Al Golden's Football Camp 2012

Everyone who knows us, is aware that we are Miami Hurricane compulsive fans.  I like to think we inherited it from my Dad who attended THE U. Bubba got probably the best surprise of his life tonight. There are those that rag on Twitter (Dan) who say it’s just a waste of time.  I disagree.  It gives me an escape from my stress, makes me laugh and gives me some spiritual encouragement too. Well a couple days ago, I saw a post from Al Golden, the Miami Hurricanes Coach, about his summer football camp.  I clicked on the link and when I read this I almost cried with joy, “All campers will benefit from the same facilities and training as the current members of the Miami Hurricanes Football Team.”  I could hardly wait to tell Dan.  When I told my mom about it, she, “Bubba has to go!”  I was kind of expecting her to say, he’s too young or something but I think she may have signed him up if we didn’t. 

Bubba is a very hard working athlete. Since he could throw a ball, he would play in the front yard for hours, throwing the ball in the air and catching it.  I would go out and throw with him sometimes and even neighbors would come by and throw.  He practices on days he doesn’t have football practices with his team.  He lives and breathes football and other sports.  Tonight after practice, we decided to tell him the good news.  I will never forget his face.  First he grabbed his head and then jumped up and picked me up. (Yes, I had a sad moment that my boy is so big now, he can pick me up) then he bear hugged his Dad. I read some info to Bubba about the camp. The thought of playing on the campus at Miami at the same place his beloved Canes play, was almost too much.  I may have seen some tears of joy in Bubba’s eyes too!  Oh, and Dan too!  Go Canes!!

Happy Birthday Weekend to Annie

My Baby girl Annie turned 7 years old on Friday, April 20.  I have enjoyed that wild little girl so much.  She is very different and my heart just bursts with love for her!  She can be a bugger though when it came down to planning her birthday extravaganza.  The Wogs have an extraordinary ability to string out birthdays like nobodies business!  I started asking her a couple weeks ago what she wanted for a present and this was her list:  an electric guitar, drums, surfboard and a pogo stick. WOW!  She is a funny bird.  I asked what she wanted to do and she would never tell me.  FINALLY, she said she wanted to go see a movie with some girls from her soccer team.  I was like, "THANK YOU LORD!"  I talked to the parents made the plans and was happy...temporarily!  Her sleepy face came in my room on Friday, and I hugged her and wished her a Happy Birthday!  She pops out that she now wants to go to Laser Tag.....   One day, when she is a parent, she will laugh at how much she jacked my plans around!!  I texted all the parents to see if they were OK with that and they all said yes. Dan got Annie donuts for her class and I rushed in at her lunch to sing to her and give her a cupcake.  We were dedicated to helping her ingest as much sugar as possible. Dan was not onboard for Laser tag and then some of the girls said they didn't want to go, so I finally made the corporate decision to head to the movies!  

It was hilarious!  We ran right into Uncle Bill and Aunt Lee and they hugged and kissed on Annie and told her they came to wish her a Happy Birthday!!  It was classic!  All five little girls were a hoot!  The personalities were different as night and day but they all got along so sweetly!  We ate cupcakes and juice and had candy for the movie!  They were so good and I managed to answer all my emails, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest!!  It was the most productive movie I have been to in a long time. LOL My mom scolded me reminding me that you weren't suppose to use your cell phone but I assured her that no one was around or cared!

We took the girls home and Annie wanted to eat at Golden Corral.  By the grace of God, I managed to get out of the dinner.  I have semi-nightmares about what kids put in that chocolate fountain and couldn't fathom wrangling my tribe to not put chicken and ribs and such under the chocolate fountain of germs!  Dan brought the birthday girl home from dinner and we sang and did presents with her!  For some reason, she didn't want any of her birthday cake and I suspected it may be due to gorging at the Corral of chocolate.  My sister and Brett totally lost their minds and stopped in for the festivities.  They have graduated to a more serene, quiet environment and the dog barking, kids crying and possible near death activities going on were a bit stressful.  We put the kids to bed and managed a great night out on the town!

The next day, Annie went to my moms house to continue the birthday celebration.  Mom got her a swimming suit and new goggles.  She wants to race this summer and mom got her fixed up!  Annie's cousin Andrew has a birthday 2 days after Annie's and it's always fun for them to have time to celebrate together with Grammy and Poppy. Thank you Lord, she finally got her Pogo stick so now she is happy and satisfied and I actually have a month off from birthday season at our house!  Next is Maggie May's in June!  I have a feeling she will know exactly what she wants to do!

