momentarily unhappy
and then back asleep
Jared and Chantel Litchfield walked in the door right after we did. Their baby Lyla and Tessa will be 2nd cousins. Chantel is due toward the end of March.
sucking her hand
she's pretty tiny, only about 17" long
Well, I survived Junior Benefit Saturday night, but the process was much longer than just the 10 hours in the gym. I wish I could list for you all of the things that we accomplished to make the night happen. Here's a snippet:
A couple of my favorite people at our benefit. The Mathis team was pretty funny because Don, J.P., Renee, and Tyler were the main four with Nikie as a sub. They all played at once with one subbed out, who was the designated Carson holder!
Chadd agreed to help me with the brackets for each division. The B-league bracket was kinda crazy with 12 teams. We ended up losing one who decided to drive back to Memphis after they figured out they weren't really as competitive as they thought, so that lessened some of the time it took. I think B-league had something like 22 games - best of 3 games to 15 points in each match, rally scoring.
One of our attempts to keep the younger kids off the volleyball courts was the face painting table. One of our Junior parents was our main artist, but a couple of girls from our class helped too. Michelle is painting Page's face in this picture. They're both Juniors.
Team Ley had coordinating shirts with plays on their last name, like Vol-Ley. They were one of two all-family teams. The Mathis family was the other. The Leys actually elimited the Mathis family after we bumped them into the losers' bracket.
Brandon and Corey recreated their chest bump so I could catch it.
Megan Crippen, class of '07, was a student I barely survived on ski trip two years ago. She and her friend Nicole thought it was hilarious to tickle me for some reason . . . Anyway, she's a great volleyball player and came back with two other alumni and a friend to compete in B-league. (See the Spongebob inflatable thing? A family donated that so we'd have another activity for the little kids)
Here's a wide shot of the stage area and A-league court. We used an overhead projector to trace the silhouettes onto black paper. I ran the lift to hang them up. It was really frustrating because the tape kept sticking to itself and the paper. The sponsor signs on the stage wings were painted by McKenzie and me on Thursday afternoon.
This was our concession stand after the hot dog meal was served. This kitchenette was built after the class of 2006 donated money for it as their class gift. We've used it a lot. It was just what the gym needed.
Gianna played on a team with three other alumni who graduated last year. She and Andie, one of her teammates, were in my faculty family last year. They still call me Mom when they come back to visit and I get random calls and messages on my phone from those crazy girls.
Here's what Ryan did most of the night - teach newcomers Settlers at the table on the stage. Don't worry, I was watching Carson and just set him down to take the picture. I didn't even let him eat any of the pieces!
I'll let you in on the A-league action. These guys on the left totally dominated the other teams, even with only 3 players. Two of our five A-league teams came from the Collegedale area. I wish we could have had more teams for their division.
Mark Knutson, Leif Ramsey, and a guy whose name I can't remember (he's from Norway - 6'9"!)
Amazingly, my serve was pretty much "on" for most of the night. Our last match, I was so tired that I couldn't get it over the net. My eyes were stinging and I was getting hungry again!
This was our last match, against the Jones team. They beat us with lots of little dinks in two games. I played with Shelly & Scott Miller and their friend Andrew Knecht (sp?). We did decently well and had fun playing together.
Dave Munroe, Norvella Ashby, Mark Weigand, and Alex Cox won the B-League
Ryan called me Thursday afternoon when I was in the thick of Junior Benefit preparations, painting sign after sign with our sponsors' logos for the gym. He had a lady he works with offer him Predators tickets for that night's game against the St. Louis Blues.
I told him I definitely wanted to go, but would have to see if I could leave early from setting up that night. The games start at 7:00 and I was supposed to set up until 7:35, during rec.
I talked to Michael, our other sponsor and he was fine with me leaving 30 minutes early. We left at 7:00 and showed up downtown in the break between the first two periods. Ryan wouldn't tell me where our seats were because he wanted to surprise me with how close they were. We were a mere 9 rows from the action, right behind the goal! This picture shows our view of our seats from the last Thursday game - 300 level.
One of many faceoffs
This game was pretty intense. Both the Blues and Preds are fighting for the last playoff spot. They played each other three times in 9 days and the Preds came out on top twice. All three games went to overtime!
J.P. Dumont shoots! It was fun being at a level where I could actually see the names on the jerseys to know who everyone was. The line down the picture is one of the joints between two pieces of plexiglass.
This reminds me of the stories from Ryan about Hardy last year. Kids threw their shoes and shirts off before they started hitting each other. Apparently it's no different for adults. The refs immediately jumped in and broke up this fight. As long as the players are still standing, they don't seem to do anything, but as soon as they're down it's over.
You never know who's going to come around on the Zamboni! There weren't any fun games in between periods during this game. All they did was throw t-shirts and we were too close to the glass and net for them to throw one to us :(.
Ryan and I in our seats. We got Predators shirts after the last game. We had no idea we'd get to wear them so soon to a game! What's funny is that I had worn mine all day, not knowing we even had a chance to go to a game that night.
Wide shot of the game in action. We got to see lots of shots on goal by both teams since they switch ends each period.
Some shots from the game
Nashville's goalie Pekka Rinne taking a drink after making some great saves.
The Predators had scored once in the first period and the Blues scored early in the second. The Blues made 6 shot attempts during their power play during overtime while Erat sat out for a hooking penalty. The Blues scored a few seconds after the power play ended from right in front of the crease. It was the first time in 14 games this season that the Preds have lost after leading in the first period.
Sabbath afternoon on the White House Greenway - Valentine's Day <3
This is us at the beginning of what we thought would be a 3.5-mile leisurely jaunt around White House's Greenway. You can see the sign and map behind us. The Greenway crosses the roads that Ryan drives to school every day, TN-31 and TN-76.
I liked this shot of Ryan going down the hill in front of me. I can't remember if this was before or after the really steep part. I almost died! . . . but I'm sure you don't want to hear about that . . .
This part of the woods was my favorite. Not only was it downhill (one way!), but it had all the pretty beech trees with their leaves still on. It felt very airy in that stretch. At the bottom of this hill was our first road crossing. I think we went across two roads and under two roads.
Us at a bridge near a lovely-smelling water treatment facility
This is my reaction to discovering that we could only go from point A (left hand) counter-clockwise to point B (right hand) and that the part between my hands DOES NOT EXIST YET! We found the Adventist church though. It was right where we came out. So, we had to go back the 3.5 miles to our car instead of just looping around. The Greenway will eventually go through the municipal park.
A lot of our journey was along Honey Run Creek, appropriately named for our outing! I could tell that a LOT of water comes through there sometimes. There were bags high in the trees from the water being way up. There are signs around that warn of flash floods. There are also signs that warn of snakes, so we'll (I'll) definitely look out for those.
The sweet deal I got at Circuit City's closeout sale - an Olympus flash for my camera
Ryan had flowers and a nice balloon waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday.
One of Ryan's students gave him bubbles yesterday at school.
Roses up close, changed to b&w, then colorized
And I still had my camera set to b&w when I snapped a picture of this guy at the feeder this morning.© Free Blogger Templates 'Photoblog II' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP