2013 Football - Game 3

Here we are back with week 3 of the football recap.  This week was horrendously H-O-T. I and some others as you will see in the photos below actually were using umbrellas to keep the heat deflected somewhat. I really felt bad for those boys on the field in their black uniforms.  Now onto the game.

WOW, Vern played a lot this game.  He really seemed back into the swing of things...Until he got hurt that is but I will get to that in a moment.



Vern looks like the shortest kid in this photo. Looks like he is giving the thumbs up to someone.

Another shot of Vern pushing and shoving on the offensive line.

Good ole #80 doing a fabulous job!!! I don't know why he didn't have on his black or purple socks. He looks so much better with them on.

Here is a great shot of Vern pushing forward on the snap of the ball.  Looks like he is playing defense on this play.

Vern is taking on a couple players on this shot. Man football is rough even at this age.

Poor Vern is triple teamed on this shot!!!

Vern is smack dab in the middle of all the action here. Love the photos!!!!

Here we have Vern not feeling so well. This was taken right after he came off the field after hurting his arm.

Awe shucks they lost again. I sure wish they would score at least one touchdown...

I have to say I am starting to sound like a broken record...There is always next week right???

Vern is really in pain in this shot. I feel so bad as a mom.

And finally a shot of the x-ray from the emergency room. All is OK. Thank goodness. Doc also said that Vern has a lot of growing to do with all the bone plates still open. He was happy about that!

Finally, we have an appropriate quote from a ref I know, "Football is not a contact sport - it is a collision sport."

2013 Football - Game 2

Well.... I must make a confession here. DA FOOTBALL MOM missed one of Vern's games. Yes, strike me dead. The fanatical football mom that loves the game and her son more than anything missed his second game. What on earth could be more important than her son and his game...

I will get to that in a moment but first Vern's game commentary from Vern himself.

Me - "How did the game go?"

V - "We lost."

Me- "Well what was the score? How did you do? Tell me all about it!"

V - "I played some. Maybe a little more than last week. 0-55"

Me - "Glad you got to play but Ouch on the score."

V - "ya." and walks off.

So I guess if I had to miss a game I am glad it was a blowout one like that. It takes Vern's team to  0 and 2 for the year. But there is always next week right???

Now for the reason I was gone. I completed a bucket list item and went to a Green Bay Packer game in Lambeau Field. Yes, I have been to Packer games before but this was the first at the Iconic Stadium. Let me just say it was everything I hoped it would be and more. The weather was P-E-R-F-E-C-T, the fans amusing, the game fun (even if they did lose), and the hotel clean.

This first photo is of me on the Bay. The park consisted of this dock. Craziest thing I ever saw. They even had signs on the beach - PRIVATE KEEP OFF but the dock was public.

I believe this is a picture of the Bay side. As you can see the weather was beautiful as was the landscape. We drove up to Door County and wish we would have had more time to spend there riding bicycles and enjoying the land.

Here is hubby/aka Superman. We are eating lunch with Lambeau field in the background. You can see the crane flying the Packer flag. That is how close we stayed to the stadium.

 

 

I was waiting for hubby to get out of the gift shop when I took this shot. Loved it!

 



And her we have the "Fanatical football fan"/mom/me!

A blurry shot of the guys warming up before the game.

A shot of hubby and me after the game. Hubby has a GREAT smile here. <3 p="">

It was a great time and Vern didn't even care I wasn't there!

2013 Football Season - Game 1

I am going to try and catch up on some posting. Yes, Vern is playing football I just haven't posted the results. Here we go with game #1.

It was a hot start to the season. The boys were pumped and ready to play. Vern is on the left in this first photo.  This year Vern is number 80. I will update the blog photo when I get a good photo of him in his jersey.

We went into this game knowing Vern would not start or play much as he missed one week of practice being at farm camp.

Vern got to play on kick offs and a few other plays. Since this was the first game of the season the coaches were still moving kids around a lot. Vern got in his minimum 8 plays for this game and it was all we could expect. He did well.

I think he looks good with those purple socks on!  #80 pushing and shoving.

I just thought this shot was kind of cool. I love looking at the photos and seeing the expressions on the boys faces.

One more face shot. He is always ready to play when some of the other boys...not so much.

And the final disappointing score. We lost and didn't even score a touchdown.  There is always next game right???