Bike Date

Dan is so much more adventurous and fun than I am!  I wanted to go to the Book Mark to get my friend, Charles Martin’s new book, Thunder and Rain, so Dan decides it would be fun for us to ride our bikes.  I have to be honest, I was kind of nervous. We have never had a "Bike date!"  It’s so busy and crazy on 1^st street! We didn’t have a lock for our bikes and I thought it was a bad idea.  Miraculously, at the end of Forest, we ran into our neighbor, Susan, who happily handed off her bike lock for us to use!  I told her she saved the day and her response was, "What's new?" LOL We went straight over to Ragtime, thinking the Book Mark was next door.  We had to stop and Google it!  Apparently, we need to get out more often because they moved next door to Sliders!  We finally found it, locked up our bikes and bought Charles’s new book Thunder and Rain!  Charles signed my book, we visited and then Dan and I walked around the crowded streets. 

It was kind of weird to be out at night without our kids.  I was overwhelmed with the masses that were out enjoying themselves.  Apparently, a lot of people do "Bike dates!"  It was a beautiful night and many people were taking advantage of it!  I saw girls riding their bikes in high heels!  :) We rode over to Walgreens to drop off our Redbox movies and went to TCBY.   I was so nervous driving down Atlantic Blvd and was pretty sure I could get hit by a car at anytime, turning into the shopping centers.  Dan kept telling me to relax.  We weren’t going to die!  TCBY was  packed and overflowing with people too!   We finally made it all the way home. Usually, after you get home from a date , you feel stuffed and tired.  I was strangely energized and felt pretty good about my healthy self! Dan was just thrilled about the whole night and told me I was a fun wife! Maybe these bike dates aren’t that bad after all!!  I didn’t even die!

Man of the Year 2012

I never knew much about the sport of Lacrosse until a few years ago when my nephew, Jesse began playing at Fletcher High School.  Of course, Bubba was an instant fan and didn’t want to miss a game.  My poor sister had to almost take out a loan to feed Bubba at the games and to buy him all the spirit wear that he HAD to have!!  She spoiled him to no end, despite my protests, with hoodies, T-shirts and more!  I will say the purchases did not go to waste and that he dressed in his best Fletcher purple for every game he attended!! 

 

Recently, I was picking up Bubba from Football practice and called my mom. She was so nervous because Jesse’s game was neck and neck against Providence.  I quickly picked Bubba up and rushed to the field.  I just had a feeling they needed their “good luck charm” to come help them secure a victory!  We parked illegally and ran in to the game and low and behold, they pulled out a win in overtime!  It was the most stressful 5 minutes ever.

Last week, was senior night for Jesse.  We have been so proud of him during his high school years playing Lacrosse but extremely proud this year.  Jesse has been the top scorer in the city!  We laughed about the fact that he was the shortest player on the team his freshman year and now he is the tallest!  We all met at my sister’s house for dinner and prayed for Jesse’s last regular season home game!  At half time, my sister and brother in law Brett walked arm and arm with Jesse on the field, as they announced all of his accomplishments and future plans.  Yes, I cried and was so proud of my nephew.  Of course, I slipped out on the field when no one was looking so I could get some great photos of the moment. LOL!  Jesse went on to make 5 goals and 5 assists and the team won their last home game!

During half time, the announcer had Brett Godard, my brother in law, stand up and be honored for all the hard work he did to preserve this year's Lacrosse season.  Due to budget cuts, this season of Lacrosse was not going to happen.  Brett worked endlessly with all 9 high schools, putting on fundraisers to fund this season.  I don’t think I knew the extent of all Brett did until yesterday.  I got an email from my sister that announced that Brett Godard was voted the Man of the Year for 2012 by the North Florida Lacrosse community!  They said he was the 11^th man on every Lacrosse team throughout the city! The also described Brett as “soft-spoken, rational organized and respected!” I cried when I first read it, cried when I read it to all my kids and cried late last night reading it to Dan.  I am so very proud of my brother in law. He has been Man of the Year for almost 20 years to me.  He has loved my sister and their children and I am proud to be related to him!  I love that fact that he didn’t riot and cause a scene about this injustice to these kids.  He quietly went about uniting and organizing the support that Lacrosse needed!  I think I am most excited because it’s so nice to have another activist in the family!! LOL  I think it may be time for Brett to run for office and I for one, am ready to work hard on his campaign….BRETT FOR PRESIDENT!!

