Softball

So I started playing softball a couple years ago. I played a season in Provo and then switched to leagues in Orem and have probably played the last 4 seasons (spring and fall) there. Most of the guys on the team live in our neighborhood. Scott, Brad and Bracken live around the corner. Ryan is just down the street. Craig, Brian and newcomer Robert live a street over. Tom is Ryan's cousin and doesn't live too far away. Gary has been with us all the seasons I've been there and is a great guy. We have a couple of other guys that sub for us and they are all great.
Growing up, softball was slopitch and I think that the only time I ever saw it was tournaments on holidays (like over the Canada Day long weekend). There were even occasional sno-pitch tournaments in the winter with a flourescent ball. I never played and really didn't see any point.
Now, it is one of the highlights of my week. I look forward to that evening of the week. I was trying to decide why I enjoy it so much. There are probably several reasons. First would be the team. I play with a great bunch of guys. They are all decent players. They all enjoy winning and doing well. Nice thing is that it really doesn't matter whether we are winning or not. We all just have a good time. We have our up and down moments. First week, we got absolutely owned in our first game. Gave up 19 runs in one inning! We have seen loads of team start to fight with one another, guys that throw temper tantrums like 3 year olds, teams that just give up. Not our guys. We just play. And then the next game, we blow out the other team by 20 runs.
Yeah, Sweaty Mess (that's the name of our team), doesn't get all catty and stupid. We just play and have a good time.
Another thing I love about the team is that there are no set positions. No one goes and says, " You have to play this position". Instead, it changes whenever. We take turns sitting out. No drama, just fun.
I think another reason that I like softball is that I found a new thing/skill to learn. I started pitching last season. It is way harder than it looks to pitch. I love it. I love the challenge. I love throwing a pitch where someone whiffs on it. It can get a bit windy down at the fields. It is a pretty good challenge to figure out the wind and to get the ball across the plate and into the strike zone. There is also the chance that a ball will get pounded right back at you. I have almost been hit a couple times. I have managed to get out of the way and have even managed to snag a fair few. Quite the rush.
I just love being out and doing something. The fact that it happens to be with a great bunch of guys playing softball, is even better.
GO SWEATY MESS!

Coaches

As many might know, I have coached a fair bit in my past. I started right out of high school with my old football team at Clavet Composite School where I had graduated 3 months before. After my mission to France, I picked up coaching football back in Clavet and continued there for several seasons. I spent one season with a Jr. Football team at a high school in Saskatoon and then took a couple years off from football(mostly due to the schools where I was at not having football teams). In 2001 I finally got back into coaching football in Kelliher, Saskatchewan with the Kelliher/Ituna co-op while I was teaching in Ituna.
Coaching football has long been my thing. But being a teacher seems to provide more opportunities to coach other things, especially once one has shown an interest. I also coached girls volleyball for several years both as an intern and as the head coach in Ituna for 3 seasons. I also coached track and field and several other sports like curling, badminton, and even a little basketball.
My teams have had a wide range of experiences. I have had teams that never won a game all season. I have also had several teams that achieved and maintained a very high level of success. In total I have been to 1 volleyball provincial championship tournament and been in 5 provincial final football games. My last year of coaching football in Kelliher, we won the provincial 1A championship. That team (after losing just 4 seniors) went on to repeat as provincial champions the following season.
I have also coached in several allstar games, both at a provincial level as well as in the international Can Am Bowl which pits allstar seniors from various states across the US against seniors from the province of Saskatchewan. This is a 6 man football event which is entering it's 14th installment this coming July. I coached in Can Am Bowl 9 as well as organized and head coached Can Am Bowl X. I'll also be returning to Canada as a guest coach for Can Am Bowl XIV.
Now that this is all out there, I think that I have established myself as, if nothing else, someone who has been around the coaching world for awhile. I love teams and being involved with them. It is one of the things that I miss most about my life prior to moving to the States and is something that I hope to regain in my life.
I feel like I had great teams. I always stressed that the goals of the team were important but that the goals could not be achieved without the efforts of the entire team. Most of my teams were at a competetive level. I always tried to communicate with my teams about everything. It was, in my opinion, clear who would play in most situations. I made my expectations very clear and also made it sure as to who were the starters and who were their backups. Those backups knew their role and knew that they could receive an opportunity to be called upon at any time. They knew that they needed to be involved, invested and focused in all aspects of the game as much as the starters.
I was not someone who screamed and belittled his players to try and goad them into performing better. I would challenge them but not by intimidation. I tried to encourage and get fired up on their behalf, like yelling and whooping and hollering about things that they had done like a great tackle, catch or kill.
I loved my teams and my players and they knew that I was as interested and driven (or maybe even more so) than they were. They knew that I put in the time, lost sleep, and shed tears over our teams' success and failures as much as them.
I also preached that they had to be better. Not that they were bad, but that because they were special, others would be looking to them as examples. They needed to be great athletes but also great students and members of the communities. Some of my greatest disappointments as a coach came when members of our teams let us all down by not living up to those standards. I tried to be an example as well through my actions as well.
I recognized that sport was more than just about sport. That they would learn many lessons about life that would serve them in their futures. As the NCAA TV ad talks about all of the athletes going pro in something other than athletics at some point, my athletes would move on after high school and the lessons they learned would need to serve them well.
All of this has been rolling around in my mind the past few weeks. Why? For several reasons really. One is that I really miss coaching. I miss the interaction and being with the team. Sure I have my Tuesday night softball team which serves to fill some of the void and need for a team, but it isn't enough and so I am working on getting back to coaching eventually.
The main reason for all of this is the lack of a good example in a coach that Alex has been experiencing. His main soccer coach is loud and yells alot and is not very positive. His assistant coach is the one that mostly concerns me, especially because he has been the head coach for over half the games this season. He is hypocritical, sarcastic, and demeaning to the kids. That is not true, I guess. He only demeans the kids he doesn't like. There are about 4 or 5 kids that play all the time and basically run the team. I have over heard this gentleman say such things as "I hate when people bug me about where they get to play" or "If a person talks to me or whines to me about anything, they won't play". This is followed up by multiple examples of the favored kids doing this but never once leaving the field or losing any playing time. Yet he will glare or look down on the kids that are on the sidelines waiting or hoping to get in.
I have witnessed on multiple occasions him put a player into the game and then pull them out a moment later. They may make a mistake on the field and then they get pulled. They don't get taught or have things explained, they just get pulled. But you will see the favored kids make mistake after mistake after mistake and they never get pulled. The side line looks like this. You have the 4 or 5 kids that are out off doing all number of things, from sitting in lawn chairs, to playing tag, to laying on the ground. They don't have any investment in the game or the team because they are not cared about or shown that they are important to the team even when they aren't in. They don't stand and cheer on their teammates on the field and encourage them. When they come out, they more often then not, are ignored by the coaches. They aren't pulled aside and given council or suggestions on how to improve.
It breaks my heart. I have tried to be positive to Alex about things. He hates going to soccer and we made him keep going because he had signed on for two seasons. We encouraged him to work hard, use any opportunity that he gets to play, to learn and to develop. We discouraged him being negative about his team or his coaches. We encouraged him to not look at the score (as they continued to get pummelled by double digit numbers) but at what he could learn about the game and how he was improving. I instructed him to glue himself to the hip of the coach. Don't say a word (as it was his pet peeve when people pestered him about playing) but be right there so that he knew you were ready to go in.
I admit that I was not so calm and cool. I wanted to go and pummel the guy and pass on some of my coaching councils and philosophies to him. I never did as I didn't feel it would help. But it really irks me that someone who announced to several parents yesterday at their game (before they got pummelled 20+ to zero) that he was planning on being the head coach next season, couldn't even realize that half of the team don't even want to play soccer any more. Not just for him, but at all.
I see how my kids and others hang on the coach's every word and look to them for encouragement and validation. A coach is someone that is given a great opportunity to do something for these kids.
Alex's coach failed these kids as a coach. Playing time to me is a secondary issue. The main issue for me is that these kids didn't learn anything about being part of a team. They were not being taught to strive to improve themselves and their skills. They were taught that they had zero control over their situation and that they had no value. Not just to the team but at all.
Wow, that was long, but I feel a bit better now.

J'adore la Raclette!

One of my all time favorite things involving French cuisine is the raclette grill. A total blast as far as a meal goes.