Farm Camp

Rain
Rain
Rain - that was Vern's chief complaint while down at Farm Camp. What is farm camp? Well it was a week visit to my sister in southern Missouri. She has a farm and lots of animals and well it was something Vern just needed with all the drama at home. He needed time away from the older brother and sister that constantly pick on him and tease him. He needed time away from parents nagging him. He needed time to be a boy. That is what he got on his week away.


First he got to shoot a gun. He passed all his hunter safety classes earlier this summer so was allowed to handle a gun.

He also got to milk goats, or as they say down south (Please don't anyone be offended I am just repeating what was told to me...) play with Amish titties. Vern said he had the bucket almost full when the goat kicked the bucket and he had to start all over. Of course the numerous kittens really enjoyed the spilt milk. :-)

Then there was as Vern put it - Gas bag Uncle Scott. HEE HEEEE I think those two had noxious emissions wars with each other with no one a winner!

Vern got to help with all the animals - dog, rabbits, goats, chickens, and cows. He had a blast!

My sister did share a typical Vern story with me. They stopped by the local Goodwill store.  In less than 5 minutes Vern tummy starts to hurt. Then it is I have to go to bathroom...on and on. You get the picture. So my sister gives up and leaves the store. It wasn't but a couple minutes later in car Vern pipes up, "Oh I feel better now!" Vern is NOT a shopper. LOL


Here is Vern getting ready to drive the go-carts.

And playing putt-putt golf.

This final shot is of Vern and my sister (ya she is crazy as I am!) on the trip home. Love them both!!!!

 Thanks SIS for showing Vern a great time on the farm.

Family Vacation 2013

Well I debated on doing one GIANT blog or many small blogs...with all the canning and vegetables I have going on and activities with the kids the one GIANT blog wins.  Here was one of Vern's summer family vacations.

Day 1-
We were all up early and ready to leave by 6 am.  I was heading out the door with 2 cups of coffee for hubby when I see a robin has flown into the garage. CRAP, I kick the door shut and yell for Superman. We have a bird delay.  He heads out to do some bird chasing with a broom.  Vern appears. I tell him to quickly open the door let me out with the coffee and shut the door. As he does so the bird flies toward us and Vern freaks and slams the door. No I was not quite out of the way and one of the two cups of coffee spill all down the front of me. After quite a bit swinging the broom we have a KO by Superman (knock out), followed by a toss into the street. As I am backing out of the driveway I see the poor robin sitting up dazed and confused.

Selfie of Vern.

I take the first leg at driving (making up the lost time with my lead foot) and we stop for a picnic lunch in northeast Colorado. There is not much to see in that part of the state but open spaces of brown grass followed by areas of irrigated crops.

By mid afternoon we hit Castle Rock, CO and do some school shopping at outlets. New shoes and school outfits are purchased. Dipping Dots are devoured by the kids and the weather is cool and perfect. Then it is back on the road to our hotel for the evening in Wallensburg, CO. It is just a little spit of a town.  The room was a bit smelly and had a couple bugs but nothing to horrible. I brought the Fabreeze bottle along and all was well. The kids and I swam, played keep away in the pool and had a great time. Wonderful family bonding time.

Day 2 -
Up fairly early as the hotel breakfast only went until 9am. Then it was back on the road to Durango, CO. The drive through the mountains was fun. Hey it was fun because I wasn't driving!  We had a picnic lunch by a small stream through the middle of town. It was nice.

We got checked into our cabin outside of town and the kids went up to the pool and swam while Superman and I relaxed. OHHH how nice it was to do ab-so-lutely nothing. I never do that so I enjoyed every nano second of nothingness. OK, I played Candy Crush and watched some TV but to me that IS nothing. I also read in my book and just enjoyed being away from the rush rush rush of daily life. Did I say how much I enjoyed this evening? I believe I even took a nap!!!! We did go for a walk and saw a small goat farm. LOL

 Day 3 -
This day we enjoyed breakfast at 7000+ feet. Food tastes heavenly when you are on vacation. It must be why you eat so much.  After breakfast we were off to Mesa Verde National Park.  This is an ancient Indian ruins.  We toured 2 of the ruins - Balcony Palace and Cliff Palace. Each tour took an hour and you had to allow 1.5 hours between tours so we spent much of the day at this park.  We had a picnic lunch and tried out our camel back water backpacks. They worked GREAT! We needed them with all the climbing and hiking we did this day. Between the 4 of us we burned through the 2-3 liters in no time.