Spring Break 2012

I was so looking forward to spring break.  We all work very hard keeping up with our crazy, busy life.  We all needed a serious break from our schedule.  Saturday, poor Bubba’s football game got rained out but thankfully the rain finally past and we made it safely to the River.  Unfortunately, we missed James and Jesse McDonald.  I am suspicious that they always conveniently leave right before we arrive! I think they may be afraid of the Wog River experience. LOL! We unpacked, ate dinner and took a walk.  KC went nuts.  She always hunts the critters when we go to the River but this was crazy!  For almost two hours we tried to get her home. She was so far away and it was getting dark.  I blamed her behavior on pint up energy and was grateful when the kids finally called her home.  The next day we paddled down to the little beach around the bend from our cabin.  KC took off again but we all hoped she would come back soon like she usually does.  It was lunchtime and we were ready to go back and she still hadn’t come back to the beach.  We went home and would hear her faint howling in the distance, far, far away.  I was really worried because she was on the opposite bank.  Finally a couple hours later, she came to the bank across the river so Dan paddled to get her.  When he got close, she took off again.  Dan was so mad and said he was going to let her just spend the night out in the woods to teach her a lesson.  The kids were upset so Bonnie and I paddled across and just hung out over there and ignored her when she came up behind us like we didn’t care.  Bonnie finally pounced on her and we threw her in the boat and brought her home.  Later that night, we took a walk down the main road and she took off again.  This time she flushed out 6 deer and they were running up behind us on the road and then cut back into the woods.  It freaked us out.  David Lambert who has a cabin a couple lots over, told us since they have harvested the pine forest near us, our properties are inundated with deer.  We finally understood why she was hunting so much more than usual. 

The next day, Ms. Vicki gave the girls rides on her ATV and it was the best surprise.  They loved it and had a blast.  Later, we walked over to visit and KC took off in the woods again.  This time, we saw something jumping up real high and heard all this rustling in the woods next to us.  All of a sudden, two deer flew out a few feet from us and scared the daylights out of us.  This was more wildlife than I ever wanted to see this up close and personal.  Thank God we were standing together or they could have trampled over one of the children.  We visited with the McDonalds and the Lamberts and told them of our "near death by deer" experience.  They both had Hummingbird feeders and told us how cool it was to watch the hummingbirds feed.  We went to the Lambert's property and saw all the hard work they have done.  Their place is so beautiful!

The next day, we loaded up the kayak and headed out for Blue Springs. We were going to drop off Bonnie, Bubba and Dan and they would kayak about 2 hours back to the cabin.  When we left, I locked the doors and then realized I left the cabin keys inside. Dan was not happy and was pretty irritated with me.  I texted a friend to pray for us and within 5 minutes we found a window unlocked and Annie crawled through and opened the door.  I was thinking about how mad Dan was at me and thought paybacks would be coming his way……little did I know, it would happen this trip!   All I said during the ordeal was, "You have never made a mistake?"  The little kids and I went into town and bought junk food at the store and also went to the hardware store for me to make a couple spare keys for the River house so we wouldn’t ever get locked out again.  The kids were thrilled to find a hummingbird feeder there so we bought it and couldn’t wait to hang it on our porch! We made it back to the cabin, ate lunch, made Smore’s in the microwave and I attempted to hang the feeder. It must have been a funny sight.  I got fishing line and tried to toss it over the beam a few times.  I finally got it hung up and we waited for our visitors.  Within two hours, we had a hummingbird and we were ecstatic!!  Eddie was really brave this trip and did the rope swing for the first time and repeatedly jumped off the steps and boat!

The next day, our friends the Laubach’s came for a visit.  Bonnie and Billy were in Ms. Pfalers’s K4 class at the Methodist school.  Bubba and Ryan became fast friends at 2 and have been ever since. They have been on teams together since they were 4 years old and are now on the same football team!  The kids had a total blast.  The only major scary thing was we did saw several water snakes.  It’s a sight I hoped to never see.  The kids seemed pretty unconcerned unlike me.  They still frolicked and splashed and enjoyed themselves all day long in the river.  Ed and Erin got along great and played dominos and colored and had a ball too!  The funniest picture of the day was Ryan lying in the front of the boat paddling with his arms, Bubba behind him paddling and Annie on the back kicking her legs like a motor. They picked up a lot of speed!!  Dan cooked like crazy and we enjoyed burgers and hot dogs for lunch and awesome ribs and chicken for dinner. 

We got up and started packing to leave.  After we left, Dan noticed we needed to get gas.  Our gas information in the car, told us we could go 35 miles and we knew an exit was coming up soon so we were not worried.  All of sudden, our truck started spitting and sputtering and rolled to a stop on the side of Interstate 10 near Sanderson.  Dan began walking to the exit, which was a couple miles ahead and left 5 children, a hound dog and I to wait until he could get help.  Some of the kids were crying and afraid as the big trucks would go by and rock our truck back and forth.  I texted out a request for prayer and just a few minutes later, an officer pulled up behind us.  We were so grateful and relieved.  He quickly went and got Dan and took him to the gas station.  The alternator light came on so we were praying it wasn’t that.  Thankfully, after a few tries, the truck started right up and we were all safely back on the road towards home. The officer was so kind, concerned and really helped our family.  He told me to go easy on my husband!  I told him I was VERY merciful unlike some people and proceeded to tell him about Dan's reaction when I locked us out of the cabin!  Dan laughed and told him it was true!  The Officer said bye to all the kids and blessed us with his help.  The kids said he as our angel during this traumatic ordeal.  It wasn’t quite the end we were hoping for to our great vacation but we will never forget the officer’s kindness and we will never believe the gauge in the car again!!!