Hello There Fall Weekend, Nice to See You Finally

What a difference 36 hours can make....When I wrote this post last Thursday we were in a must-win situation to make the playoffs with an upcoming game against our biggest rival.  By the end of the night Friday, we were sitting in 2nd place in our region getting ready to HOST our first round playoff game in 2 weeks.

Don't worry, we were all sitting there wondering exactly how all this happened, too.

First, one of the 2 teams we lost to during the season lost their 4th region game on Thursday night, which meant with only 2 region game left and only 2 region losses we were automatically in the playoffs. Second, we beat the P!$$ out of our rivals on Friday night 56-22, and third - the team we beat the week before beat the only other team that beat us in region play. I am not exactly sure how all of that works out because that meant the 2, 3, and 4 ranked teams all are 5-2 in the region, but I was told that because of how the tie-breakers work we get the 2 seed.....and I'm not going to argue because that means we don't travel first round.

Clockwise from left: 1) Indulging in a fried Oreo at the game...totally worth it! 2) Coach Cagle doing what he loves best (other than fishing) 3) Final score....Tigers win big!

So now we are going to enjoy our off week (finally) and get an extra week to prepare for the game!  And by prepare I don't just mean the team.  I might have order 2 dozen purple cowbells to hand out to anyone who wants to be loud and obnoxious like our cheering section at the game.  Did I mention I can't wait for the game!?!

Eric was up bright and early the next morning to head to his fishing tournament....and by bright and early I really mean he woke up in the middle of the night to be there at 5AM, which meant the puppies wanted to wake up at 5:30AM like a normal weekday....not cool dogs, not cool.

They ended up doing really well in the tournament, coming in 2nd.....by .02 lbs.  Eric was happy they won 2nd, but unfortunately the dime-weight loss has only left him hungry for more.

That would be his

While he fished I enjoyed my morning at Trade Day. They have a fall festival of sorts in our little town where they block off a street and fill it with vendors and entertainment for the morning.  Our dancers were performing so I went to check things out. I only brought $20 cash and it's probably a good thing because I feel like I have to buy everything at those kinds of events!

Our Zombie Cloggers and soloist were great!

The pups and I vegged and enjoyed the beautiful fall weather (FINALLY!) all afternoon.  We finished off our evening cooking out with the neighbors, but excused ourselves early and were in bed by 9PM on Saturday night....because that's how we roll these days.  I'm not complaining one little bit!

Sunday we headed out to Eric's grandma's house for a bit and then he took his Dad fishing...because apparently he hadn't had enough of it already. When he got back the house Sunday night he asked me to help him clean fish....  I have helped him one other time about 10 years ago, but he politely asked me to stop because I was squishing the filets and I have not been asked since. So like the good little wifey that I am, I cut rib cages out of freshly skinned fish for an hour.  It wasn't so bad.  I had gloves and good company so I didn't mind too much.

I am pretty sure this earned me Wife-of-the-Year Status...

664.3 Miles

No that is not the number of miles I will be running in some crazy ultra marathon race....my knees would never hold up for that much running at one time. It is the number of miles we covered last weekend from Friday to Sunday.  That many miles in the car could have gotten us nearly to Dallas if we'd tried, but we covered that many miles without leaving the state.

Why would we subject ourselves to such craziness? Because we're crazy!?!  And we had a couple of VERY important events to attend! Including this precious little guy's birthday party!

Photo credit: My SIL....FYI - If you're ever trying to take a picture with a 2 year old who is contently playing with his new cars I highly suggest the Ambush-and-Tickle method shown above....works like a charm!

More on the birthday soon.....let me start back at the beginning with Friday night.

As I mentioned last week, we had a big game against a very talented opponent this past week that was a must-win if we wanted to make the playoffs this year.  We traveled 2 hours away to the game, the team we were playing was ranked 5th in the state, they are the 2-time defending state champions, AND it was their Senior Night. Ugh...Talk about a tough game.

I don't know what went on at practice during the week, but it worked like a charm and we completely dismantled them 26-13.  It was probably the most exciting game we've had this season so far! Everyone was on cloud 9 after the game! The guys even gave our head coach an ice bath after the game.

We can't rest yet, though.  We have another tough region game this week against our next-town-over rivals.  If we win, we're definitely in the playoffs, if not then we have to wait and see how things shape up once the dust settles.  We got beat over there last year, so we have to get over there and take care of business.

Top: Final Score....Tigers Win!  Bottom: L - Coach's ice bath...notice Eric in the front right. He made sure to get Coach in exactly the right spot for the guys to get him! R - The loudest, proudest cheering section THS has to offer!  We added megaphones to the mix on Friday and they were AWESOME! We listened to the game playback on Saturday morning and there was no mistaking our cowbells and cheers! 

