Football Friday Night

  . . . and Saturday morning, whew! Quick turnaround :)

Friday Buck grabbed the boys from choir, met me at home, and we skedaddled to the Varsity game 45 minutes away. Brennen (21) was in all the right places and snatched a couple of interceptions and almost got touchdowns (he was in the end zone, just a bit out of bounds). Graysen (34) entered the game a couple of times on the kickoff team--he even got a "tackle" (flag pull) on Varsity! Granted, these are the same guys they played on Saturday, since the other team is small, all of their Varsity guys also play JV. They were no match for our Varsity though, the boys won by a landslide.

It was fun to have almost all the of my NGF's family at the game to cheer for their brother. Seems like forever since we've seen the kids. Chase came too; he was called a "nerd" for doing schoolwork at the field, but it is homeschool football, so he certainly wasn't the only "nerd" doing schoolwork in the crowd :)

This guy on a motorcycle followed us home, though :) Brave fellow, too, riding 45 minutes through crazy snarls of traffic not able to consistently access GPS. Buck and I were in full parent mode watching to make sure he had plenty of room on the road and that no one got too close (Buck might have rammed said "no ones" with the minivan if they had. He was so tense afterwards, he had to put icy hot patches on to sleep, lol--this actually happens pretty often, but we're giving credit to the journey home. "It was like driving through a snowstorm," said Buck. Yeah! It was . . . but Chase made it home safely, like he always does. But, like we tell our kids, "It's not you we're worried about, it's the other drivers. The other drivers are dumb." :)

But first, post-game wings! Brennen is on the phone with the coach whose wife just had the baby. Coach B was at the game for a little while, and then Mrs. Coach called to say she needed help, so he left. But earlier, when he first arrived, all the boys cheered and gave him side-fives and hugs and started calling him Coach Dad (they hadn't seen him since the baby was born). He is signing his messages to them that way now, too. Super cool! With another game just hours away, Coach Dad wanted to check in and see how the first game went and what they needed to change/focus on for the next day. I've mentioned him before, but man, what a great example of a Christ-focused young husband, coach, and now dad for these young men. (And if you kept up with my circuitous chronology on that one, good for you! :)

After a short night's sleep, we were back in the van heading back to the same field for two more football games. There were two young guys from the community who happened to wander into the park while our boys were playing the night before. At first they were obnoxious, but soon just started cheering for our team. On day two, they showed up in dress clothes (well, the younger one tried--he had on a UA polo shirt with his athletic shorts). The slightly older boy had on dress shoes, black slacks, a tucked in button-down black shirt, and a black tie! They said today they were "scouts" and carried notebooks and pens to decide what offers to make to which players. When the JV game ended, the second young man changed into a white dress shirt and added a suit coat to his ensemble! They seemed glad to be "included" in what we had going on and even connected a bit to the boys on our team. And, yes, the younger one was a bit annoying at times, but they mostly stayed in character for both games!

It was full on sunny and we are full on sunburnt again! Brennen is a shade of red only a dermatological chemical peel should be able to produce. His leg is all torn up, but he and the Varsity cinched another big win. Graysen also played Varsity on the kickoff team, so it counts as his win, too :) His JV team struggled a bit to make connections with his throws, but again, he launched some good ones! Buck did a little dad-coaching from the sidelines; he really loves watching the boys play football :)