Basketball and More Football

 And now, a series of pictures entitled "What are they feeding these boys?" 

Matthew is quite literally average height for his age (50th percentile). And since he has a summer birthday, he is likely among the oldest of the 5th grade boys. But sometimes he looks very small out there!

The weekend we returned from California, his team was runners up in a tournament. And this past weekend they got runner-up in the American bracket of their league. They've made a lot of progress from last year!

I'm so thankful for his coaches! They have high expectations and make the boys work hard while maintaining positive attitudes and good relationships with the boys. Tonight they cancelled practice so they can all go sledding together!

This is Tim. Tim is a super great guy. We like him (and his whole family) a lot. Tim likes to make bets with my children. (See pictures below.) Tim likes to make bets with my husband (like the time that Scott had to wear Ohio State gear to church for four consecutive Sundays). So none of us should be surprised that it was Tim who convinced Scott that if Ohio State and Notre Dame played each other in the national championship game, they should go to the game together. Scott claims that he agreed to it because he thought there was no way it would possibly happen. But it did. 

Tim wearing a Notre Dame hat as a consequence of the third straight bet he lost to Matthew. The streak was broken with the championship game. Matthew currently owes him a doughnut.

Hannah (who refuses to give high fives) giving Tim a high five as a consequence of Oregon losing.

Micah usually stays out of the betting, but not this time...

As the games of the playoffs progressed, the guys started realizing that their teams might actually make it. Scott went ahead and booked a hotel and flights, since they could be cancelled if needed. But they held off buying tickets for the actual game. For days, they watched the prices of tickets go up and down. They decided to wait until the day of the game to buy tickets, thinking that the prices would drop at the last minute. [Spoiler: the prices did not drop at the last minute. This plan would have backfired badly!]

Coincidentally, Scott has worked with a guy named Russ for several years. Russ lives in Atlanta, so Scott told him that they were coming for the game. Well, Russ happened to know that a guy named Andrew, who used to own their company, his son had a loge. A few phone calls later, Scott had two tickets for loge seats, at a very discounted price!! Oh, and he had a third ticket available...which Ryan Oyster was happy to purchase and join their crazy adventure. 

private entrance for the suites

The buffet included lobster rolls!

Scott video called us to show us around. It was absolutely unbelievable! It was not even "once-in-a-lifetime". It was "this doesn't happen to normal people!" Tim told me later that they were trying to play it cool, but they were absolutely freaking out!

LeBron James was one suite down from them. Every time they showed LeBron on TV, we hoped they would pan over, but they never did! Apparently there was good-natured ribbing going back and forth. When Scott told me after an ND touchdown that he "let him know", I thought he was kidding. He was not. Apparently LeBron's manager told Scott to sit down, and LeBron gave Scott a thumbs down. 

What an incredibly unbelievable experience! The only thing that would have made it better was a Notre Dame win. Maybe next time. 

Hannah even wore a Notre Dame jersey to school the Friday before - a bold move around here!

The next morning after the game, Scott flew from Atlanta to Dallas for work. The kids had Monday off school for Martin Luther King Jr Day, then they got the next two days off for extreme cold. It was like a mini vacation! Everyone did a little creating: 

Hannah decorated this onesie for a friend's new baby brother

Micah made kouign amann - a pastry that is similar to croissants that he tried in California. I will admit, I was skeptical that they were going to turn out; it was a very difficult recipe. But they were amazing! I might have eaten as many as Micah did!

Matthew used Posca markers to decorate some hand-me-down shoes



Matthew also did some drawing and sewing. He cut the leg off an old pair of leggings to make an arm sleeve for basketball. I showed him how to use the sewing machine, and he did great!

one day the Frisbee girls came over to play games for a few hours

I took Hannah, Gwen, and Matthew to see Wicked (finally!)

Unfortunately, Scott started feeling sick on Wednesday and was pretty miserable by the time he got home on Thursday night. I slept downstairs for the next few nights, which worked out great when we were watching K for the weekend. She likes to start her days at 4:30am, so I just laid on the futon and watched her play for a while. 

The Rose Bowl! (part 3)

 Obviously, when we bought our tickets months ago, we had no idea who would be playing in the game. Our Ohio friends were pretty jealous that we were going to see OSU! We might have been the only Ohioans in attendance who were not actually Ohio State fans. (We all wore our Notre Dame apparel, since they were scheduled to play immediately following the Rose Bowl.)

