2008 Family Pictures

2008 Family Picture

Shelby's 2008 School Picture

Noah's 2008 Picture

Soccer Pictures

Above are the individual and team soccer photos for Shelby and Noah. They both enjoyed their teams, but Noah especially got worn out by the end of the season. They had practice for an hour every Monday night and then a 1-hour game on Friday or Saturday. For the 3-4 year old groups, that was too long for the kids and too long for the adults.

They received their photos and trophy at an end of year award ceremony. They had so many teams that they had to split up the ceremony into three different times and of course Shelby was on one day and Noah was on the next. So we had to sit through the same presentation twice. It all went good on Noah's day which was the first one, but for the next day when Shelby was awarded, Noah was complaining of a stomach ache.

After Shelby had received her award, we were skipping out early since we had already seen it all once before. As I'm walking him from our chairs trying not to draw to much attention to ourselves and just made it to the aisle, Noah threw up everywhere. It was pretty embarrassing for Noah and for us. Luckily there were plenty of people that came and helped, but it was a mess.

2008 Memphis Football Bowl Guide

Although we started the season 0-3 and lost three quarterbacks along the way, Memphis football still managed to win enough games to earn a bowl bid. The Tigers are going to play in the magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl in St. Petersburg, Fla. against South Florida on Saturday, December 20 at 4:30 (EST) on ESPN2.

It was a rush to get the bowl guide done, but we managed and the covers from the guide are above. I'll be travelling with the team leaving on Tuesday the 16th and will fly back after the game. It should be a lot of fun and their is several events planned for the week at the beach. The game will be played at Tropicana Field the home of Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays.

Hiking at Arkabutla Lake

The kids and I like to go hiking whenever we can and sometimes we're lucky enough to drag Tammy around. One of our favorite places to go is Arkabutla Lake, which is about 20 minutes from our home in Mississippi. There are a lot of good trails that we like to walk while we look for wild life.

One of reasons Tammy doesn't like to come is because of the fear of snakes. And it's funny that the only time we see them is when she's walking in front of the group and she about walks over them. On this trip, she almost ran into the snake below sun bathing in the middle of the trail.

Halloween 2008

For Halloween this year, Shelby wanted to be a vampire and Noah wanted to be a Thomas Train. However, when Shelby got her vampire teeth and makeup, Noah wanted some too. So we made him into a monster Thomas Train.

I was in charge of getting the costumes together and getting them ready on Halloween morning. Shelby could wear her costume to school, so of course Noah had too. I guess you can kind of tell they were put together by me by how freaky they look. I'm sure Tammy would have made them nice and adorable, but I was going for scary.

Later that night, Tammy took the kids to the ward's Trunk or Treat where they got a lot of candy and had a hay ride. I had to work that night and couldn't attend, but they all had a lot of fun.

2008 C-USA Volleyball Championship

We hosted the Conference USA Volleyball Championship last week, and I was thrilled to work all four days of the tournament. The photos above are taken in the fourth game of the first round after I had already been at the tournament for about 10 hours that day. Obviously, I was getting tired of volleyball. I produced the program for the tournament and served as the tournament's media relations director.

Noah's Soccer Games

We have Shelby and Noah both playing soccer this year in one of the local church's recreation leagues. This is Shelby's second year playing soccer and the first for Noah. Shelby has been doing a lot better this year, and Noah is pretty good when he is playing by himself. They both are still a little timid going after the ball when everybody else is fighting for it.

The video shows Noah in one of his games early in the season when he actually was trying to play. Since then he's lost interest for now and would rather sit on the side line. The season only has a couple weeks left, thank goodness. Practice every Monday for both of them and games on Friday and Saturday's have taken its toll on our already busy schedule.

High School Musical on Ice

I received free tickets from work a little while back to High School Musical on Ice at the FedExForum, and the kids loved it. We had really good seats down in the corner, and the show went through the story lines of HSM 1 and 2. Noah even got a hat like his favorite character Ryan that came with the cotton candy.

This past weekend we took the kids to see HSM 3 at the drive-in. We've going to the drive-in several times, but this was probably the best they've ever behaved. I was bored out of my mind at both the ice show and the new movie, but Tammy loved it.

2008-09 Memphis Basketball Media Guide

We just received a few of the men's basketball media guides in time for the Conference USA Media Day in Memphis on Thursday. The guide can be viewed online at http://gotigersgo.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/0809-mbb-mediaguide.html. The women's basketball guide is now online as well at http://gotigersgo.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/0809-wbb-mediaguide.html. I created a bunch of wallpaper for women's basketball from the covers and cutouts I had. They can be found at http://gotigersgo.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/mem-w-baskbl-wallpaper0809.html

2008-09 Women's Basketball Media Guide

Here is the women's basketball media guide covers for this year. We have a knew coach, so we tried to create an image of going in a new direction.

