The Heineken

It's time to bring your Heine to Grapevine for the Heineken cup game. That's right Euless vs. Grapevine is this Friday night at 9:00 pm at the rink in Grapevine Mills. It should be a good game as Becky and I have been trying to recruit a ringer for the game. Yes we are trying to bring in a Canadian. We figure that would put the edge on our side. Our regular goalie will not be able to attend, but we have a special goalie who goes by the nickname "Helicopter". He is fun to watch and great to laugh with after the game.

To make it more fun I have 2 games Saturday back in Euless. I am back helping out with the Grave Diggers. They play at 9:00 pm followed by the Komets at 10:30 pm. I do not remember who we are playing in either game but it should be fun.

Now for a special treat, if you have not had the chance to attend Becky's bootcamp, this is your last weekend to do so. They will be meeting at 8:00am in Grapevine on Saturday. Jay Johnson and his wife Lin will both be instructing this last class for the month. Becky already has 2 co-workers and our next door neighbor saying they will attend (remember it is free, great time to try it out without having to pay). From what I am hearing from Becky, it sounds like she will be signing on for another session next month.

On the school side of things, Becky is having to do a community service project. The organization she has chosen to work with is the Mothers Milk Bank of North Texas (http://www.mmbnt.org/). This is a wonderful organization that provides breast milk to babies that need the supplement in the hospital. Becky had heard of this organization, and after Johnathon passed she donated all her frozen milk to them. She had to work there one day last week. Since then she has come to appreciate this organization even more. For her project she has to write a grant and try to get funding for the organization. She has taken real ownership of this project as she has already start doing all of the written work and is trying to identify potential organizations to seek funding from. Her main goal is to find the $36,000 that is necessary for the Milk Bank to purchase a pasteurizing machine. This new machine would allow for them to process more milk and get it out in larger quantities to the hospitals that request it. We have a couple of friends who may have companies that maybe interested, but I do ask that if you know of a good contact at a company that may want to sponsor such a project please let Becky know.

I had an interesting moment at the cemetary the other day. Becky and I went after church to visit Johnathon and leave some flowers. While walking up we always stop and pay our respects to any new graves that we may pass. On this day when we approached Johnathon's resting place we noticed fresh flowers from a sevcie around a new grave site that was about 8 feet away from Johnathon's. I stopped to read the name, in doing so it dawned on me that the name was too familiar. As I stood their examing the flowers a card stood out with the Texas A&M markings and the Dallas Stars emblem on it. I instantly realized that this was for Matt McKee, he was the Dallas Stars Director of Ticket Operations. Though I had never talked directly with Matt, we had seen him at some functions and he did help me get the price for my season tickets corrected once before. We had learned of his passing just the previous weekend from one of our hockey friends who works for the Stars. Matt was only 32 when he passed away. Here is the artcle about him on the Stars website http://stars.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=350473.

Before Johnathon had passed we had been informed that the Dallas Stars were to be at the hospital the following Tuesday. We knew this would be a great chance to get some pictures with the players and to share a moment of joy with them. We even requested selected players that would make it more memorable. Seeing that a member of the Stars family is now resting close to Johnathon made me renew my commitment to getting the book completed of this blog. I would like to furnish a copy of it to the Stars team for them to see what has occurred from them that has brought us some memoriable moments.

Hockey has become a real past time around our house and has provided a new family. If you have had a long week and need to get away this weekend, I invite you to come join my other family and see for yourself what all of the fun is about.