Football Ends

Grandma Mary and Auntie Sue just came out for a visit to watch the football games for a weekend. The way the schedule worked out this year, there was only one Saturday where the games ended up being spaced far enough apart that we could see all of both of them. Fortuitously, it was the weekend that Auntie Sue and Grandma were going to be here. Even better, it was a week that ended with two days off school due to teacher inservice, so the kids were home. 

They flew in on a Friday morning and the kids and I picked them up from the airport. It has gotten cold here lately, so I had encouraged them to pack warm clothes, it was in the mid 30's when we picked them up. Once we got back to the house and Jake gave Auntie Sue the tour (she hasn't been here since we moved) they started in on the card games. As usual they player a ton of Old Maid, Crazy 8's, Spoons...you name it they played it. 

Marisa was running in a race on Saturday morning (more in her post) so it was just me going to the football games with everyone. Jake/Faith were the first game, which was at 8:30 out in Emmett. Jake's coach likes the team there an hour before the game, which meant 7:30. Emmett is 45 minutes away, which meant we piled everyone in the car, in the dark and cold of a Saturday morning at 6:45. As it starts to turn towards winter, those last few football games are tough, especially the early ones as it's still cold and dark. Everyone was bundled up with sweatshirts under their jerseys, gloves, extra socks etc. Getting hit under those conditions isn't fun to begin with and the Emmett team is a bunch of hard hitting, BIG kids. It was a rough game. They had been coached to hit hard, in every situation, even away from the ball. They had crack back blocks built into their play. All legal stuff, borderline, but legal, but nothing we have coached our kids to do they weren't ready for it. We had kids getting hurt all game, including Jake two different times. We hung with them in the first half but ended up getting pretty soundly beaten in all senses of the word. 

Faith did really well in the cold. She got some hot chocolate with Grandma Mary and other than some cold toes, did really well. Grandma Mary and Auntie Sue really seemed to love watching her cheerlead. She is REALLY into it. She had showed them all of her cheers in advance at the house. She pays attention and her coach just loves her. Much to Marisa's chagrin, she will be continuing her cheerleading career with a group cheerleading class over the winter while her brothers are playing basketball. 

After the fiasco in Emmett was over, we drove back to town in time for Tanner's flag game. This year the flag teams are playing at the local junior high school and not the optimist park, so parking and moving around are much easier. Tanner's team is about even over the season and played a really good game on Saturday, beating a good opponent pretty soundly. Tanner had played center most of the season and totally loves it. I asked him once why he liked playing center so much, it's not the most glamorous position and he said that he likes not having to block anyone. In his league, this year, the center has to be uncovered by rule. I explained that going forward, it becomes the toughest position to block, which he didn't know. I showed him the nose tackles on some games andTV and that seemed to sober him up. I secretly think he like playing center because he gets to be the person who yells "HUDDLE" each time and the end of the play to call everyone back to the huddle. He does do a greta job snapping the ball and his coach has gone out of his way to thank him for playing center and telling him what an important position it is on the football team. I have asked Tanner if he thinks he'll keep playing football and he told me he'll play his second year of flag, but isn't sure that he wants to continue once he moves up to tackle. So we'll see what happens next year. 

So after our full day of football, we headed back home and met up with a tired and sore Mom for nap time prior to Scary Movie Night (more in Marisa's post).