No "Coach" jokes please.

It has been a good week for my son. He got a job at our hospital this week which offers tuition reimbursement. This will help with the nursing degree he is pursuing at Wright State. In this same week the AD at our Catholic schools offered him a head coaching job of the middle schools girls basketball team. Needless to say he been smiling a lot (me too).

It's a credit to his attitude and demeanor. He is a well spoken, hard working and polite guy. If I've done anything half way decent in my life, it's been the rearing of our children (most credit goes to my wife). We have 4 and while the oldest chose a less than desirable path our other 3 kids are good people, good citizens.
He will be coaching our granddaughter along with the other young ladies. My wife and I took guardianship of her when she was 3 (child of our oldest daughter) and she has become a fine young lady. She has adjusted well considering the situation with her mom and being raised by her grandparents. I've always been impressed with and proud of her. She works hard at school and strives for success. She has played two years of elementary level basketball (not CYO ... I'm not sure what the league is called). It has been cool as hell watching her game progress and the big growth spurt she's had the past year certainly won't hurt. I think she'll play small forward. Needless to say I am looking forward to attending their games and will prolly have to force myself to sit a distance from the bench so that I don't coach the coach.

I haven't been around the board much lately. It has been a busy number of months. Work has had me hopping between shifts, but at least the effects of the Japan earthquake and tsunami have passed and our production is back on schedule. My mom was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer, but she is doing good, all things considered. She is going through both chemo and radiation and the treatments have shrunk the tumor by 90%! She lives in Sun City (part of Phoenix) and we went out to see her last month. It was such a worthwhile trip and Arizona is an incredibly beautiful state.
Phoenix is so clean and the 105+ temps were comfortable (must be that "dry heat" thing).

We used one day to drive up to the Canyon. WOW. Words and pictures simply cannot describe this wonder of God's creation. When we first saw it I had to sit down to take it in (and not because of the vertigo). I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit choked up by it's beauty. I chose to take a state route (Rt. 86 or 87, don't remember) rather than the interstate and I would recommend that drive for everyone despite it taking much longer. The drive is from the desert floor, through 3 or 4 national forests, into the mountains and then the Canyon (the elevation from the desert to the Canyon is about 8,000 feet). Simply put, there are unbelievable vistas around every turn. We didn't go east to check out the several craters, but perhaps next time. My uncle just bought a cabin (near Payson, I think) and we plan to go back a year from this February. Among other things I hope to take at least one of the jeep tours into the red rock near Sedona and, of course, actually go down into the Canyon.
Ultimately I'm blessed and overall the past few months are worth a few of these ....

I hope all is going well for all of my fellow Dawgies.