Raclette apparently started among Swiss sheep herders who would pull a round of cheese on a rock next to the fire and just before it dripped, they would cut off the melted portion onto their plate with potatoes and pickles.

Heidi got me a grill for Christmas and we finally had an opportunity to put it to use last weekend with our friends Jarom and Isabelle in between Sunday conference sessions. We first discovered Raclette on our missions in France. It is a very conversational way to share a meal as you grill small strips of meat as well as veggies on the top of the grill and then put cheese into little trays that slide under the burner and melt. You then pour the melted cheese over baked/boiled potatoes, sliced baguette as well as the meat and veggies. It is not only tasty but just fun.

We decided to give it another go this weekend with Mckay and Amy (Heidi's brother and sister in law) as well as Kye Stoker, their cousin who is in Utah going to school at UVU.

The only thing that I think we needed was a bigger table. We had a lazy Susan in the middle of the table and then 2 grills going (Mckay has one too). It is interesting to see the difference between the grills. Mckay's has a non stick grill top where are mine has a granite stone top. Either way,good times were had by all. Especially with the meal followed up by a raucous game of Nerts( which led to some confusion about the rules but that is another story for another time)

Easter Eggs

Decorating Easter eggs has always been one of my favorite things to do around Easter. When I was a kid, I remember that we would color the eggs with crayons and then dye them. The last few years with my own kids, we tend to dye them only. One of my favorite things ever was what we were a part of when I was teaching in Ituna. Being a predominantly Ukrainian community, there was the opportunity to see and learn the art of making Ukrainian Easter eggs.

To make them, you use a kistka, which is a stylus and bee's wax. You basically dye your egg starting with the lighter colors first, covering them up with the wax. It is pretty neat to try. Not near as easy as crayons back in the day. I always think about kistkas and Ukrainian Easter Eggs this time of year. I have some kistkas and just couldn't find the dyes and wax. Maybe next year.

We were a little late on the draw with Easter this year. But we did have some fun decorating eggs. And to make it even more exciting, our friends the Hansens were over. That made for a few new twists and turns with the eggs. More eggs were eaten this year than ever before, since Chloe is the only one of our kids that will eat the eggs. Savannah, Audrey, Drew and Brock all pitched in to eat a few eggs as they were decorating.

But the key was fun and there was almost as much fun had as there were dyed fingers. Heidi also made some caramel popcorn. It was a good time. Just like it was when I was a kid.

An Epic Day of Pranking

One thing I really love about my job is the team that I work with. We can all be pretty focused and work hard but at the same time, we love to goof around and enjoy each other's company. We started playing board games at lunch which is a riot. We all have Wookie sound clips on our laptops that we play when we are frustrated (nothing releases the tension like hearing Chewbacca roaring) or Ewok sounds that get played when it is time to gather for a meeting. Classic!
There are loads of other things. We get together in a meeting and it can get pretty crazy. Our assistant manager, Steve, that we report to, is pretty good about the craziness of the team. In fact he gets into it too. He is famous for sending out resignation letter emails from people's computers if they leave them unlocked. He's as obsessed about the TV show How I Met Your Mother and will quote lines along with the rest of us. He tries to keep the focus in meetings but when we all get together, it can be pretty funny.
Even the serious can be made into something funny. As a part of our team goals for the year, we have to read some books. There were a couple that were "required" or suggested but we mostly get to pick the books that we want to read. They are supposed to be inspirational or ones that are related to professional development. The first book is a kid's book called Frindle. All about a kid that decides to make up a word and the power to bring about change. Good book. Would actually recommend it.
But with our team, it turned into something hilarious. We are supposed to discuss the books or give a little report in our weekly team meeting. I end up making a power point presentation with pens dancing all over the place. So funny! Went over great with our gang of goofballs.
We love to play jokes or pranks on people. We've taken all the extra chairs from around the office and put them all around someone's desk (in one case, we took fishing line and wrapped it around them too). . We've enclosed someone's desk with plastic wrap and balloons.
So April Fools Day seemed like a great opportunity for our gang of pranksters. We decided to make Steve the target of our fun. We started with a wakeup call of sorts. We have all figured out how to set up emails that have a delivery delay on them. All of us Assembly Project Task Lead Supervisors (which is a combination of all the titles that our position has had) sent an email saying we were all sick and wouldn't be able to be at work. The first was set to arrive at 2:28 AM, the next at 3:12 AM and so on. The best part of it was that Steve gets his emails forwarded to his phone. So every 45 minutes or so, his phone would wake him up. Hilarious!
In order to avoid Steve and his obvious feelings of doubt about the fact that we were sick, we booked a conference room in the other building and all worked from there. We had sentries and lookouts placed throughout the team that kept us posted on what Steve was up to. They also hammed it up about quarantining the team and more good stuff along those lines.
When Steve came looking for us, we avoided him by ducking into some random guy's office, ducked down some back stairs, ran across the back lawn and were sitting at our desks when he got back. He had, of course, switched our monitors with little tiny ones while we were gone. So fun.
I had a good time sending out an email to the team describing the symptoms that I had been experiencing the past while (which I had found on the very helpful americanpregnancy.org website)
To continue to keep Steve on his toes, we arranged to have the company receptionist send out an email saying his car was being towed. Me and another supervisor snuck outside and along the building to find Steve's car and get his license plate # to help make it official.
We decided to keep the fun going all day and are excited to hear about the string of emails that Steve will be receiving starting about 11:55PM letting him know that we are all feeling great and will be in to work tomorrow.
It was truly a crazy day full of fun and pranks. My sides ache because of all the laughing. Having a place where you enjoy going to work makes handling stressful situations or just getting through the daily grind a whole lot easier. We have alot of fun and it makes it easier to help each other out.
Good times.

