A Cerney Periodical

Brock's ice cream stand in its first location  Brock got the idea over a year ago that he wanted to run a homemade ice cream stand in Wicker Park. I cannot tell you how much time and effort I initially put into killing this idea in its crib. "How can you keep the ice cream cold enough? Will people want to buy drippy ice cream? Do you realize how much this is going to cost, and how much you'll have to sell it for? Why can't you just do a fancy lemonade like other kids."  With my obvious opposition, Brock just continued his plans with his classmates, and they were INSANE. By the next time I caught wind of the ice cream stand plan, Brock and two of his friends had an agreement to pool all of their saved-up allowance together, go to home depot, and buy lumber and wheels and hinges to construct a collapsible rolling shed out of which they would serve ice cream. They had building plans and everything.  I was not about to watch Brock blow a year's allowance on a wood

Murray, Myrna, and Baby Shuttle enjoying a day at the cafe.  Alice loves to dress up Murray and Myrna and Shuttle and of course all her baby cars. They go to the hotel, and they go out to eat, and sometimes even go on crazy roller coaster rides. How do they get to the cafe, you may ask?  On horseback! Almost there... And we're in! Here's a good example of Alice's people drawings. I love the faces. These are some of her classmates from school.  Gotta get every last crumb of pie!!! Here's a shot from our school's fundraiser during Do Division festival. Holly and I volunteered to run the inflatable baseball station, so Alice got plenty of turns.  Alice has turned into quite the little disc golfer. She has yet to play a full hole from tee to basket, but she is pretty adamant about getting her turn on the tee box. She listens unbelievably well to form tips, then you see her check her form and launch. She's maxing out at about 30-40' right now, but with a nice lev

A pensive man gets ready for the big game.  Don't worry, he smiles too.  I'll apologize right up front for the lack of pictures in this post. As the first base coach, I watched most of the games from right here, and I rarely ever had time to pull my phone out. But I snuck one in right here. The park we played at had an amazing playground next to the field, meaning Alice would usually pull Holly over there for most of the games. So again, few pictures.  This was Brock's first season of full-on kid pitch and he did great.  He pitched in 3 games, and although he walked a few too many batters, he got his share of strikeouts and the improvement in his arm strength was impressive. He spent most of his time in the infield moving between 2nd and shortstop, and was great at stopping everything. The most impressive improvement Brock made this year though was his hitting.  Through the course of the regular season, Brock went completely hitless. Not one single hit. He made some good co