2007 Football Bowl Ring

It's been awhile since we've posted anything. Once the athletic calendar year started, it's been really hectic again. I've just finished the men's and women's basketball media guides, so now I have a little time to start getting caught up on our blog.

The football team receives a bowl ring every year it makes a bowl. This past year was the first time we've gone to a bowl since I've been the secondary media contact. The ring is huge. It takes up almost two fingers. Not bad considering we didn't even win the bowl game and it was the New Orleans Bowl against Florida Atlantic.

2008 Volleyball Media Guide Covers

The 2008 Memphis volleyball media guide covers just went to the printer. That takes care of all the fall sport media guides. Now it will be looking ahead to the winter sports.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. Shelby was super excited for first grade. Her teacher is Ms. Baron. Tammy took a couples hours off in the morning so we could all take her to her class. It was raining pretty good, and we weren't able to get too close to the school because of all the other people dropping off their children. So we got a little wet, but it was a good experience. Shelby went into her classroom and dropped off her stuff. She already is in the stage where she is too embarrassed to give us a hug goodbye. Noah wishes he could go to school too, so he had to take a backpack to his daycare. We even have to pack him some snacks, since Shelby takes a lunch from home and he wants one too. It will only be two more years though until he starts kindergarten.

Noah Singing High School Musical

These days, Noah is just as much into High School Musical as Shelby. We caught him today doing one of his performances with his toy drum. He likes to think he is Ryan since he is the character that likes to sing and dance a lot and he has blond hair.

Tamara and the Cats

Tamara has a magnet that draws everybody to her making them all crave her attention. If it's not Shelby and Noah fighting each other for who gets to be next to their mom, it's Lady and Tramp battling one another. As soon as the kids go to bed, Lady and Tramp come out and Lady always has to be sitting on Tammy's lap, while Tramp comes next to her and cries for some attention too. Tonight Tammy was working on her lesson for Relief Society and both cats had to make sure they were part of it. When we go to bed, Lady has to sleep not next to Tammy, but on top of her stomach. With the cats and kids all looking to get what ever attention they can get out of her, it allows me to be the lucky one that gets left alone.

Started New Cooking Blog

We just started a new blog titled Kolditz Cooking at kolditzcooking.blogspot.com. We are posting recipes that we try with our comments and pictures. Feel free to post a comment to a recipe if you ever try one and let us know how it turned out.

Tammy started weight watchers a couple of weeks ago and she is really watching her daily point intake. I have also been keeping track of what I am eating and was surprised how fast Mountain Dew and fast food really add up in calories. Just from keeping track of my calories, I have lost more than 10 pounds in the last month.

We bought a new cookbook called Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook. For the past month, we've been planning our weekly meals and trying not to eat out very often. I've also been getting up early to cook everybody a good breakfast in the morning. It's amazing how much energy we all have throughout the day just from that. Hopefully, this new blog will help us keep track of recipes we have liked and don't like as well as sharing with our family and friends some different meal ideas.

Summer Vacation - Day Six

We finally made it back home at around 10 p.m. on Monday. Everybody was ready to be back, but we all had a good time on our vacation building lots of memories. We went out our hotel room before 9 a.m. and already the heat and humidity was almost unbearable. We took a walk down the River Walk along the Mississippi River.

We then stopped for breakfast at Cafe Du Monde. It is well known in New Orleans for its coffee and beignets. The beignets are like fried scones covered in powdered sugar. They are really good but very messy. The kids had fun eating them though.

Afterwards, we walked through the French Quarter with all of its little shops and narrow streets. This picture of Tammy, Shelby and Noah is at Jackson Square with a statue of Andrew Jackson in front of an old Catholic church.

Here's me and Shelby with a narrow French Quarters street in the background and the buildings showcasing the typical style of the town with its balconies.

We were going to go to the Aquarium downtown, but it is closed on Mondays. So instead we went on a Swamp Adventure in Westwego, about 15 minutes from downtown. We took a guided two hour tour through the swamp and saw several alligators, birds, turtles, jumping giant fish and even a big crab. It was really pretty and a lot of fun. Before the tour, they showed some of the animals you could see. Tammy went up and held a big snake that Noah touched.

They had a baby alligator that Shelby got to hold.

And Noah got to pet.

Shelby looking for alligators in the swamp. It took a little while for us to find our first one, but after that, we saw several of them.

Shelby looking at an alligator swimming by the boat.

The tour guide would throw marshmallows out when we saw alligators and they would eat them all. The alligators could hear when one hit the water and quickly turn to snatch it up. The guide also put a fish on a string and held it above the water saw we could see the alligator jump up to grab it. It was pretty neat. Another time there was a six foot gator and a four foot and the guide threw a marshmallow in between them. They both went after it, but when they got close, the bigger one whipped its tail to show the smaller one not to mess with him. Below is a slideshow of all the tour as well as a video of one of the alligators.