The Boys of Summer!

The Baseball season is in full swing. There have been several developments during spring season.

Hunter Underwood
Red Sox

#4

It was the third game for the Red Sox. Hunter Underwood was still playing outfield and complaining every minute that he wanted to pitch. His coach just didn't know what he had. Finally, out of sheer irritation the coach put Hunter in during the last inning to pitch. It was 45 degrees and windy. Everyone really wanted to go home. One more painful inning and we could all be set free. Hunter steps up to the pitchers mound. He was bubbling with excitement. He wound up and strike. Another strike and another. One down. Again, strike, one ball and another strike. His coach, who was standing behind him on the mound, backed off and put his glove down and watched in amazement. In 5 very cold and exciting minutes Hunter had gotten three kids out in a row and we all got to go home. A pitcher was born!


Hunter has pitched in almost every game since. (the rules won't allow him to pitch all of the time). A batter has yet to get on base while he was pitching. He has other talents, but it is a sight to see him strike them out one, two, three every time.

Hunter will start his second season of baseball in July. He will have a whole new team. This time Dad will be his Assistant Coach. More to come......

Blake Underwood

Orioles

#10

Mustangs

#11

Blake is in his third season of baseball and it appears baseball is in his blood! He has no favorite position -loves them all. He seems to be able to play them as too. His real passion though is to bat. He wants to hit it over the fence!

During his current season he was invited by another coach to play on an AAU competitive league team. He was pretty excited as that is a big deal for a 6 year old. He became #11 on the Mustangs.




The Mustang's had their first AAU tournament last weekend. Unfortunately, the chamionship games were rained out so we will never know the outcome, but they were a 6 seed. It was great for their first time together.

Blake played left field. At first he was a little disappointed until he realized he was playing with the best kids around. They actually hit it to left field several times. He was working hard. He can throw further than most of the kids on his team so he soon found himself very useful out in the field. Except for the one that went over the fence....

He came home with a new mission. Next time he is going to hit it over the fence. He has been practicing every spare chance he has and his batting is already improving. I would not be suprised if by August he gets one over that fence!

Blake, Hunter and Dave

In early June the Underwood men all received the honor of a new level belt in karate. Dave and Hunter reached Brown and Blake reached Green.

Their hard work and dedication to this discipline is showing in many ways. The boys are really learning a lot of self control, integrity, perserverence, spirit and courtesy. They have some work, but it is paying off.


Hunter receiving his brown belt. He is thanking his instructors.











Dave receiving his brown belt.

Below is Blake receiving his green belt. He is giving his thank you speech.

Amy

Of course mom is part of all the action. Who do you think keeps the schedule on track, drives everyone around, makes sure there is water, washes the uniforms, finds the lost hats, picks up the strappy stuff to fix the bat handle, takes them to the field to hit balls so they don't break a neighbors window, makes sure we have treats when it is our turn and cheers every time someone does anything remotely good!!???

I am in the market for a good stadium chair.

Syttende Mai

The Jerdees and Underwoods gathered together at Allen and Becky's to celebrate the Norwegian Constitution Day (May 17th). Not only was it a good excuse to have a party on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, but it was a nice chance to recognize our family heritage.

Note the cards in the pictures written in Norwegian, there was a test hosted by future teacher Hunter Underwood after dinner, won by Allen. There was also a Norwegian quiz which was won by Amy, her prize was a CD of Norwegian music. The prizes for the spelling test were the entire collection of books relating to Norway available from the Half Price Bookstore, which totaled 5.

Hunter burned the midnight oil preparing the decorations the night before the celebration with the help of Becky and Al. There was also a few minutes of telling Ole and Sven jokes, with a couple laughs and many groans. Amy and Dave prepared a slideshow of the pictures from their trip to Norway with Beverly and the Shearers.

The meal was prepared by Becky with help from the Aquavit cookbook: various things wrapped in Lefse, vin, gul erte suppe (yellow pea soup (of which the boys had many laughs over), svin (pork ribs), poteter (mashed potatoes), surkål (sauerkraut), tyttebær (lingonberry juice), all followed up with a dessert of krinlga, glögg and Linie Aquavit (none for the boys though).

Adam Graduates from DMACC

Adam recently celebrated his graduation from DMACC (Des Moines Area Community College) with an Associate of Applied Sciences degree in Business Information Systems, aka computer programming. By maintaining a cumulative GPA over 3.5 he was able to graduate with honors (gold cord) as a member of Phi Theta Kappa (gold stole and tassel), a national 2-year college honor society.








The DMACC graduation ceremony consisted of 4 separate campuses (Urban, West, Ankeny and Newton) and lasted approximately two hours, as over 700 student’s names were announced as they crossed the stage. The evening was capped off with Allen and Becky going to Kim and Adam’s to watch Survivor while sipping sparkling wine and nibbling on cheese and crackers.







Some of you are probably thinking, didn't Adam already graduate from Iowa State University? Yes, but this degree applied to his current career and was paid for through tuition reimbursement at Wells Fargo, making it well worth the trouble.

Back in Des Moines for the Summer

Becky and Al here from Venice, Florida, chasing the sun to the north (we call ourselves sunbirds rather than snowbirds) for fun in the sun. Sun? What sun?

We don't have pictures to prove it (our computer is disabled for blogging so we're writing from a common computer located in our condo clubhouse) but we made fast tracks through Florida, Georgia (Atlanta was a traffic jam), Tennessee, and Illinois, arriving in Iowa in just two days...did we say 750 miles per day? We wanted to get here for Adam's graduation ceremony. On our return trip to Florida at the end of September, we'll take a more circuitous route to have time to look at beautiful things along the way.

Waiting for Adam to show you his graduation picture...at least the flowering crab trees were in full bloom and the evening was balmy.

Orioles and Red Sox Opener was Saturday!

Blake started us off with 3 hits and 3 runs for the Orioles. Rounding the bases in his black pants, he was the cleanest player on this team.
He played third and short stop, his favorite positions. At the end of the game he announced, "I am really good at baseball!"

Between games, Kim, Adam, Dave, Amy, Hunter and Blake had a tailgate with gourmet sanwiches, juice and Extreme Pringles. At the end of the day we had Pumpkin Bread.

Next up were the Red Sox. Hunter was a super star out in left field. He took two grounded and several flies, rocketing the ball back in field for a couple outs and a couple really close calls. During the last plays of the game he got a single and made it to first.
Dave's company sponsored the team Hunter was playing



Blake's best friend Adam was on the team Blake was playing

A good time was had by all despite the lower 50s and overcast conditions.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

So I (Adam) was awakened early this morning to the subtle rumble of an Illinois earthquake. It was a surreal, dreamlike feeling as we don't often have earthquakes in the Midwest and this one felt much closer than it actually was. There was a very low, subtle rumbling feeling with a sound to match, much like thunder in the distance. We are happy to say all our pictures were still hanging on the wall, there is no structural damage that we know of and our cat did not seem to feel any ill effects.

Because she can can can

Recently Kim and the architect firm she works with, DLR Group, were involved in a rather interesting charity event at the Science Center of Iowa, Canstruction. The subject of their creation, "READY FOR LaUNCH", is a hunger seeking missile made of cans of chili with a smoke trail of marshmallows. The sculpture earned the "Juror's Favorite" award.