Drew played his second game of the season tonight. Here he is on the way to first with an RBI in the background on the way home.

I love this photo. Drew was playing third and there was a popup just over his head. It wound up dropping before he could get it (it wasn't hit very high) but Drew made a great effort for the ball.

Drew displaying perfect form getting his body in front of a ground ball, taking a knee and watching the ball into his glove.

Drew throwing the ball in that he just fielded in center field.

This series of three photos shows why it is so important to get in front of ground balls. This was a really hard hit grounder that went right up the middle to Drew in center field.

Unfortunately, the ball took a wicked hop right before it got to Drew.

Drew, having perfectly gotten in front of the ball, sacrifices his body to stop the ball and prevent the runner from getting extra bases. Ouch!

Drew in the dugout.

Baseball fan Will taking in the game.

Landon sitting in Mama's lap learning all about baseball and cheering on his oldest brother.

Last night Landon declared himself King of the Dinner Table. I think he'll be a benevolent dictator.

Tonight was a chilly and dreary start to Drew's baseball season. But, it all ended well with Drew playing center field and pitcher, hitting 2 for 3, and winning the game 18 to 15 in 3 1/2 innings. Go Bearcats! This is Drew just about to get one of his hits.

Drew running to first. There was a mix-up and the uniform shop sent us t-shirts instead of jerseys. So, we got free t-shirts out of the deal and should have jerseys by the next game. It was so cold Drew was wearing sweats under his uniform pants and two long sleeve shirts and a sweatshirt under his team t-shirt. After the game, Drew said just his right hand was cold.

Drew scoring a run...

...just ahead of the throw home.

This is a series of photos of Drew fielding a grounder hit to him when he was playing pitcher. Notice the rocking awesome glove. It was my glove about 38 years ago!

Mama went to run an errand today and I was left in charge of the boys for a short time. No problem. I had two downstairs and one upstairs, all safely occupied and well monitored. I was bouncing back and forth between floors and had been upstairs for just a few minutes when I came down to this. I have no explanation.

From back to front these three Apple fanboys are, Drew on an iPhone 4, Landon on an iPhone 3 and Will on an iPad 2. I don't think it's too far off to say that Steve Jobs sells crack...metaphorically speaking of course.

Mary and the boys returned from their trip to Kansas City late tonight and, suffice it to say, the boys were exceptionally tired. Landon was asleep in the car and woke up briefly on the way in only to go right back to sleep when laid down on the couch. Will walked in under his own power but just barely made it to the couch before he completely passed out, something I've never seen one of our three boys do before. Drew was equally exhausted but managed to make it up to bed like a trooper.

This weekend we all drove up to Kansas City to visit the cousins. On the way up we stopped for a break as a relatively new rest stop 40 miles north of the Oklahoma/Kansas border on 169 where it crosses 400, North of Coffeyville, Sourth of Chanute. The caretaker, who was in the process of keeping the facilities spotless, mentioned that he had raised the flags that morning and that he thought they looked pretty good. I couldn't agree more.

I took this while we were waiting for a table at Houston's on the Plaza in Kansas City. It is already one of my favorite pictures. At first glimpse, it doesn't look like much. But, on closer examination, you can see so many different layers which are combined with the contrasting vertical and horizontal elements. You can see inside the restaurant (through Landon and me), the horizontal blinds with their vertical ladders are just inside the glass, the Houston's logo on the glass, Landon and me on the sidewalk, parked cars on the street, a motion blurred SUV next and buildings in the background. Additionally, there are the contrasting brick patters between the sidewalk and the building across the street along with the six circles scattered throughout the image. I think it's a really interesting composition.

The cousins after a terrific lunch: Drew (7), Landon (22 months), cousin Gabe (2), Will (4 1/2) and cousin Gillian (3 1/2).

Our downstairs furnace went out yesterday. The ten-year old builder's cheapest-piece-of-crap-they-could-legally-install just didn't have any more life left in it. The upstairs, while still functioning fine at the moment, wasn't much better off.

Since, it's cheaper to install two together rather than a year apart, we decided to get both replaced.

Our air conditioners were running well but they weren't exactly efficient and who knows how much life they had left. Again, it is much cheaper to install a furnace and air conditioner together rather than piecemeal. Also, we plan on expanding our upstairs and so we will soon need to move up to a 3 ton* from our current 2 ton upstairs.

So, we replaced our two air conditioners while we were at it. They are a little...what's the word..."larger" than our old ones. No doubt, because we moved up from 10 seer* units to 16 seer. In theory, we should see an energy reduction of 37.5% (1 - 10/16). Interestingly, new homes/air conditioners now must be a minimum of 13 seer. Hopefully now, we won't have to worry about anything heating/air related for a long, long, time.

Finally, we upgraded our old classic analog thermostats to a pair of modern Honeywell 7-day programmable thermostats, in for a penny....

* A ton of refrigeration is approximately equal to the cooling power of one ton (2000 pounds) of ice melting in a 24-hour period. Also equal to 12,000 BTU/hour, or 3517 watts.

* SEER stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio and is the cooling output in BTU's (British thermal unit) divided by the total electric energy input in watt-hours.

Today's day trip for work took me to Bartlesville, OK, and the "famous" American Liberty Bison.