Unbelievable.

That's the only word I can use to describe the feeling of coaching two consecutive teams to World Series titles.

And even that word doesn't do it justice.

But before I continue, some background is necessary to put this in perspective.

Last year, I was the head coach of Ethan's WPPA team in the 7-8 year old division, called the Junior League. We were the Rockies and we stormed through the league, going 14-1 in the regular season and winning the Junior League World Series in an amazing come-from-behind victory. There was a lot of drama that season, with false (and often ridiculous) accusations against me and my assistant coaches. That offseason, the WPPA instituted several rules (both for the draft and for game play) that was intended to prevent our kind of success from happening again ("Rockies Rules", as one of my assistants mockingly called them).

This year, with only two of Ethan's teammates from last year's championship team, and with my inexperience as a new coach in the 9-10 year old kid-pitch division, called the Minor League, we were the Rockies again and finished a respectable 3rd place in the National League. But most importantly, we still went on to win the World Series again.

Winning one World Series championship is completely amazing. With 15-17 teams (depending on league) but only one champion, many coaches never win a single championship. It's true at any level...from professional right down to youth league. So I understood the gravity of winning one. But winning back-to-back World Series championships? That is an indescribable, completely unbelievable feeling.

There are so many reasons this one was even sweeter than the first. As I mentioned, only two of our kids from last year were on this year's team. That means 11 of the 14 players were different. But we won again anyway. In addition, our coach pitcher decided he wanted to be his own head coach (his team ended up facing our team in the World Series so kudos to him) but we won again anyway. What's more, we faced teams with good head coaches who have had prior experience in the kid-pitch Minor League, whereas I was the newbie kid-pitch head coach. But we won again anyway. Also, critics who thought I sandbagged the draft last year have to eat crow this year since we drafted this year's team with the new "Rockies Rules" in effect and won again anyway.

What's more, Ethan's team won the World Series without our team's best player (Leo) in Game 3 of the best-of-three format. We had won Game 1 but lost Game 2 in extra innings. Then Leo was out of town for Game 3. But despite that, and despite the team's disappointment of losing Game 2, the team battled back to win Game 3 anyway (fairly handily, I might add). One of Leo's former head coaches was very impressed with our Game 3 win because he knew how good Leo was, and how hard it is to win without your biggest gun.

So congrats to Ethan, his Rockies teammates from last year (Ben & Rhys), his new Rockies teammates this year (Leo, Jack, Eli, Mitch, Henry, Nolan, Luke, Daniel, Sam, Grainger and Andy), this year's coaching staff (Brent, Rob, Bob, Lon and Buck) for their tireless assistance, and the parents who shlepped the kids to the practices and games. I appreciate each of you. Every year's team is special but this year's team is beyond special. And this year's team created memories I'll never forget...and hopefully they won't forget either.

Finally, but definitely not least, endless thanks to Mil, who let me coach again this summer while handling the other 5 kids. You are the best.

• I'm one step closer to figuring out this undercabinet lighting maze. The LED light bars came in yesterday (1-day shipping from DHL...they rock!) and I think I've solved our problem with how the transformers will work with the five different hard-wired zones. Just have a couple questions left for our Taiwanese vendor (Photonier Technology) and I'm ready to complete the order. It's pretty exciting, as this is the last major piece of our kitchen puzzle.
  
  
• Still digesting the news that LeBron James declared he's going to play with the Miami Heat. What a moron. He's taking a pay cut to play with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh but the Heat still won't have any money left to pay for a decent supporting cast. But wait, there's more! Miami is a small market, so good luck if LeBron wants to expand his "brand". But wait, there's more! LeBron will have to share the spotlight (and the ball) with his two superstar buddies. Good luck trying to separate from the pack and establish yourself as The Man. While some people are hyperventilating that Miami will now win multiple championships, the reality is that with a projected supporting cast of minimum-salary nobodies, this team still isn't a lock to beat Boston, Orlando or Chicago in the East, much less win one NBA championship. To me, LeBron is clueless and I hope he never wins any championships.
  
  
• It's Day 3 of the Henry Potty Training Festival and he has not had a single accident all day (and so far, all night...through 1:26 AM). Can I say 'Whew'??? I still hate potty training but I thank God that it's been pretty painless so far.
  
