High School Basketball Begins!

Omaha Central opened its season by playing Omaha South, the defending Class A state champion.

Not too many weeks after the football season came to a close, high school basketball got underway tonight with Omaha Central hosting defending Class A state boys basketball champion Omaha South.
This was also the debut of our Striv.TV regular season basketball broadcasts. Omaha South's girls beat the Eagles in the opener and the Central boys took the Packers to overtime and missed a potential game-winner in the final seconds.

I did myself a favor by buying a small, dry erase board. It worked well in passing along details to the announcers. And it will save on paper, sticky notes and index cards, many of which blew off the top of the press box during football season.

The new shirts for the broadcast crew, by the way, come via Dr. Keith Bigsby. Central's principal emeritus got the Central High Foundation to foot the bill for them. They are nice! And my new threads also gave some students a scare. I was using the restroom at halftime when a bunch of students came in with something not-so-good in mind. But before anything could go down, I heard one of them say to the others, "Guys, there's a teacher in here!"

From left: Julia (camera), Olivia (producer), Isaac (color) and Alec (play-by-play).

I am officially an Eagle now.

Christmas Letter Time!

Veronica decided to "decorate" someone's face...

Things came together rather quickly when we got down to business on this year's Christmas letter. From Friday night to Saturday afternoon, we finished everyone's text portion, got the letters printed at CopyMax, addressed more than 140 envelopes and stuffed and mailed them off. Emily, Julia and Veronica were the biggest of helpers, with Olivia chipping in and Lauren ... well, being Lauren.

Thanks to a trip to the main post office, we expect the letters to start arriving in the Omaha area on Monday and faraway places after that. The only regret this year? That I did not have time to write a personal message on each one of them. Sorry!

Veronica (right) handled stamps and return address labels this year.

How Emily addressed envelopes while wearing my glasses is beyond me...

Halloween On Parade: 2015

Veronica was a cat this year. (She did her own whiskers, too!)

The Halloween costume parade at Jefferson Elementary is a nice tradition. Especially when the weather cooperates. This year, it was pretty nice, with temperatures in the low 50s. It did rain – but only as the parade was making its way back into the building.

You can see past versions of the parade here: 2013, 2012, and 2011. (In 2014, Sean was on a plane to North Carolina.)

I'm not sure which teacher was the princess from "Frozen" but she looked the part.

Here comes Veronica. Simple costume, but looking good.

This is Veronica's "Hey Dad, take my photo!" look.

Look closely and you will see Veronica on the "back side" of the school.

Veronica was awfully proud of this piece of artwork.

I had little cat as a passenger after school.

If you couldn't tell, Veronica was taking these photos of herself.

Um, scary.

Here is Sean's annual photo with Mrs. Free. She was Maleficent.

Only one more photo like this to come next year.

Be sure your volume is turned down before watching this video.

In The News: World Team Time Trial

Look closely and you might see someone you might recognize (besides Taylor Phinney).

Princess Pictures

Not the best quality (with an iPhone set on small resolution), but pretty princesses nonetheless.

And a nice one with the girl who has gone off to college.

Cold and Wet In Canada

This was not exactly a pleasant experience in Montreal.

Two Stage Wins In Italy

Posing with the stage winner prizes of the Giro d'Italia. Both courtesy of Philippe Gilbert!

Checking In Via FaceTime

Check out the smiles I saw while checking in on rest day from the Giro d'Italia.

Paper Airplane Throwing Contest

Veronica shows off the three paper airplanes she made.

The weather was nice enough to enjoy some time outdoors today. Though not particularly warm, there was a nice north breeze blowing. And that made for perfect conditions for our first paper airplane throwing contest of the year.

See below for photos of all the respective aircraft that participated (Emily was at a friend's house), as well as a pair of videos that captured (nearly) all of the action. You'll have to ask Julia what "Sain Air" means. (Hint: It is a play off of Sean's first name.)

Veronica's plane – Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 – went missing shortly after this photo was taken.

Lauren had a BMC Racing Team-themed aircraft.

This was Sean's second plane – and it stayed up in the air a long time.

Olivia had quite the needle-nosed craft (complete with Rudolph-themed tip).

Lauren's second plane was equally as artistic as the first – but not very "air-tastic."

