not landlocked anymore

the one-tootoo punch

supper at Bicentennial Park downtown - the state capitol building is over Ryan's shoulder

Broadway, next to the Sommet Center

face-off

at the end of the 1st period with about 20 sec. left

Jordan Tootoo, at 5'9" takes on a Blue Jackets player who is 6'5"

as Tootoo brought him down, he hit his head on the ice

what looked like a knockout punch was really his head hitting the ice - see the blood?

he was taken to a hospital afterward, but left the ice standing up - being held by teammates

Nashville ties the score 2-2 with 2:39 left

face-off after the goal

Preds win! A goal by #6 Shea Weber wins the game 3-2 with 28 sec. left!

a day with the birds

Nikie and I organized a Sabbath afternoon and evening outing to Nashville and Mt. Juliet for our last "open" weekend of the school year. We headed to Radnor Lake S. P. for Sabbath afternoon hiking and birding, then Ci-Ci's Pizza and Cedar Creek Sports Center after sundown.

a beautiful prothonotary warbler

see it?

Carson's thirsty after running a marathon . . . ?

palm warbler

Randy and Chadd looking for the scarlet tanager

Carson pointing at something he sees in the water - possibly the beaver-chewed tree?

We saw several deer.

We closed Sabbath with worship from John Watkins.

Carson wouldn't sit still for worship, so we went down to the dam. He would look through each level of opening in the railing to see if there was something different from each angle.

Josh leading the pack around the corner

Carson hitting a few balls at the range - pretty good form for 16-mo. old, huh?

Ryan beat me at putt-putt. He and I also had fun at the batting cages earlier.

WE WANT FROSTIES!

The Sommet Center is tall enough and has blue lights to be seen from far away so it's easy to figure out where you're going from your parking spot. We parked farther west this time since we had come from seeing Andy & Bekki in the hospital on that side of town. We gobbled down some Subway sandwiches and headed a couple of blocks down to the game.

We got to the Sommet Center early enough to see all of the warm-up. Little kids lined up along the glass to try and talk to or get something free from the players. They dropped a couple of pucks over to some kids that were standing near us.

Captain Jason Arnott warming up. The two Alternate Captains are J.P. Dumont and Steve Sullivan.




One of the neatest things about seeing the Phoenix Coyotes play was that their head coach is Wayne Gretzky. He was watching the Predators warm up and looked like he was taking notes, but I can't be sure. I didn't see him get any more excited than he looks in this picture.

Greg de Vries, defenseman















Ryan down close as we were leaving the lower part of the arena to find our seats WAY up on the 3rd level, in section 304. That's right, we got to sit right next to (separated only by the aisle) the Cell Block.


The giant saber-toothed tiger head drops from high in the arena for the Predators to skate through as they are introduced.




Preds chase a Coyote 2-on-1 through the center of the ice as the game begins. Steve Sullivan scored the first goal in the first period. The Coyotes scored their only goal in the 2nd, but were quickly behind again when Jason Arnott made it 2-1.

One of the intermission games was an obstacle course two guys competed in while dressed as hockey pucks. It's pretty funny because they can't see anything under the puck. They kept falling over and couldn't get up by themselves.

Jeff Massey (circled) was at the game too with his son Ethan, son-in-law Mike, and his brother who bought the tickets as a Christmas present. We spotted them from afar after Jeff texted me their location.

Preds win 4-1! Ward scored early in the 3rd, followed by the Preds' 4th goal with about 5 minutes left in the game. They outshot the Coyotes 47-26. We were one goal short of free Frosties at Wendy's. At the end of the game our chants went from "Let's Go Preds!" to "We Want Frosties!"

Blues' revenge

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.

Get ready for another hockey blog this week after we see them thrash the Coyotes this Thursday night.

'tis the season

Randy and Mary Jane came to visit for the weekend, their first time back since helping us move into our house. We had a fun weekend that didn't involve any Highland events, a stark contrast from the previous weekend.

We had enough time Sabbath morning to take a quick hike out to the pond that's been featured several times on this blog over the years. On the way out, Randy and I tested out the frozen puddle dominating our softball infield. The ice wasn't quite thick enough to totally hold us, but you could still run and slide pretty well.

A HUGE fallen tree across the path had these ice stalactites and stalagmites hanging from the uprooted base. I thought they were rather interesting. I wonder if they were part sap?





The frost was thick on everything and made the plants sparkle in the morning sunlight.


We went to the Madison Campus church to meet the Hunts and enjoyed their combined choir (Madison Academy, their church, and some other non-SDA church) performing Handel's Messiah. I had fun wandering around a new church to take pictures. The challenge has kinda worn off at our church, although I did climb into the baptistry (way up high in the front of our church) during the service a few weeks ago to take pictures!

My second cousin, once removed (!) goes to the Campus church and she was singing in the choir. Can you find her? I had fun talking to Iris after church. I don't think we've ever gotten together outside of the yearly Rilea Reunion in Jax Beach every year.

Chilling on the Hunts' comfy couch. We had a yummy lunch and a nice time talking. I liked watching and taking pictures of the birds in their back yard.

After lunch, we took advantage of the short amount of daylight left to walk the loop around Moss-Wright Park. It's a really nice park with a huge sports area - soccer, baseball, softball, and basketball. We've taken the Highland kids there before.

The obligatory self-portrait. We wouldn't want you to forget what we look like! This was supposed to have flash, but by the time the flash went off, I was making angry faces at my camera. So this is the best I can give you, expression-wise.

Connie creamed us all at Settlers of Catan after sundown. I'll have to upload a video, because the trading was downright hilarious! Ryan and I have been wanting to play that recently, but it's way more fun with more than just two people.

We went outside to see the huge nativity (which looks like a nativity, so I'm sure you can imagine it) and the outdoor lights. It was bright enough for pictures without flash! You could also go on horse-drawn carriage rides . . . through the parking lot? I'm not sure where they went.

The trees are amazing. They're huge and look like every twig is covered with lights. Giant light trees! There's also a huge pyramid/pole-style light tree thing. That paints a clear picture, doesn't it?

~

After coming back inside, we made the 8:30p water show early enough to get a good vantage point for pictures, but not great for the music and narration. Oh well, what you wanted were pictures, right? The exposure was long enough (0.8 sec.) to show the lights changing in the picture on the right.

In front of the gazebo and fountain in the Garden Conservatory. It's the smallest of the three "gardens" and has an upper and lower walkway. I think it's the prettiest, but probably least dramatic of the three areas.





This is the Cascades area of the hotel, adjacent to the main lobby where guests check in. Disappointingly, they have the little jets of water that shoot from rock to rock turned off. That's my favorite part of that area.

After a late night getting back, Sunday was a pretty lazy day for me. Randy and Ryan worked on Ryan's thermostat on the Grand Prix while Mary Jane and I watched a Hallmark movie. We'll see them again this weekend when we go to Collegedale to see John Locke before he heads back to S. Korea.