family news

According to her Pop, Sofie Carlton Moricle debuted at 7 pounds, 8 ounces and 20-inches long, 3:26 AM.

To paraphrase Nancy Reagan, among many others, Beck celebrates the 7th anniversary of her 29th birthday today. What she probably considers her best present, though, came a couple weeks ago:

So, we now officially have a job and a place to live in the Classic City*, and the move is officially on (ETD ~ July 15). Packing has begun and is, err, proceeding apace.

_{*i.e., Athens’ nickname}

A week later, some memories that stand out from our trip:

• The funny-in-retrospect moment on I-75 when it became clear that our only chance to be anything like on-time was to go straight to the AMS, and Atty had just found a strawberry inside one of his trucks and spread its juice all over his face and clothes

• How much fun (as I told Mom and Sue) it was to be temporarily lost on the way to K’s house Fri. night, since I got to be playing my own music, at an appropriate volume, while just cruising around the greater McDonough area by myself for 40 minutes

• Wade winning the hearts of both Beckie and Atticus when he pulled out a new, purple matchbox car he’d bought ahead of time and had in his coat pocket, just waiting to get tomeet him for the 1st time

• Dave’s toast, for which his poise made the DJ’s mention of how he’d been nervous just seem like pre-prepared schtick

• Atty salvaging his mom’s memories of a Sat. night in which he only slept a very few hours by singing, on his own, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” in his port-a-crib

• Just how extremely different it is to ride on a private plane - we give it our highest recommendation (oh, and as Atty also does for having a swimming pool right down the hall from your room)

• Finally, the joy and ease that was so apparent between Micheal and Kristi and surely bodes very well for a long and happy future.

My pictures from the wedding are here: at my Flickr photo site

as well a couple of favorites on our photoblog.

scene: Museum of Science a couple weeks back

Playing in the watery part of the children’s area, a new kid joins the fun. His mom tells him to put on the protective smock, to which he replies, how come that little boy (Atty) didn’t have to wear one? (Hey, our sleeves were pushed up).

Mom’s reply, with just the smallest touch of disdain, “Because he’s with his daddy…”

New pix from Xmas are up:

The National Championship for ultimate starts Thursday in Sarasota (which apparently is OK after Wilma). My team, Death or Glory, comes in seeded 8th out of 16, our lowest in a long, long time. That said, with all our players playing and healthy, this is our best team in the last couple of years, so the possibility of upsets is pretty good. Personally, I feel as healthy and focused as I have since 2001 or so.

Beckie and Atty are manning the homefront - he’s still a little young to understand why Dad is leaving him to go run around over there, plus he likes to, er, get in on the action himself

Here are some links for following the action:
updating scores
tournament site
the DoG site (that I put together)

In the inaugural contesting of BarrettBall^©, Beckie (Momo) (-fatticus) bested Rob (Popo) 14-13 in extra innings. Tied 12-12 after the regulation 3 innings, the game ended when Rob’s potentially game-tying hit was snagged by the branches of one of the leftfield trees (who had already foiled 2 of Momo’s rallies), leaving Beckie to easily pluck it down and claim victory with a shout and a spike, to the delight of the pint-sized crowd in the Backyard. The game turned on a catch turned in by Momo in the bottom of the 2nd, picking one off her shoetops to end Popo’s at bat. Afterwards, all human fans were treated to a postgame bath.

Rules, composed on the fly, were as follows:

• 3 innings, one out per at-bat.
• balls caught in the air or on one bounce, or hit over the fence, are outs.
• any ball striking the baby at all is out
• reasonably forward-hit balls count 1 run, unless*
• * they hit the back fence on the fly, in which case 2 runs are scored
• implements: the ball-thrower thing of Chomo’s** as a bat and the unbalanced funny-bouncing red plastic ball
• as usual, if Chomo pops the ball, the fun is over

**

Monday, really, was the last day of summer, but… today is the first day of school for 16 new 4th graders and their intrepid leader. Tuesday was a day to prepare the classroom, and yesterday was a meeting day. Tomorrow, Atty and I will try to get over to the David A. Ellis school and meet the new troops, take pictures to pair with names, and generally blow their minds by getting to see that Mrs. Barrett has a life outside the school