Add Veronica's Malaysia Airlines Flights 371 and 373 to the list of planes that went missing.

We're not sure what "The Prison Airplane" is all about. You'll have to ask Lauren.

Julia made this amazing plane after watching a YouTube video. It flew nearly 50 feet.

What Is This?

I found this guy on my mirror. No idea who he is.

Made It To Minneapolis

Lauren got settled in nicely - and brought along her Nemo and blanket.

We made it to the Best Western Plus Capitol Ridge (formerly the "Kelly Inn") hotel in St. Paul and got checked in.

If you want to get a laugh out of Lauren, be sure and ask her about "320" (we were staying in room 321). Talk about not having your life together...

Lauren pondered having the "Hobo Breakfast."

Anyway, the room was very nice (and warm compared to a big chill in the hallway). We checked out the pool, only to find out it was "closed for maintenance." When we sent a photo of the closing to Emily, she wrote back, "#poopinthepool" - which hadn't come to mind but was probably the case!

We also got downtown to eat - which was a bit of a challenge considering it was -4 degrees with about a -25 windchill. We found a nice little diner that featured only a handful of customers. Lauren remarked that our server was also probably doing the cooking since she was also our cashier and was busing tables. Lauren enjoyed a nice Belgian waffle and I had a BBQ chicken sandwich while we watched the first part of the Cannondale Pro Cycling Team launch from New York. If you missed it, you really didn't miss much. The first half-hour was almost exclusively "talking heads." #badtv

These in-room cards are a pretty cool idea.

Driving To Minneapolis

We fought a strong headwind as we headed north toward Minneapolis.

Lauren and I set off today for Minneapolis and her appointment at the Shriner's Hospital. We were going to drive up early Thursday morning, the day of her appointment, but two things changed those plans: Omaha Public Schools called off classes for Wednesday and the Shriner's footed the bill for a night at a hotel.

So we headed out of Omaha about 11:30 a.m. and enjoyed good driving conditions. There was a lot of snow in the Des Moines/Ames area and then again some in Minnesota. But overall, it was a pretty uneventful trip. I joked that a "trained monkey" could make the drive, turning right at the I-80/I-29 junction and then a left at I-35.

We are staying at the former "Kelly Inn" by the Xcel Energy Center. Photos of that to come...

Minnesota has a very nice 3-D sign to welcome its visitors.

Between reading and checking her phone, Lauren was enjoying the ride.

Check out the rainbow (at right) that Lauren spotted.

There was definitely more snow in Iowa than in Omaha.

We saw quite a bit of this as we traveled through Iowa and into Minnesota.

Passport Photo Time

As seen on SnapChat from Walgreens, thanks to Emily.

Frisbee On Christmas Day

The drive to Churchich Park, as seen on Emily's Snapchat account.

We enjoyed temperatures in the low 50s during our frisbee outing.

This Was Nice

As seen on the BMC Racing Team's Facebook page.

Retro Photo

This framed photo of me and my cousin, Melissa, was found at Grandma's house.

The World Traveler

I came across this today. I was surprised that the Vatican was listed as its own country.

Harold Pays A Visit

As we have discovered previously, when you lose a tooth and you're not at home, it's not Lu who pays a tooth fairy visit.

Harold is the tooth fairy who services the Four Seasons apartments and Veronica's loss of a tooth earlier today meant he had to spring into action.

Harold's note, which was very hard to read.

We learned from Harold's note that he 1) was on duty at a hotel up the street; 2) had to battle strong winds to get to our place; 3) the present Veronica received was originally intended for Timmy, who was visiting his grandparents; 4) Timmy's tooth didn't come out so Veronica rang up a copy of "The Great Brain" (which Sean can attest is a great book).

Harold hadn't ever visited our apartment before, we also learned, and actually became confused when he found a girl on the couch wearing braces (Lauren). So he bailed on trying to get the five gold coins and wrapped book under Veronica's pillow and simply left the loot by the front door (pictured below).

Veronica and I spent time reading the first few chapters of "The Great Brain," which made us very happy that Timmy didn't lose his tooth as planned!

The gold coins and book from Harold were found at our front door.

Harold's note was there, too. He sure writes small!

Veronica tried to read it...

...And eventually turned it over to Dad to try to read.

Veronica proudly shows off her "Great Brain" book.