Got jokes?

So Chloe (or as we call her, Moe) was listening to some silly thing on the internet that had a monkey that was a ventriliquist that told jokes. She kept telling these jokes all day yesterday and today. She was hilarious even if the jokes were so so. She really cracks me up.
An example : Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 8 9.

Also, yesterday she and I went to Costco. In the last couple weeks, they had done a chocolate sales fundraiser and as a prize she had chosen a huge rubbery centipede, which (as with all her pets) she named. This one was CoCo. She had it draped over her arm the whole trip which brought many stares. She struck up conversations with people about CoCo, telling them it could fly (which is technically true, seeing as you can stretch it like an elastic and shoot it across the room. This does lead to screams and sudden urges to wet one's pants, but is mildly entertaining). She is one funny kid.
Gotta love kids. Wish I could laugh with and at mine more often. I think I am too serious some times.

Stress : Just like riding a bike?

For those that don't know, I work at Ancestry.com. When I started there, I worked in the call centre and spent about a year doing that. It was not a bad spot to be in, especially in this economy where so many people have been losing their jobs. But as far as challenges go, about the only challenge it presented was whether I could continue to enjoy coming to work.
I applied for quite a few other positions inside the company both in Member Services as well as other spots. I just wanted a change and an opportunity to stretch myself a bit and feel like I was progressing. Last September I finally got that chance. I moved out of Member Services and into Document Preservation Services. I really had no clue what they did exactly but it sounded interesting and was a chance to stay with the company and do something new.
I am in Assembly. For those who don't know (which is most people - even ones who work at A.com) in Assembly, we are one of the last steps in the preparation of new records being placed on the website. It goes through Imaging(where the records are scanned), then Indexing (where the data is gathered or keyed from the images) and then it comes to us. We take the data and clean it up, normalize it and get it all prepped for the Content Engineering department to get it on the site.
When I first started I spent lots of time doing the editing. It was a nice change and was interesting. But honestly, it was a job where at the end of the day, I went home and didn't think much about work until the next day. Very low stress. Nice.
About 6 weeks ago, I started a new position. I became a Project Lead or Project Supervisor. My job is now to be assigned a project, given project instructions and a deadline for it to be completed. I have to decide how to best complete the project as per the guidelines and then get it done. I have to prep it for the editors and revierwers to work on the augmentation and normalization. It is pretty cool. There are a ton of new things to learn, tools and programs to learn about, heck, even have to learn new words, etc(I just completed a project that was mostly in Swedish).
Thing is, there is a fair bit of stress involved. I haven't had much work related stress for awhile. It is funny that as I am put back into a stressful situation how I react. I never really thought about that dealing with it is something that you get used to but if you are away from that for awhile, you lose something.
With a couple projets due in the next couple days, it has been interesting to see myself and how I am managing. Normally I saw myself as someone who would handle the stress pretty well.
But I am out of practice. I keep noticing that I am stressed. I have to take a moment and step back so that I calm down. I am sure that it will get better and that work stress will just become a part of everything again and I will get into a managable groove. But for now, I feel kinda stressed. Weird. Never figured it would happen.

