The Perfect Evening

Watching a Florida Gator basketball game with my boys

A fire in the fireplace

And, of course, the stalking dog is never from me

Gators win...making it double perfect!

TV Watching

Even after a year, Ollie is still confused when a dog or cat appears on our TV screen.  

He whines, barks, and tries to smell the TV screen because he believes they are real.  

Sometimes, when we aren't paying attention to what is on the TV he will just start whining and then we will rewind the TV and see there was a dog or cat in a commercial.

Yesterday America's Funniest Home Videos featured two dogs in their $100,000 grand prize show.  We kept rewinding the TV to keep him interested and I got out the camera.

He is a crazy dog.

Sochi Has Problems

Okay...I confess.  I did not even realize that this was a winter Olympic year until this past Friday when one of the 6th grade girls asked me if I watched the pairs figure skating event the evening before.

***At which time I really showed my age by showing them youtube videos of the greatest figure skating duo of all time - Gordeeva and Grinkov.***

But, I digress... today I was watching some of the Olympics and I became aware of - shall we say issues - that have occurred within the Olympic venue.

Twitter lit up with pictures and captions that were simultaneously hilarious and terrible at the same time.

Some one was stuck inside the bathroom with no phone so he had to break down the door

Light fixtures falling from the ceiling

Welcome to my room...have a seat in one of my chairs.  Very comfortable

Doorknobs falling off

Curtains falling down

No comment needed

Again...no comment needed

Water is restored,,,drink at your own risk. On the plus side - at least I now know what dangerous water looks like

Forced to play basketball with a waded, used piece of toilet paper

Do the motels have wireless internet?  Maybe.

It's not an Olympic event so seats are still available

Um....speechless

Something's just not right.

Just Pictures (and a couple words)

Zack's team had a tournament today.  They took 4th place out of 8 teams...which isn't too bad considering it was a D-1 tournament and they are a D-4 school.

It was an emotionally tiring day - and night...so...not in the mood to write about it. 

Just a couple pictures taken by our good friend

Photo credit: Bill Holtz

Conversation with A Seven Year Old

Talking with a 7 year old can be rough...trying not to damage their burgeoning and fragile psyche is tricky...

As I found out today:

The first graders were working in a drawing program on the computers

Child: "How do you like my picture, Mrs. S?"  

Me:  "That is a beautiful cat"

Child: "It's not a cat"

Me:  "Oh... yes...I see that now.  I was just looking at the ears" (as I point to two pointy things on top of a mis-shapen oval head).

Child: "Those are not the ears...those are the eyes."

Me: "Yep...uh-huh, I can see that (NOT)!  Once I looked at it a leeettle longer I could definitely tell those were eyes and not ears." 

At this point I thought it was best to keep my mouth shut so I subtlely start to back away...and then:

Child: "I love frogs"

Me:  " I can see that...you drew a beautiful frog."

Child: "Thank you." 

YES!!!!!  Conversation over.

Rugged Cross

Another basketball game tonight.

On the line was the "Old Rugged Cross" trophy that travels back and forth between our school and New Hope Christian School depending on which team wins the game.  

New Hope has had the trophy for the past two years.

We'll keep this safe for a year

This year the trophy comes back to Valley Christian. 

see the ball stuck up there?

They did not really play that well...but still won.

Oh yeah, and as a team they had 7 fouls in the whole game.... compare that to the 31 fouls that were called on them on Saturday night.  

Character Building

Zack's basketball team had a tournament yesterday.  

The events of the day were so unusual that I never experienced anything even similar in all my years of attending basketball games, much less on the same day.

By the time we got home last night I was so frustrated, and quite frankly stunned, that I wasn't even going to blog about it.

But I have changed my mind.  I won't get into specifics here except to say that the boys played three great basketball games and should be very proud of their effort and their sportsmanship.  

They won the first two games easily and the third game they came up against some refs who really had it in for them. I don't normally say that. I am usually the one who defends the refs because, while they all make a bad call now and then, they are usually pretty fair.  And it usually doesn't affect the outcome of a game one way or another.

Last night was the first time ever I have really believed the refs were obviously against them.  By the beginning of the fourth period, every one of their players (who got extended playing time) were at risk for fouling out and it was surreal to watch as the boys could not even play defense for fear of picking up their fifth foul.  All they could do is stand there and watch the other team drive to the basket and hope they would miss.  

Sadly, I am not exaggerating.

I don't necessarily think losing is bad.  And bad calls by refs are going to happen.  I believe it all plays a part in building your character.  But this was tough.  There is so much more these boys endured from the refs that I am not putting on here -  and it was hard to watch.

Tough day.

This picture unfortunately is very blurry but I love it.  Three who love basketball waiting impatiently to get back in the game (Zack id in the middle).