  
• As head coach of Ethan's youth baseball team, had a team practice tonight. Things are going well. Ethan plays at Welles Park in the Minor League; our team is the Rockies. Team is 7-2-3 and in 3rd place in the National League. Have a game vs. the Yankees on Saturday, then the regular season finale vs. the Twins on Sunday. We'll see how things go.
  
  
• Bought this new product at Target called Kashi TLC Oatmeal Raisin Flax Soft-Baked Cookies that has both omega-3 and fiber. Both Mil & I agreed that we wouldn't buy this again. It tastes very "grainy", is not exactly soft in texture (I was expecting it to be like Matt's Cookies) and generally more like a granola bar than a cookie.
  
  
• Sorry, no pics today. Getting late. Maybe tomorrow.
  

So it isn't a year since our last post...woo hoo! Like a broken New Year's resolution, we'll resolve to try to stay current in our blog. (If you roll your eyes at this point, I don't blame you.)

Today is Day 2 of the Henry Potty Training Festival. I have to call it a festival to make it sound fun b/c I hate potty training. We normally start our kids, whether boy or girl, at 2 years old but had to postpone it with Henry since we were temporarily dorming with Mil's parents due to our house construction. So Henry is now 2.5 years old. Hopefully he will "get it" faster since he's a little older than we would normally start. And so far, he's had many successes in between several of the expected accidents, so it could be worse. But I still hate potty training.

Just to clarify, we do potty training cold turkey b/c we feel it works faster that way...at least it has with all our other kids, who averaged about 2-3 days to get it down 80%. Last night was his first overnight experience and Henry had no accidents. I took him to the potty at 11:30 PM (he was dry but nothing happened at the potty), and again at 1:30 AM (he was dry and had success in the potty). And Henry stayed dry the rest of the night. Whew! But I still hate potty training. We'll see how it goes tonight.

As for our house, I'm currently trying to figure out how to do undercabinet lighting for our kitchen. I decided on LED, as it's cooler to the touch than Xenon and more energy efficient than halogen and even florescent. But it's been quite an adventure trying to figure out what exactly I need. I could go the expensive route (over $1000) and let the Lighting Manager at Ferguson design a Juno Trac12 LED system for me but I can save about half that if I can plan it myself. Pray for me b/c this has got me sorta stumped. Our GC even came over today to look at my parts list and asked "Can you return this stuff?" Ugh. And did I mention I hate potty training?

We cooked our second meal on our new BlueStar range tonight: BBQ pork fried rice. It was our first time using a wok on our 22,000 BTU burner and lemme tell you, that is some serious heat. I had to use an oven mitt just to hold the spatula thing that I used to stir the ingredients in the wok...and I felt the heat near my tummy as I stood in front of the range. Wow. The range is incredibly impressive. I can't wait until our kitchen is finally 100% finished (currently has no running water and nothing is in any of the cabinets, so we're still cooking out of boxes).

And our hood is phenomenal. We turned it on and when we finished cooking, you couldn't smell anything. Only after we turned off the hood and the cooked food continued to release aroma did we get any whiff of culinary scents. In the past, our entire house would smell like food b/c we didn't have any kind of hood. And it was less noisy at full power than Mil's folks' hood at medium-high power. Outstanding performance.

(Please excuse the messy and still-unfinished kitchen in the photo).

Lastly, we tried putting the kids down early: 8 PM. Of course, it wasn't until closer than 8:45 that the kids were all in bed...but it was better than the 10PM bedtime they routinely had been getting for the past several weeks. This gave us a little more time for our personal stuff before our own bedtime. And we have a lot to attend to these days. We'll see if we can sustain this effort of putting the kids to sleep earlier.

How are you doing? Please keep us abreast of what's happening in your life! Everybody has a fascinating story to tell and we'd love to hear it.

So it's been a year since our last post! A lot's happened since then and we haven't been journaling it all. Hopefully, it won't be a year before our next one.

On Mar 1st, Luther Robert was born. It was fast! So fast, Mil didn't have time to get an epidural. If we were another half an hour later to the hospital, Mil might have given birth in the car! In fact, the baby came so quick, he was born before the doctor arrived (a mid-wife helped deliver, and she was terrific).

Here are the first photos of Little Lu from the hospital...

We celebrated Erik's 3rd birthday with a dim sum lunch (his request) at Shih Wah in Chinatown. This is our first family birthday song to him that day...

Ethan performed Concerto No. 2 by F. Seitz for his Northwestern Music Academy Spring Recital on Sunday, March 15, 2009.