Curiousity and the Cat

So there is that old saying that "curiousity killed the cat", right? This is in reference to the thought that sometimes if we are too curious, we can cause problems. So is that true? Is it bad to ask questions and want to know? I know that there are certainly times when it is a bit much. Alex is famous for asking a billion questions. I can remember one trip where our friend Sarah put a rule in place where he could ask 6 questions and then he had to do something else for an hour or something like that. It worked for that time.
So does asking questions really cause problems? I have always said (in job interviews, etc) that if I don't know I will ask. I am not afraid to ask questions (maybe that is where Alex gets it from?) and have always felt that my acceptance of what I know and what I don't know is a strength.
Today, however, I experienced something where it seemed to be a problem that I wanted to know or understand something. I wanted to know how to do something. I found out but wanted to find out how I could have figured it out on my own. This sparked a pretty awkward situation at work where the person who knew and the person who was trying to help me figure out how to avoid this in the future. I felt bad and responsible since I had been the one with the answer and yet had still wanted to pursue it further. My intentions had been to avoid future questions and I have found that talking through the steps helps me.
So did curiousity cause this? Should I have just been content with the answer that I had been given or was it a big deal to take it further?
Sure caused a weird situation. Guess if I knew everything it wouldn't have been an issue. Not that I will be attaining that any time soon.

Sunday Afternoon Naps

Why is it that a Sunday afternoon nap is so sought after? What is it that makes it so much better than any other nap? If I took an hour or more nap any other day of the week I would be up until all hours of the night not being able to sleep. But somehow, Sunday afternoons are different.
Is it because Sunday is a "day of rest"? And therefore, do our bodies know that a little shut down time would be welcomed? Or am I just tired?
Our home teachers are over and I am listening (or so I thought) and then I get an elbow from Heidi letting me know that I had been snoring. Oops. Hope that they didn't hear.
Guess a little power nap will get me through the rest of the day.

Heidi's birthday 2010

In the past couple years, it seems that Heidi and I go out of our way to out do each other when it comes to birthdays. When Heidi had a "significant" birthday a few years ago, I managed to finally keep a secret (first time ever) and we threw her a surprise birthday party (Heidi's half-way to 70 Seventies party) as well as covered the lawn with pink flamingos. The next year she managed to pull off a surprise party after having led me to believe that no one had remembered my birthday (and had even let me bake my own cake for our family party). This year, with the help of an insider at work (my friend Brad), she was able to plant a large pink and white balloon bouquet with a large Happy Birthday Princess balloon on top of my desk. She also had Brad drape a Happy Birthday Princess banner across my desk which has led to many people around the office still calling me Princess
Of course, retaliation was most certainly in order. I plotted to have the kids help out. We decided that it would be fun to fill the van with balloons and write messages all over the outside so that the world would know that our favorite lady was having a special day. We blew up about 90 balloons and waited until she was in bed. Then I loaded them into the van's front seat.




I also used some window crayons to write some messages on the van as a surprise for when she left early the next morning.



The most fun was that she really had no clue and I got to lay in bed listening to her try to get into the van and then try and figure out what to do with the balloons. I could hear her outside amid the occasional popping balloon, trying to get into the van. Hilarious.
That evening we invited a few friends out for dinner and had a nice time at dinner where I had Heidi wear a Birthday Girl head band and thoroughly enjoyed watching her on the Texas Roadhouse birthday saddle. We were really glad that Amy, Matt and Julie, Jarom and Isabelle, Brad and Chelsa, Scott and Amy, and Brooke and Reed were nice enough to come out with us. Good times were hopefully had by all.(I will probably post all the pics from that night if I can figure out how)



