Catching up from the holdays and such...

I've had a busy but fun holiday. I had the boys from Wednesday December 19- Christmas Day. My sister flew down and arrived on Sunday the 23rd and stayed until December 30th. The boys had several "Christmases" in terms of gifts. I let them open gifts a few days before Christmas and then they got to open presents at my parent's house on Christmas Eve. Of course they did the same with their Mom's family the week after Christmas. As always my Mom made a great Christmas dinner. My sister continued her interviewing of my Dad to learn more about our family history.

I watched the Patriots game to see them become the first team in NFL history to go 16-0 in the regular season but I did watch a little Penn State and Paterno win yet another bowl game.
Of course I enjoyed the Crimson Tide's victory over Colorado in the Independence Bowl. I watched the first half with my Dad and the second half with my Mom. My Dad decided to go to bed at halftime and he said that if Colorado came back and won he wouldn't want to see that anyway. It almost happened. Bama had a 27-0 lead early in the second quarter hand had to hold on to win 30-24.

On New Year's Day I unexpectedly got the chance to get the boys and we went to the theater to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks, which was cute.

Thursday we had basketball practice. While the youngest two practiced, I defeated my 14 year old and his friend for the umpteenth time in a game of "21" by a score of 21-4-0. or something like that. Then David and I played against his friend and his friend's dad. We should have won because we were blowing them out but we lost our intensity and let them come back and beat us by one point. We had Dominoes Pizza that night. They talked me into getting the large Brooklyn style rather than the 3 mediums for $15. We should have gotten the three mediums because one large just isn't enough for the four of us.

We had a good weekend this weekend. Friday night we went to Tuscaloosa and watched the Tide defeat Chicago State 93-79. The best part was that David got to shoot free throws at halftime in a contest to win an Xbox 360. He did really well against a boy who was probably a coaches son or something because he was helping the team. They tied after the first round and were really tied after the second round. But the other boy shot one about 5 seconds after time was up and they awarded the prize to him because the teams had to get back on the court. I was more nervous than David. he said that he was "a little" nervous. It was so cool to hear Bama announcer Tony Giles calling my son's name out over the PA system. I regret that I forgot to save the game on my DVR because he might have been on TV. They competed during a time out about half way through the second half of the game.

On the way home I told Matt that he could choose somewhere for his birthday dinner. Of course he chose the Cracker Barrel. We stopped at the one on Academy Drive in Bessemer. While David and Matt went to the restroom I asked the waitress (who happened to be a cousin of Demetrius Jemison, one of Alabama's basketball players) if they could sing for Matt's birthday. She said most of their singers were gone but she would try to work out something. Little did I know that Matt overheard the conversation as he hid behind the partition on his way back from the bathroom. We were 'wowed' by what happened next. A young man with one of the best voices I have ever heard came out and sang happy birthday to Matt acapella. It was so cool! After he left I told the boys he should try out for American idol because he could easily be the next Reuben Studdard. Lo and behold our waitress came back and told us to look for him in a few weeks on American idol. His name is Walter Blair.

Yesterday we had basketball games all afternoon. Matt's team won their first game of the season so I took him to Dairy Queen for a banana split. Joe's team lost both games again but we celebrated anyway by eating chocolate chip cookies and watching "Facing the Giants". I love the inspiration that movie provides, especially from a Christian point of view. We will praise Him when we lose and we will praise him when we win. Lots of good lessons in that movie.