We rolled into town around midnight after the game, and I think I finally got in bed around 1AM, but we were up bright and early to pick up Eric's grandma and head south for our nephew's birthday party!  Because we really didn't want to have our house torn apart while we were gone, Beau got to tag along, too. I am pretty sure Hawk and Peanut enjoyed the peaceful and quiet puppy-free house while we were gone.

The front seat riders really enjoyed themselves.....the backseat left a bit to be desired. I learned that when Beau actually sits still, he prefers to sit ON me during road trips as opposed to his own seat.  

We made it down just in time for the dump truck/construction birthday party extravaganza! I think our nephew now owns nearly every matchbox car, train set, and dinosaur in existence! The birthday boy seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself, despite being bombarded with relative overload as soon as he woke up from his nap.  I am pretty sure I would have run and hid with all of those people there, but he handled it like a champ, and opted to use various relatives to help him open toys and play games.

Top: the Party Crew. Bottom: R and Center - The birthday boy playing with his toys and literally tearing up his cake (which my SIL made and it was soooo good)! L- My SIL and I.

We partied hard for several hours (as hard as you can party at a 2 year old's birthday party), and decided to head on at halftime of the UT/Bama game.....no I don't want to talk about it.

We packed up and headed back up north to Eric's Mom's new house to spend the night.  She and her hubby just moved into a beautiful new home on a lake AND a golf course.  The view out their back door is the 18th fairway and the lake behind it, and you can sit on the bed swing on their ginormous screened-in back porch to enjoy it.  The house is seriously gorgeous, too, but that view.  I spent a ridiculous amount of time lounging on the bed swing....I might have drifted off to sleep once or twice on it, too.

L - Beau's and my view on our walk through their "neighborhood." R Top - Beau and their puppy Penny thought the bed swing was a UFC ring.  R Bottom - Their back door that opens on to their screened in porch....the whole back wall is windows....might be tough the clean but the view is worth it. 

The next morning Eric played a quick 9 holes of gold with his Mom's hubby and then we were back in the car and headed home so Eric could get to his football film meeting that afternoon.

So yeah....665 miles in 48 hours....it was absolutely nuts, but 100% worth it and we had a blast!  

....but we have no plans to do it again any time soon! 

 .....At least until the next birthday party when Eric gets to play on one of these!

Pretty Princess Purple

When we purchased our house 6.5 years ago every wall was drab boring shade of egg shell.  I don't know if the previous owner painted it all neutral colors so it might sell faster or perhaps they just liked boring walls.  I don't know but it's not my style.  The only thing we actually did to the house in the 2 days between closing and moving (which we did in 1.5 days and is a whole other story that involves having to stay in our new house because a certain boy who I live with got the water shut off at our old place, but I've clearly moved on, right?) was paint the living room and our bedroom because I had to have some color on the walls.  Since then we have painted the hall area, the kitchen, and the laundry room.

The two rooms I have wanted to paint for quite a while now are the bathrooms.  They were both definitively seashell-themed, due to the seashell borders that adorned both bathrooms.  I wasn't crazy about it but someone gave us some seashell bath towels for a wedding gift and I had a random collection of seashells laying around so I went with it.  It's just the bathroom after all, right?

The only thing keeping me from taping everything up and painting were those darn borders.  I dreaded having to pull them down, so I just left didn't bother with them.

About a month ago Eric randomly brought up painting the bathrooms so I jumped at the chance to change things up and bombarded him with Pinterest images of color schemes for the guest bathroom.  I have been wanting to paint it a dusty purple color with copper and white accents for the last few years, so I was pumped for the chance to make my vision a reality! Finally.....NO MORE SEASHELLS!

This is the picture we settled on.  I actually wanted the bathroom to be a plum color but he talked me out of it since the bathroom is somewhat small and he was afraid to paint it such a dark color.

It's light, it's bright, it's airy, and I could totally visualize our new guest bathroom oasis!  

And then I came home the next day and saw this.......

Now before you tell me it doesn't look all that different that the picture above, trust me it does.  The color is quite vibrant in real life.  It has almost a pinky undertone to it so it assaults your eyes every time you go in there.

Eric assured me that he took the picture above to the paint store and had them match it, but I am not so sure.  Purple if a very tricky color and if you aren't careful, your dusty purple all of a sudden becomes a pretty princess purple.  Purple's tricky nature is the precise reason I did not have a plum/silver/black wedding....one wrong step in choosing colors and my bridesmaids could have ended up looking like purple people eaters, and I wasn't willing to do that to them.

You tell me....does this look like the same color when they're next to each other?

Me thinks no....they are most definitely not the same.  