So even though I am a pain in the neck and we both seem to enjoy one-upping each other, I think that it was an enjoyable birthday and the plotting will begin anew for next year. Happy Birthday, Heidi. Love you

Updates

For those that might not know or might not be up to date with things, the Spencer Clan is made up of Chris, Heidi, Alex, Alysse and Chloe. We currently live in Orem, Utah where we have been a total of 4 years although Chris had visa issues getting to the US and therefore has only been here 3 years. We bought our own house about 2 years ago which is a source of many projects. We don't have any pets to add to the family (the 4 frogs that we were given by some friends don't count, especially because all they contribute to the family is an unwillingness to die and be disposed of. We appreciate their toughness but that is about it)
To start things off for the Spencer Family blog, maybe a little family update might be in order.

Lets begin with the kids. Alex, is now 12 1/2 and in junior high school in grade 7 (or 7th grade depending where you are from). He is a fairly quiet kid who seems to be enjoying where he is at. He has had a very eventful year. He miraculously survived a car/pedestrian accident and has bounced back very well. He is playing soccer and hopes to give football a try this year. He continues to grow like a weed and both his parents are pretty much resigned that he will be taller than us both in the not too distant future. He is in Scouts (with Dad as one of his leaders) and has been able to go on a few campouts this past year. He likes to read and also to play video games. But he will get involved in most things that he is asked. He jumps at the chance to serve at church and hasn't hesitated once when asked to visit homebounds or things like that. He is the family babysitter although how much he enjoys that is debatable.



Alysse (AKA Peanut to many of us still) is now 11 and in grade 5. She continues to be very interested in art and drawing. She loves music and has a knack for memorizing the lyrics to songs from movies or ones that she listens to. She is a good student and seems to enjoy school. She also likes to try and cook whenever given the opportunity. She got back into soccer this past season which was great for her and she seemed to enjoy it. She might give softball a try this year but we will see. She loves her cousins and is constantly trying to carry them around. She is a typical (so her dad is told) pre-teen which presents its own challenges.

Chloe (AKA Mo) is 7 and in grade 1. She loves school and is really coming along with her reading and other skills. She continues to love animals and when she is not begging her Mom and Dad for a pet, she is carting any number of stuffed animals around, each with its own name and personality traits. She has lost a lot of teeth this year and many are slow in growing back so the gaps in the front of her mouth have been there so long that they seem to always have been there. She plays soccer and just loves to be around others. She still loves to cuddle with Mom and Dad which probably won't last forever but for now, we'll take it.



Heidi is a busy lady. She works full time for Intel Micron Flash Technologies where she loves her job. She has been there about 3 years. When she is not working, she is the glue that holds the family together. She tries to scrapbook and craft but it always depends on what else is going on. She is a primary teacher at church for 3 year olds which she loves. She recently switched to that after working with cub scouts for the last year and a half. She is just generally a great person that does alot more for us than we do for her.
Chris is into a few things. He has changed positions at work a few times the past few months. He is now a Project Supervisor in the Document Preservation Services department at Ancestry.com. It is a new challenge and has been interesting. Most of all he enjoys going to work because of the job and the people he works with. He misses coaching football but hopes that he can get back into it again, starting with a trip back up to Canada to coach in Can Am Bowl XIV this summer. His church calling is in Scouts which is interesting and allows him to do some things with Alex which is nice. Otherwise, he is mostly the soccer mom and occasional cook of the family. He has been playing softball for the past couple years which is fun. He has been starting lots of projects around the house and the yard and hopes to finish them all some day. :)
All in all, the Spencers are mildly interesting and about as busy as any other family. We have great friends and family that love and supports us. We don't always see everyone as much as we want but we hope to change that or at least keep in touch more.

Blog attempt #2

Seems to me that some things come and go. Like interest in starting and maintaining a blog. But it seems like a good idea as it might be a good way to stay on top and take account of what we as a family are up to as well as to help our family and friends stay up to speed as well. I seem to falter when it comes to sending out New Year's or Christmas letters but do check my email and facebook alot. So maybe I can keep on top of a blog.
But of course, only time will tell. We'll see what we can get done and maintain. I am hoping that perhaps we can have some pictures as a part of this and this will lead to us taking more pictures. Who knows? But worth the effort.