Todd's Tips

We went to the big playground last weekend, and I swear weren't there 5 minutes, before the girls had two new friends. They played together for over an hour; laughing, giggling and holding hands as they went from slide to slide and bridge to bridge. When it was time to go home, they hugged and said goodbye. This isn't the first time I've seen something like this with my kids. I remember way back when we first moved to Tyndall AFB Florida in the mid 90s. Justin was about 5 years old when we moved into base housing. The day the movers came, and we got to the house, he immediately started walking up and down the street, knocking on doors. Whenever someone would answer, he'd say "I'm Justin, I'm new here, do you have any kids that might want to play with me?" Simple and effective. Justin always had plenty of friends. Contrast this with most adults ... Even just at the playground, while the girls were skipping around with their newfound friends, I w

We had a pretty good line of strong Thunderstorms move through the Fort Hood area yesterday afternoon. Still no tornadoes, hail, or anything like that, but the "scenic value" is getting a little better ... As a self described "weather geek" (I'm one of those lucky people who actually enjoys what I do at work), this time of year, in the section of the country, can occasionally be pretty exciting. Although, yesterday I might have overdone it just a little bit ... I'd been watching the towering cumulus build up all day, and we actually got a pretty good thunderstorm just down to our South East a bit earlier in the afternoon, so I had a pretty good idea that we were probably going to get hit. So I'm sitting in the living room with Ana, watching tv, and I decide to go look out the window. The sky was getting really dark, really quick out to the west. I went over to open the door, and almost had it blow back in my face. I poked my head back in the living

Justin has been skateboarding since he was about 8 years old, and we lived in Hawaii. I've been taking skateboard pictures for almost as long. Justin recently came back to live with us here at Fort Hood, and we were happy to discover that there are three skateboard parks here on the post. They're all relatively small. Nothing like the Hickam Skate Par that we used to go to in Hawaii; with it's street course, big half pipes, and two huge bowls. But, one of them is within walking distance of our house, and all of them are free. The one closest to our house is near the Comanche youth center. It can't be too bad, as the boy is there for a couple of hours every day ... along with many other kids, every time I've stopped by, ranging in age from 7 to 21. As I mentioned above, there are also two other skate parks on Fort Hood. One is in the center of the post, not too far from the hospital. From driving past, it looks pretty similar to the one we have here at Coma