Matthew's ramblings

Our neighbors got a trampoline on Sunday, and we are very excited about it. While Luke was jumping with Liam (the 7-year-old neighbor boy) yesterday when Liam started jumping then landing on his rear end. Everytime he would do this he would scream, "Ow! My buttocks!" So naturally, Luke started jumping and landing on his bottom, then shouting, "Ow! My butt [pause] koks!" Umm, yeah, just like that. I told Liam that this better be the worst thing he ever teaches Luke to say, otherwise I'll hunt him down and use him as a trampoline.

We went to Vespers at St. Basil's OCA church here in Simpson last Saturday night. Right at 6pm when we were about to start, the volunteer fire dept. alarm went off. It sounds like a Tsunami warning siren. I leaned over to Fr. Joel (Weir) and asked why the church didn't use bells. It seems like such a hassle to report a fire every weekend exactly at the start of each service...

No mice were found in our mousetraps that we left over the summer. Nor did we find any mouse turds in the house. Looks like we eliminated the family of four mice that harrassed us at Christmas before they could invite their relatives to come visit us.

Scranton's PNC Field is a beautiful stadium, rivaled only by Raley Field in Sacramento. Interestingly, the nicest locals we've met back here work at PNC Field in Scranton. Other people around here have a tough outer shell, and apparently have no heart, but at PNC Field all the employees were kind, helpful, and actually greeted us when we walked past them. AMAZING! I felt like I was back on the West Coast where people are actually friendly.

I miss Fr. Gabriel, the priest who heard our confessions here at St. Tikhon's last year. He moved to Lincoln, Nebraska to lead a Greek parish. There is a huuuuuuuuuge hole here at St. Tikhon's without him. Not too many people actually make you want to go to confession all the time, but he was one of them. I wonder if we can get him transferred to Alaska...

School starts tomorrow. I will leave the house at 7:45am, but don't need to set my alarm thanks to our two rugrats who wake up before sunrise.