Draft weekend

Andrew and Thomas have been looking forward to this weekend for quite some time.  The draft is in Pittsburgh, and the guys have gone over to partake.  They left last night after Andrew finished parent conferences so they weren't at the first round.  But, they have spent the day in the city today doing draft things, they are at the draft tonight, and they'll be in the city again tomorrow before heading home on Sunday.

Honestly, I've been looking forward to this weekend as well.  Since it isn't fair to the dog to be alone for an entire day, I stay home with Janey.  This means I don't have to leave the house if I don't want to!  I can get the house picked up, and maybe even doing some photo digitizing.  I can also sleep as much as I want!  I'm very excited about a weekend with no obligations...other than making sure Janey gets four walks a day!

Right now we are receiving a soaking rain which makes it even more lovely to just get to hang out at home.  It's bringing a cool front through, and I'm happy that we won't be having more 80's right now.  Have I mentioned our house stinks?  I'm not going to get into it, but we need to be able to leave the house open to air out, so cooler weather is beneficial.  And tomorrow it is supposed to be very cold, and I'm so very excited about that!

We have 18 days of school remaining.  It's hard to fathom that I have to tolerate some of these parents for another 18 schools days.  It's also a little hard to believe that in four weeks it will be Memorial Day weekend.  I am 100% not sad about seeing this school year come to an end.

So glad we got to share it with them

We are currently visiting my in-laws.  My father-in-law is not well.  There is a very real possibility that some of us will not see him again.  His mental decline is significant, his physical decline is almost as bad.  He knows Andrew, but had no clue who I am.   This evening, he didn't even know where he was, even though he was in his own bed.  This trip was already planned weeks ago, but the timing was absolutely perfect.  

And an even better part of that timing was the NFL Hall of Fame inductions.  The class of 2020 was inducted this evening, and there were some prominent Steelers included.  Those kinds of ceremonies are always emotional.  Even though my father-in-law was in bed, I made sure the kids and I watched the speeches that were pertinent to the Steelers with all of us crammed into the bedroom so we could all be together.  My husband has been able to share so many great Steelers memories with his father, and I'm so glad we all shared this together.  I know that my kids don't really understand the significance, but it was special.

My little Steelers fan

The Steelers game didn't go quite as we had hoped last evening.  In fact, there really was no point after about the first quarter during which we could even maintain much optimism.  It just wasn't our night.  And losing to the "Deflatriots" as my youngest calls them, makes it even worse.

My little guy sure tried to bring them good mojo though.  Andrew and I were both dressed in our jerseys, but Thomas took it to the next level.  He had on his jersey, and underneath it was a Steelers t-shirt and over it was another Steelers shirt.  He had on his Steelers sleep pants and brought out (although he wouldn't wear) his Steelers jester hat.  When it became painful we decided it was time for him to go to bed even though the game wasn't over, he was wrapped in his Steelers blanket and sleeping on his Steelers pillow.  He sure tried to will them to victory!

Football games

In the world of college football, Notre Dame FINALLY won a game last night! Last week was such a heart breaker and I can't even stand to think about it. Our Steelers didn't play so well last week, but we are hoping for better things this year. JR's team is 3-0 so far this year. In fact, yesterday was the first touchdowns they had given up all season. While I know that JR is not necessarily thrilled with playing football, I'm grateful that he's able to be part of a successful team. Because their team is so successful though, they don't play a lot of defense, and since he's already splitting time because there are 50 players on the team, it's a little difficult for all of the defense to get any quality playing time. He's enjoying the games, but has still informed us that there is no future in football for him. We're proud of him for trying though!

Maybe next year

So our Steelers came up a little short last night. Such is life. I had thought for about, uhm, 30 seconds, of letting the kids stay up until the end. After all, this doesn't happen every year, being able to cheer your team in the Super Bowl. So glad I didn't, since they couldn't quite pull it out in the end. I loved the fact that the game was close, and if I have to watch my team lose, there is literally not another team I would want to lose to...I really think the Packers deserve the championship. So football season has officially come to an end (as an aside, let's hope that the negotiators do a good job and get their rears in gear so that we can have another fun season next year), and now baseball players report in just 11 days!

