Sunday, September 20, 2009

Fl-ackle

yes, that's about right... it's kind of a combination of flag and tackle football. Ryan is in heaven, it's the perfect way to spend a Friday night as far as he's concerned. I had no idea what to expect when we signed up for this. Every other sport we've enrolled him in involved one of the kids' dad volunteering to coach. The main focus and interest was on the snack afterwards.

This time, we have a former NFL player coaching, so I knew there was somewhat of a step up from what we'd been used to. So they had a couple of practices during the week, learned some plays, we have all these sheets of paper with little X and O figures with arrows pointing everywhere... I won't pretend to know what any of that means. So we show up at the field for the game and were blown away.

This was a real football field, with goal posts, yard lines, booming speakers, a flashing scoreboard, and concession stand brimming with tons of spectator foods. There we were, lined up at the gate, $2 in hand for admission, this was the real deal. I've never been this excited at football game in high school or college! The boys were lined up outside the field and as the announcer called each name, they came running out through the goal posts to the sounds of their adoring fans.

The boys will rotate through playing all the positions, and I won't pretend to know what they all are, but Ryan did get to be the quarterback a couple times- his favorite position so far because, as he pointed out, he will definitely get to at least touch the football if he is quarterback. And touching the football is very important.

I wasn't expecting much. I kinda thought that each of the teams would score a touchdown every time they got the ball. But there was a surprising amount of blocking and tackling involved (for a sport that wasn't supposed to have tackling). I also figured most of the action would be running with the ball, I didn't think they would be coordinated enough to throw to each other (or able to catch). I was wrong. One of Ryan's 2 touchdown passes was captured on the video below. Yes, I am the proud screaming momma in the background! He was so calm and cool, looking around for his receiver and lining up his throw just before the guys grabbed his flags. And the kid that caught it slipped right into the end zone. It was such a thrill to see Ryan's face light up. He was beaming. And he hasn't thought of anything else since. He's up hours past bedtime reliving the moment.




Sunday, September 6, 2009

The Ants go Marching...

Hoorah, Hoorah...
What's the very last thing I expected to see when getting home from vacation? All the unpacking, laundry, bills, restocking the groceries looming over my head... and yet there's another pertinant task taking the lead as I rank the priority of these jobs, weighted against the exhaustion I'm feeling from the day of traveling.

After all the cleaning we did before leaving because isn't it so refreshing to come home to a nice clean house... On the kitchen counter is a skittle. Or what's left of a skittle. It was a green one, but almost all the green shell has been removed. Removed by ANTS!! Ewwww, there is a steady stream of tiny ants marching to and from this skittle, each carrying off an invisible chunk of skittle. I follow with my eyes the line of marching ants and see that they're heading through a tiny crack in the mortar between 2 tiles on the backsplash. Heading through that crack and into the outlet! I shudder to think what it would look like if I took that outlet cover off.

Tim is on top of this situation quick as a wink. One minute he is my pack mule, unloading a weeks worth of junk from the beach, the next minute he is flooding the outlet and countertop with ant spray. Those ants don't know what hit them. Who knows how many days they had been working on that skittle. Who knows, maybe there was a handful of skittles and they were finally on the last one!

And NOW we can get to the laundry, the bills, and head out to Costco to restock the fridge with food for the week.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Time and Space

I could enjoy the ocean views forever, from the kitchen, the bed, even the giant bathtub. Everywhere I go in the house I have a view of the shoreline, I just love this week. I am so relaxed, I feel like we've been here for a month instead of only a week. I can barely remember what the calendar holds for us when we get home. I don't even recall what my house looks like. I have lost all track of time and space, I've been in another world, and I don't know if I want to return to real life!