We showed up for the game quite early to enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime experience as much as possible. Based on the traffic and crowds, I'm glad we didn't wait until later! Our good friend Brian and his son Austin had flown out for the game and were tailgating with Brian's brother (who lives locally). We miraculously parked just a couple of rows from their location and managed to find each other (even with almost no cell service). 

One of Matthew's best friends is a die-hard Oregon fan. So Matthew was cheering for the Ducks on his behalf. And Hannah (mostly for the sake of being contrary) made a bet with our friend Tim (an OSU grad) that Oregon would win, so she was a temporary Ducks fan, as well. We happened to be entering the stadium at the same time as the bands and cheerleaders, so we took the opportunity to get a picture of Hannah with Brutus. 

This picture is stolen from the internet, obviously.

Kickoff

There were some Ohio fans around us, but our section had more Oregon fans. You can somewhat see from this clip that one side was mostly red, the other side mostly green, and the end zones were a mixture. 

goodyear blimp

I was probably in the minority, but I was happy that the game was a bit of a blowout. Some of the Oregon fans left early, and there was less tension in the crowd. It also worked out well for us that the Notre Dame game was postponed a day. It took us quite a while to get out of the stadium and find our cars in the dark (and we temporarily lost Nat and Lucy with no cell service!), so we would have missed a lot of the game before we could get back to the house to watch it. 

The Chamberlins had an early flight the next morning, but we forced the kids to take their matching pj's picture before they went to bed. 

Matthew - 11, Nat - 14, Hannah - 14, Lucy - 17, Micah - 16

We stayed one day longer than the Chamberlins. Our friend from college is the provost at Biola University, which was less than an hour from where we were staying. Scott and Micah went to take a campus tour (I don't actually want Micah to go to college in California, though!) and have lunch with Matt. Besides the fun of seeing an old friend, Scott said it was great to have Matt's insight for Micah about various Christian colleges in the country. 

Scott and Matt in 2001?

25 years later - they basically look the same ;)

Gramme, Hannah, Matthew, and I stayed home and walked to get breakfast just down the block. We had noticed every time we drove by that it was always busy, and now we know why! It was delicious!

Then that afternoon we got to watch Notre Dame win the Sugar Bowl! 

We had another very early flight the next day to head back to Ohio and jumped right back into normal life with Hannah's 9pm indoor soccer game.

The Rose Bowl! (Part 2)

 Tuesday we didn't have any scheduled plans. We decided to try Griffith Park again. This time we were able to get in. After parking, we decided to just walk along the road up to the observatory - about a mile hike uphill. We explored around the observatory, enjoyed the views, then took a trail back down to the parking lot. 

Panoramic view

Poor Matthew came down with a bug the night before we left Ohio. He was up multiple times before our terrible 3:30am wake up time. He was pretty miserable the whole week in California and taking medicine around the clock. He needed a little extra down time and often used me as a support pillow. But otherwise, he kept up with all our activities and had a great attitude. 

Don't let the slope of the hill fool you. This is not their actual height order. 

Starting at noon, people were allowed to put chairs out on the sidewalk and claim their spot for the parade. After 11pm, people can move out into the street to the "honor line".  The parade route is 5 miles long, so I was surprised to see that even miles away from the start, people were lining the streets on Tuesday afternoon. People had chairs, inflatable beds, camping gear, heaters, and more. We saw at least one parking lot where people had rented spots for RV's. 

As we planned this trip months ahead of time, I spent a lot of time trying to research what we should do, and I was incredibly frustrated to find no clear consensus. There was a lot of information about "TV corner", which is the section at the beginning of the parade that you see when you're watching from home. But farther down the route people's advice ranged from absolutely camping out the night before to just walking up as the parade was starting. (As someone who likes to Have A Plan! and Be Prepared!, I found it a bit stressful.) 

We decided to purchase seats in one of the grandstands, that way we didn't have to worry about claiming a spot or buying chairs when we arrived. 

Our seats were in the top right corner. 

our view

We had no idea what to expect for parking and traffic. Scott did a bunch of scouting ahead of time and found us a parking garage that was only a few blocks away and very inexpensive. We arrived plenty early. Lots of stores were open selling coffee and donuts, and there were vendors walking around. It was crowded, but from my perspective people were friendly and having a good time. (My only complaint was the bathroom situation. God bless the woman ahead of me in line who had brought her own toilet paper and shared it with me!)

sky writing

stealth bomber flyover 

We were about a mile and half from the start. The parade kicked off at 8am and reached us a little after 9. I already shared some float pictures in the previous post, but here are a few more. 

Jackson State University March Band

Thanks to Scott's great parking find, we had enough time to stop back at the house before heading to the game!