Ann enjoying the view.

Lunch!

This next photo was the easier of two ladders on the Balcony House tour. I am TERRIFIED of heights so this was so far outside my comfort zone it was not even a little funny. I made it up this ladder but the second more terrifying ladder I froze. People congratulated me when I finally made it to the top shaking like a leaf and mad at myself for being so scared.

On this next photo look way far over there. In the middle of all those rocks is a ladder. Yes, we had to climb that...

These are 800+ year old homes. Amazing how well they have been preserved. Wonderful experience. Glad we spent the day here.

After our trip to Mesa Verde we headed south and west further to the four corners monument. They are finally developing this area and have added booth areas for the vendors. It was a quick fun trip. We got back to the cabin in time for a late dinner and the kids took a quick swim while I cooked. It rained a bit this evening.

Day 4 -
I enjoyed relaxing so much on day 2 we did it again today!  Superman and I walked around town window shopping while the kids went zip lining.  Boy does the time fly when you relax! The hours just fly by or maybe it was the bottles of wine...

But alas it was time to begin packing up for day 5 traveling again.

Day 5 -
This was get up and get moving day. We had to travel back across the mountains. This time I drove. It wasn't to bad except for a nervous Netty passenger. We had a nice lunch before we hit the Great Sand Dunes National Park. What an awesome park! It is mountains of sand right beside a rock mountain. In front of the sand dunes is a cute little stream running through the sand. It's been dry in that area of the state so the cute little stream was just patches of mud...oh well.  We got here in the afternoon and of course a thunderstorm kept us from climbing the dunes. We did manage to get into what I call the foothills of the dunes. You can see from the photos it was not safe to climb when we were there as the lightning has a good chance of hitting you. The warnings were every where. DO NOT CLIMB if thunderstorms in area.

A funny side story - as I was driving through the mountains some white car kept riding my bumper. I went to pass someone and this car got mad because he wanted to pass both of us. Well if you know me....I didn't let him. A few miles down the road he decides to pass me AND a fifth wheel camper. He does get around us with his personalized JAllen plates. I then decide I should pass the fifth wheel camper and as I am about to do so I see police lights. I abort the pass and pull back in.  It seems that JAllen got even more aggressive in his driving habits and passed an unmarked police car. I began giggling loudly as JAllen was beside the road and I cruised on by. He just did not have a good day.

We made it to our hotel in one piece. The kids did more swimming in pool. I joined them this evening and we had another fun time floating, talking and giggling.  The kids also demanded Village Inn for dinner...I am not going to expound on that except for it is NOT my favorite place to eat. They enjoyed it and that is what counts. If I can go out on rock ledges for the kids, I can eat at Village Inn.

Day 6 -
Today Ann was the second one out of bed! She had things to do today. This was her day. We were on our way to Elitch Gardens for a fun day of rides and water park. OK, so it was fun for her and the rest of us had an OK time.  I have to say I paid for VIP parking and it was worth the extra $5. Since we went out to the car numerous time during the day it was nice to have the car close. Ann complained a bit but enjoyed riding the coasters even if she went by herself. Health problems prevent Superman and me from riding and Vern gets violently ill riding spinning rides. Vern did go on one roller coaster and felt so bad after that so he didn't do any more. Gotta give him credit for trying! We rode some tamer rides with him (Farris wheel).

We all decided pizza sounded good after a long day at the amusement park. We decided to try Anthony's Pizza for dinner. We ordered a large since we were all starving but large is an understatement. Look at the size of this thing. It is HUGE!!!

After dinner we nestled into our hotel room and watched some TV. We had a My Cat from H#ll marathon. It was fun. We can relate having 4 cats that all hate each other.  The kids swam for little while but quickly joined us watching TV until lights out.

Day 7 -
Up fairly early and yet another hotel breakfast. By now I am soooooo tired of hotel breakfasts. We get loaded and moving on down the road to home.  We have a decent sized SUV but today after all that togetherness it was a long ride and we were all too close together. The kids and the grown-ups got in each other's bubble. (Personal space.) Boy were we glad to pull into the driveway that night.

To top it all off the kids had to turn around and head to the Grand Canyon on Day 8 with a same type of trip with their father!!! I didn't hear much about that trip except it sounded like more of the same - driving and seeing stuff.