The big game

Only about an hour until kick off for the Super Bowl! I've been feeling really lousy this weekend, so my wonderful husband took the kids and headed over to our friends where we were all supposed to watch the game, and I'm enjoying the quiet time. I feel like all I've really done all day is sleep, but I'm still happy to have the quiet house. We are all dressed in our Steeler clothes, and my in-laws even sent new ones in a package this week to make sure we were prepared. Being superstitious though, I'll wear my new one tomorrow...got to go with what has worked so far! I'm convinced this is going to be a great game. In fact, if the Packers were playing any of the other 30 teams in the NFL, I would probably be rooting for them. But I'm not...Go Steelers!

Going to the Super Bowl!

Pittsburgh prevailed in a great game last night. We were also rooting for Green Bay, so we are very pleased with the results of yesterday's games. With our new HDTV, I even got to see my in-laws on TV! They have really great season tickets and I looked up and there they were! The younger two made it to half time, and JR made it to the beginning of the fourth quarter. Hopefully the later bedtimes don't come back to bite us today. We are all excited though, and looking forward to the big game in a few weeks!

Here we go!

Only about five hours until the big Steelers game today! We are all dressed appropriately, and my husband has gone to pick up the oven bake pizza that we will be having for dinner this evening. We are very disappointed that our game is the later of the two and the little ones, who are the bigger fans than the oldest, won't be able to even dream of staying up until the end. It will be very nice though, to be able to watch it on our new, large, HDTV. Very hopeful that the Steelers will be bringing home a victory and will be headed to the Super Bowl in two weeks!

NFL has begun!

On a lighter note from my previous post, the NFL season has begun! And I can think of no better way for it to begin than a Steelers victory! A very exciting and dramatic game, although I'll be honest, no one in my house was awake to see the Steelers finally win. JC was in bed long before the game ever started due to her behavior, but the boys stayed awake to watch kick off. HT made it to half-time (one benefit of being in PM kindergarten) and I was the last to give in as Hines Ward fumbled in the red zone. It was so cute to see HT before the start of the game. He had his beloved foam finger, his Terrible Towel, and he was jumping up and down whenever Big Ben would appear on the screen. Go Steelers!

Here we go Steelers!

Yep, we are pretty happy people in this house! We spent the afternoon and evening at our friends' house, staying close to home so that we could bring the kids home right after kickoff. This allowed them to be in bed at a normal time. Why, oh why do they play the Super Bowl on a Sunday?! A sitter met us here and then we rejoined our friends to watch the rest of the game. Our friends are not Steeler fans, but we are all Miami grads so they are Big Ben fans. They were happy to jump on the Steeler bandwagon and we had a fun time. My in-laws have season tickets to Steelers games and had won the lottery for tickets so they were there to enjoy every moment. We are all enjoying our black & gold victory today, and my husband had enough sense to take a personal day today so we can rest up!

Catching up

We've had some exciting events since I last posted! On Friday, I'm not sure that the temp ever reached 5 degrees. We received a phone call before 9:00 Thursday evening letting us know that school was being cancelled for Friday. Another day to sleep in! We had made sure to let the pipes drip and keep the cabinets open Thursday night, but I made the mistake of shutting everything down when I got up Friday. So, we had no cold water in the kitchen for nearly 24 hours. I couldn't believe it was so cold it froze during the day! We ran space heaters, but it was just too cold to make a difference until the temps warmed up on Saturday. We also had frozen hoses and a frozen washer motor on Friday. We were able to thaw that out Friday evening, but I haven't attempted to do laundry since then. Needless to say, it's on my to-do list today! My dad's cottage experienced some serious pipes freezing. He believes that something may have burst, so our planned trip up there for yesterday and last night was postponed. Saturday was spent cleaning and getting ready for some friends to come over and hang out in the evening. We loved getting to visit with everyone! Yesterday we headed to church in the morning and JR was an altar server for the first time. After lunch at Applebee's, we came home and settled in for an afternoon and evening of football. It was a perfect day! We all just hung out, and by the time the Steelers game started, we were all dressed in our black & gold. The kids sat and watched the game with us, and JC even stayed awake long enough to see the Steelers advance to the Super Bowl! My in-laws have season tickets for Steelers game, and they won the Steelers ticket lottery for the Super Bowl. They will be headed to Tampa for the big game! We are very excited for them! Today is just a day of getting ready for another week, and maybe even getting ahead on some things. I think the kids will be ready to go back tomorrow after an unexpected five day weekend, and I'm pretty sure I'm ready for them to go back as well! Here we go Steelers!