Because of my feelings about the color, I have made ZERO efforts to decorate this bad boy.  The towels that came out of there went right back in, and will stay there until the next time Eric goes out of town and I am home alone for the weekend.  The borders are gone so it won't take near the effort it would have to repaint the walls.  I think he thinks I am kidding about it, but I am most certainly NOT.
So the moral of the story is to always always always go with boys to pick out paint colors so that your beautiful dusty purple bathroom does not end up pretty princess purple.  For the record, I finally got Eric to admit he was not wild about the color either, but he doesn't care hate it enough to repaint it....and this time I have actual paint samples.....

Football Update: THS Senior Night and Homecoming at Huntgindon

You didn't think I'd make it through and entire football season without a post, did you really? But seriously, things have been crazy super busy (in a good way!) around here lately.  I had not one but two grants get funded at work (yay!), plus dance has started back up, and I had forgotten how much energy puppies have [so so so much energy to burn off every day!], so unfortunately this little blog has taken a back seat for a bit. However, I am here today so let's get to it!

Football is still going strong for us.  We started off the season 4-0, but hit a giant bump in the road on week 5 after a rough game and some injuries and have since gone 1-3.  We have a must-win game this weekend against a very good team to get into the playoffs, so be thinking happy purple and gold thoughts for us on Friday please!

Senior Night was this past week....yes already...and with it came all of the Senior Night activities.  Eric escorted one of his D-Linemen onto the field again this year, which is quite an honor.  Each student gets to pick a teacher or coach who has meant a lot to them over their high school career, so it's pretty special.  Eric coached this particular kid to a couple of state appearances/championships in wrestling in addition to football.

R to L: 1) Escorting his D-Lineman (64) on the field to his family.  2) Coach Cagle doing his thing...he's the little white dot in the middle of the clump of purple and gold. 3) The team came back out of the locker room to watch the band perform their halftime show after the game.  It has been a great show this year, complete with majorettes juggling batons (I am still super impressed at this) and the entire band dancing through part of the show.  

As much as I would have loved to stick around for the reception for the seniors and their families after the game, we packed up and headed home because we had some friends from college heading to our house to stay with us for the weekend because it was Homecoming at Huntingdon! It's only one of my most favorite weekends of the year!

This one was a little out of the ordinary for us, but we had a blast!  Why was it out of the ordinary?  Well because Eric was skipping out on the game this year for a fishing tournament. He finished a respectable 4th place in the tournament, and made it to Montgomery shortly after the game ended to hang out with everyone.

I on the other hand had no desire to miss out on any of it.  One of my teammates was being inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame, so I walked the pups, whipped up a quick breakfast for out guests, got ready, and told our friends I'd meet them at the game.  Host of the year right here.

I made it to the ceremony with about a minute to spare and got to see her accept her award!  She's the second women's basketball player to receive this honor in the NCAA era (which started my freshman year in 2003).

Some of the oldies (front row) with the current team after L-Bo's induction ceremony.

After the ceremony we headed over to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants from our college days and met up with a few more of my old teammates. There were several girls there this year who I had not seen since our wedding so seeing them all after 6 years was awesome!

Parts of my Lady Hawk Family.  I'd like to point out that in the picture on the left I am the Senior....all of these girls graduated after I did.  In the picture on the right I am the freshman....these girls made me want to be a part of their family and taught me so much over the years! 

We made it back to the school just before kickoff and I headed over to the football tents to mingle with all of those friends who I see once a year at the game...and answer the question, "Where's Cagle [Eric]?" about 4,000 times. Needless to say not a single person was shocked when I said he was fishing, and were glad when I assured them he'd be there later.

The wives (and some future Hawks). I feel like these girls are as much a part of my HC family as anyone even through most of them didn't go to school there.  

Huntingdon won big 48-27 and we all headed back to the one couple who still lives near the school's house to watch the end of the UT/Texas A&M game (ugh) and the Alabama/Arkansas game.  To be honest there was not a ton of game-watching going on.  There was significantly more telling old stories and laughing and just soaking up the moment with people that I miss like crazy all year long and am so thankful that I get to call my friends.

At the Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony that morning Coach Turk (the AD and head football coach) said something to the current student athletes in the audience that really stuck a chord with me.  He said that once it's all said and done and your career is just a memory, you may remember bits and pieces of the games, but the times that will stick out in your mind are the times in between the games: the 5AM practices, the road trips, the tough times you went through with the help of your teammates, the dinners in the dining hall, and just random nights in the dorms.  He said that those things that you will really cherish and when you come back years later and see your old teammates, those are the times you'll recall and laugh about. I found myself nodding along and knowing that the girls currently on the team who were all sitting behind me at the ceremony had no idea how special what they are a part of right now will become in their lives, and how lucky I am to have a family of Lady Hawks that I can always lean on.