The Second Great Challenge Race

The video of Sammy's concert

Okay. Emmy said that I just have to set the video to upload and walk away for 24hours-ish and then it will be here. It took a long time, anyway.

So, here's video from Sammy's violin concert:




You can kinda hear Dad pleading to Mom to get up there and help him with the music...To her credit, she didn't want to get up there, but Dad sounded so desperate.

Sam's Spring Concert (Gone bad) (According to Sam)

Today was Sammy's violin concert. We were not sure he was going to play in it, actually, because of his track injury the previous Thursday. In fact, he had called his teacher to tell her he might not be able to make the concert. But the thing was that I had already asked for the day off at work specifically for the purposes of attending his concert and after we fed the missionaries (and after prying Sammy out of the chair in the front room) we got in the car and headed off to the concert.





It was a pretty good concert and in true form, Sammy tried his hardest to make sure we did not get a picture of his face. But then, Sam's teacher's daughter, who was conducting the concert, made him, and the other boys he played with, leave their seats and go to the floor to play their song. Things didn't exactly go well. There's a corresponding video that showed what happened when we realized that Sam's music stand was directly below the air vent, but I'm having a hard time uploading it right now. I'll try to post it again later. The main thing is that we all had a pretty good time when it was all said and done.

The Challenge Race - April 10, 2009

Mary Ann Urban at 11:47pm April 10
For some reason, Dad said the track was calling to him this morning and he really wanted to race Sammy... They didn't stretch, remove their coats, or wear real track shoes, but they made pretty good time. Dad wants to do this every day before Sammy goes to school. I have volunteered to be the official time keeper. We'll see.

Samuel Stumbles in Second Track Meet

Elder Urban email - Apr 20, 2009

Thanks for the update. Its cool that you and Sam are running together! Keep at it and I’m sure you both will get faster. And don’t get too discouraged about Sam being faster than you, he is way younger. Good to hear that work doing better than most. Did you guys ever cut the satellite TV?

Working with 5 stakes (40 Wards) is good! We mostly get 5 dinner appointments a week. It is tuff working with all the relief society and elders Quorum presidents and mission leaders. Sunday is actually our busiest day. That means no more Sunday naps for me. But our p-day is on Monday, after out busy Sunday so we almost get to relax.

Thanks for the money for the shirts. Glad to hear you went to a ball game. I wish you well,

Sam and his Dad

Sam and I had a race recently on the track for 110 meters.  The first time, he ran it in 22.7 seconds and I ran it in 24 seconds.  Then we bought Samuel some track shoes with spikes.  We raced again.  This time he ran the 110 yards in 19 seconds and I ran it in 25 seconds.  He left me so far behind that I got discouraged and slowed down.

At work we have had lots of lay-offs.  However, it looks like we may have turned the corner.  Our company lost money in December and January; broke even in February and made money in March.  April is looking similar to March.  Last week, our company had left over Pirate Baseball tickets.  I claimed the ones for last Wednesday.  We went and watched the Houston Astros beat the Pirates 4 to 1.  It was a cold night, it even sprinkled a little snow.  Sam was on TV, he was wearing his cowboy hat.

Sam and I got haircuts this week.  Carolyn had her birthday on Friday. Sam has his birthday this Wednesday.  Next Sunday, he will become a teacher.  He has one item still to do on his Deacon Duty to God.  He needs to read three more church magazines from cover to cover.