the very best part of autumn arriving- football season! The first game of my alma mater, the University of South Florida is next Saturday and I can't wait to watch it. The football team at Joey's school (it's a kindergarten through 12th grade school, so kids of all ages come to the football games but only the high schoolers actually play) started their season with a win last night. I've convinced John and Joey to give up their regular Friday boys nights out at the gun range when there's a home game at Joey's school, so we'll get to go to 4 or 5 of the games. Joey is hoping to help with the filming of the games (so the players can make highlight films to send to colleges), partly so he can avoid sitting with me during the game- I get really, really involved and tend to scream...a lot...when our team is doing well. I can't help it, I love watching football.
Another cool thing that I've been enjoying lately is that I've reconnected with three of my best friends from high school (Doug, Wojo and Dianne) on Facebook. I've been talking to them on Facebook a couple times a week, and last week I posted some pictures of our graduation (in 1987!) there and everyone chatted about them for most of the evening. We were working on getting together at a dinner at Capogna's Dugout hosted by the class after ours (CHS '88), but it's the same day that I'm having my parathyroid surgery next week so I had to decline. We might go next month instead, it sounds like many of the class of 88 folks have dinner at Capogna's every month and don't mind of other classes join them.
Joey is doing well at school, so far the homework load in 7th grade is much lower than it was last year. He's working on the school TV news show as one of his classes. He's the only middle schooler there, everyone else is a high school student. He says that he runs all three cameras during the live show, I'm not sure how that works but he seems to really enjoy it.
I'll probably be back to post another entry after my surgery on Thursday, I have five days off of work to recouperate so I'll have plenty of Internet time- yay, that beats working any day!

Busy Saturday

We had a very full (but fun) day today, but first I wanted to post a picture of Joey's new hair color. It's a little hard to see, but he got blonde highlights in his hair on Thursday. Our regular hairdresser did it once, and you couldn't see ANY blonde- his hair is so dark and thick that it takes a ton of dye to show up at all. So, she abandoned the highlighting cap with the carefully chosen bits of hair dyed and just painted the blonde dye on with a brush- this picture is the result. He really likes it, and when we saw a girl from his school that evening she loved it- so that's all that matters to him! On to our day- today we took our 15 year old dachshund Brina to the vet for her yearly exam, and the vet declared her amazingly fit for a geriatric...always good news! After that, we went to the 1st anniversary celebration at the Armed Forces Military Museum in Largo- they had lots of refurbished military vehicles in the parking lot (that's one that Joey is posing in front of...apparently it's bad form to smile while touching a gun, because I couldn't get a smile out of him when the camera was out.) They also had folks walking around the museum is authentic uniforms from different time periods, with historically accurate guns. Joey loved that- he talked with several of them, it's amazing how much he knows about military history. After that, we went to a really shady looking Army/Navy surplus story in Tampa- so shady that the storefront is covered in burglar bars, broken glass, duct tape, and decades of junk. But, our neighbor told us it was a cool place so we checked it out. They had everything in the world there, including stacks and stacks of circa 1974 kids blue jeans, plaid pants from the same era, men's shirts from even earlier- all new with original tags. None of it was Levis, or I would have snatched those vintage jeans up. John and Joey found a bunch of military surplus stuff that they loved, so we left with a bagful. After that, we went to the historical Ybor City section of Tampa and went shopping at the vintage shops there (Joey got a great camo & skull t-shirt, his favorite look) and John got a pressed Cuban sandwich for dinner (Joey and I waited on the shrimp on the grill that John promised to make at home!) We walked around Ybor for a long time, but once it started pouring rain we made a dash for the parking garage and headed back to our side of the Bay. We had plans to go to a big motorcycle show/concert at a park in Largo, but we were so worn out that we just enjoyed the shrimp that John made and relaxed! I'm glad we got to enjoy such a full day out today, as summer is screeching to an end- I go back Monday and Joey starts school on Wednesday. I guess that means that my days of staying up playing on Facebook until 2AM and sleeping in until 10 are over until next summer- but it will be nice to get back to work, and into the swing of 7th grade (!) for Joey.