On the way back into town after the memorial service yesterday, my parents and I went to Costco to pick up a few things. Mom stayed in the car while Dad and I partook of samples while we shopped.

After we got back to the house, Mom and Dad went to go pick Erin up and take her to the grocery store. Daniel was tired so he didn’t come along and Erin wasn’t feeling great, or I’m sure she would have biked.

Laura and Craig came over and we all had dinner. When Laura came in she asked what had happened to the van. I thought she was joking at first, but there are some scrapes on the passenger side, looking like someone swiped into it. Tristen and I hadn’t noticed and we took a minute to figure out the last time we’d gone out with it. We figured it had to have happened when she went to Kid to Kid to exchange some baby stuff. Someone must have scraped it pulling into a parking spot then left. We were, of course, pretty pissed about it.

Everyone kind of disappeared while Tristen and I were getting the babies to bed.

It was a bit of a sports day. Kentucky played Bama (I think, or was it Georgia? I always get those two states mixed up) at noon. I recorded it for Dad, but we didn’t end up watching it. He’s gotten to where he likes to know the outcome of the game anyway. The Wildcats won by nine.

We also watched a lot of the Clemson-Carolina game, which was partly on during dinner, so we were in and out of it. Clemson was sitting on 0-59 in games at Carolina. They never won at Carolina in the whole history of the two teams playing basketball. On top of that, Roy Williams has been tied with his mentor and former Carolina coach Dean Smith’s all-time wins. So Carolina had a few things going: Keeping the streak alive and hitting a 60-game milestone, Roy Williams passing Dean Smith, and, you know, getting a win.

A lot of people were very interested in this game because Carolina is historically bad right now. Unfortunately, Clemson is also pretty bad. Carolina led the entire game except for when it was tied at 2 all and had a ten-point lead with two minutes left.

That didn’t stop them from continuously turning the ball over and letting Clemson hit some threes. They tied it up with three seconds left and it was off to overtime, where the Tigers went on to win 79-76.

To their credit, Carolina has been injury-plagued this season, but it’s not like they were playing great before.

Aside from ending an historic streak, Carolina has now lost three straight and eight of their last 11 (or seven of their last nine, if that sounds worse). It’s not getting much easier for them as they play a number of away games and tough teams sprinkled with a few should-be easier games.That game was never closer than 5-3. It was such a blowout that I was convinced to switch back and forth to the Ravens-Titans playoff game by my dad and my wife. (Baltimore lost.)

Duke has only lost one game, an embarrassing (also streak-ending in the form of home non-conference games) overtime, two-point head-scratcher against mighty Stephen F. Austin. (They’re not that mighty, but they do seem to be having a decent season.) They’ve looked really good since that loss, the closest game being a nine-point win at Georgia Tech.

Of course it’s expected they’ll lose some more games between now and the end of the season, as that’s the way things usually go, but that loss really seems to have pulled them together. I’ve particularly liked Coach K’s use of the bench this season. He’s notorious for not playing a lot of players.

Beach Day

Mom and Dad headed off in the morning after spending some time with the boys. Tristen offered breakfast, but they’re on a diet where they only eat between certain hours and it wasn’t time yet.

Tristen wanted to get the boys out of the house and decided since it was decent (though overcast) out that a trip to the beach might be nice. It was pretty humid when I walked outside, but it was rather chilly at the beach. I had only put on a t-shirt and shorts and hadn’t brought a jacket, but it turned out not to bother me.

Erin and Daniel had planned to stop by the house, but they were out biking all around town and met us at the beach (then biked back to our house to pick up some stuff).

Griffin was strapped to Tristen the whole time. Phoenix took right to the sand, but Fawkes was a little hesitant at first. They both enjoyed digging in the sand though. I think we’ll do more beach trips this year than we did last year, if only because Fawkes and Phoenix can walk out there themselves now.

Everything was fun and games until Fawkes wandered too close to the water. He was playing with the sand when a wave (if you could even call it that) splashed him and knocked him over. The water was cold, he was all wet, and he was done. Tristen wrapped her jacket around him and I carried him back to the van where we changed the twins out of their sandy clothes.

(Continued below pictures.)

It should be noted that all the boys have been sleeping pretty well lately. Fawkes and Phoenix go nuts when we get to their room to go to bed after bath time, but they’re sleeping fine. We think having a bed that’s so comparatively large helps, as they both get to be comfortable while also spreading out.

Griffin seems to have finally turned a corner. If it hadn’t been consistent at this point I wouldn’t have said anything for fear of jinking it, but over the past several nights I think there was one time he woke up at about 5:00, but Tristen was able to get him to fall back asleep in his crib pretty quickly, so that hardly counts. Wakeup time is generally somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00, but it feels like it’s being pushed a little later as the days go by. (Or maybe I’m just being wishful here.)

Fawkes and Phoenix have been saying a LOT of words lately. I can’t even keep up with them all: blue, sit, bottle, bubble, more, Moana, Dada, Mama, Nonny (more like Nana though), Milly (still Ni-ni though), lots of attempts at words.

[Edit from the next day: Phoenix started referring to himself. It sounds a lot like how he says Milly (Ni-ni), but he’s motioning to himself, so it’s definitely an attempt at his own name. We tried to get him to say “Fawkes” too, and I think he did, though it sounds kind of like “Daw.” Haven’t gotten him to say “Griffin” or “Fin Fin” or even “Fin” yet.]

Oh, lights is a big one. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but Phoenix does this thing where he takes a person by the finger and leads them to the Christmas tree (if the gates aren’t up), then he pulls them down to try to get them to sit in front of the tree. After that he’ll go get whoever is’t there yet and bring them in. Then when most everyone is there sitting in front of the tree he’ll point to the lights and say, “Boo (blue).” Sometimes we can get one of the boys or the other, usually Fawkes to try to say yellow, but they’re not too interested in saying other colors yet.

Anyway, it’s really cute and sweet and he’s probably going to be very sad when the Christmas tree finally goes away.

Griffin took one crawl. I can’t remember if that was today or yesterday though. He’s been getting up on his hands and knees fora  while, but he gets around so well on his belly that he hasn’t really cared about crawling I guess. But it’s starting to happen.