Sad to say, our summer was not as busy as in the past. While we find ourselves with a bit more time on our hands, we do miss seeing our boys play baseball. Wes called it quits after the spring season at Hebron while Paul made the call as the summer season was nearing its end.

It's never easy to say goodbye - especially to someone you've known for 10+ years. There is no way to keep the strong feelings as time passes. There are always questions of "what if" or "did I make the right decision". However, the day will come for 99.9999% of the boys playing baseball when they stuff their glove into the bag for the last time. And so, an era comes to end in the Hammer house for Wes.

Wes' school, Hebron, qualified for 3 boys events in this years Texas Relays - a well known invitational track meet. Wes was fortunate to run in all three: 4x100, 4x200 and the Distance Medley Relay (DMR) [1200, 400, 800, 1600m]. It was a very exciting trip down to Austin with great performances by HS, college and professional runners.

A good subtitle for this rambling would be "How I Spent 2006" or "Running and Writing are Good Therapy".

I started running again during March of last year. The first few runs were about 2 miles long with a grand total in that month of 13 miles. I became more consistent in April but in May a good friend of mine, Reynold, lost his 19 year old son in an auto accident. This event along with various health issues of my family fueled my training.

This past year, both boys played football – Wes for Hebron and Paul with a bunch of his buddies from school. Wes played running back and outside linebacker. Paul played running back, tight end and inside line backer. Both had a blast and enjoyed themselves.