Over the moon about our belated Valentine's date!I was planning in being in bed at 10:00 last night.
Then this guy--
--had to go and be awesome.
Gee, I didn't know I was so interested in snowboarding.
Can. Not. Resist. Olympics.
It's 6:00 in the morning and I should be at my exercise class.
Oh wait. I've already been there.
Yeah, I got up, got ready, drove all the way to the rec center in the snow, and pulled in to a parking spot. As I opened the car door, I realized why getting there had seemed unusually easy.
I forgot my shoes. Kind of important for an exercise class.
Water? Towel? Rec center card? Boots for walking into rec center through the snow? Check.
Just no shoes.
Too late to go back to sleep.
Treadmill, here I come.
Argh.
So our church has a tradition of having a little basketball season starting in January. Each ward has a team that rotates around playing teams from other wards. The idea is to get together for some good clean fun. But if you have any experience at all with church ball, you know that there are times when it is neither good, nor clean, nor fun.
Discuss.
Glenn was asked to ref a boys' game this morning. We all decided to go, since we had a vested interest in one of the young men playing. Glenn donned the stripes and was ready to go.
At this point, it is important to note that the refs are not paid. Nor are they trained in any way.
Can you see where this is headed?
Problem #1: The other ref was a kid. He had just played the game before. He is in high school. He had never reffed. So of course, he is going to be a little timid on the whistle. That's understandable, except that it means that there are going to be a lot of missed calls. Glenn couldn't possibly see everything.
Problem #2: The teams were totally mismatched. In size, in skill, in age. (The kids can be anywhere from ages 12 to 18. Big difference there.) The one team went up by nearly 30 points before the other team scored at all. Now really, this doesn't need to be a problem--just a hard life lesson--except for...
Problem #3: Parents who won't shut their traps. Yep, there were a couple of real charmers in the audience today. They sat there and heckled the refs and even their own kids out there on the court the whole game.
At one point, Glenn turned to the sidelines and warned them that if he heard one more word he'd call the game. One dad took a hint, but the other must have seen that as a challenge. He kept on, so what did Glenn do?
Oh yeah. He called the game.
(I loved it.)
He walked out of the gym to avoid feeding the fire, and found the boys from both teams gathered in the foyer for the standard end-of-game prayer. He reassured them that none of them had done anything wrong, that they had shown good sportsmanship, and that hopefully some of their parents can learn that same lesson.
Meanwhile, back in the gym, it was still on with the parents. The main culprit had to be escorted out. But everyone totally agreed with Glenn's call. You gotta give the volunteer, amateur ref and his 18 (or less) year-old partner a break! You gotta stop making an already difficult situation (because being so beat down by the other team was so not fun for those boys) even worse. You gotta let. it. go.
And, if you're me, you gotta feel an eentsy weentsy bit of pride watching your husband take care of some business. That's what I'm talking about.
During a recent stressful and slightly scary situation, Andrew proved himself to be exceptionally responsible and brave. I spent quite a bit of time debriefing, reassuring, and praising him for the manner in which he handled himself under the circumstances. The praise continued that evening when Glenn got home from work.
Glenn: Good job, Andrew. You're ready to be in charge now.
Andrew (pointing to Glenn and me, without missing a beat): Bed and bed.
Is that what people in charge do? Send people to bed? Around here, I guess so.
Glenn and I were all too happy to oblige. Andrew was not happy that his decree was not having the intended effect, so he continued the disciplinary action.
Andrew went on to proclaim that Glenn would have to go for six weeks without sports.
(This comes on the heels of a week where Andrew himself did indeed have to go for one week without sports. No watching sports on TV. No looking at sports on the internet. No reading about sports in the paper. No talking about sports scores with Dad in the mornings. I think it may have made an impact.)
My punishment?
Six weeks without sweats.
The boy knows his mom.
And boy, do we know who wears the pants around here.
When it comes to sweatpants, apparently not me.
The Quicken Loans Arena hosted the Boy Scouts for an afternoon of activities.
We walked around all the different levels and got to see and do some pretty cool things...
...Like take some shots on the Cavs' practice court. (Did you even know this exisited? Because I didn't!) Andrew made a couple baskets where LeBron and Shaq have!
...And get to see LeBron's 2006 All-Star MVP trophy and the Cavs' 2007 Eastern Conference Championship trophy. Will we see an NBA championship trophy next year?
...And check out the view from a VIP lounge. Quite different from way up in Loudville!
...And make some slap shots down on the ice. Should Andrew take up ice hockey???
...And then it was time for the Lake Erie Monsters game.
When you have 4500 boy scouts in the crowd, and you tell them to make noise, they are all too happy to oblige. Andrew and his friend were pretty much like this the whole game:
Even though the Monsters lost, we had a great time hanging out with our friends...
...and besides, we had this guy to keep us entertained.
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