A Blustery Weekend Recap

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Thanks to a crazy little storm named Irma, who decided to reek havoc on Florida and a few other southeastern states for the past week, we had an impromptu 3-day weekend.  To be honest, we weren't expecting it at all since Irma was supposed to hit Florida's east coast, meaning we'd get a little wind and rain from the western edge (the best side to be on in these storms), but Friday night/Saturday morning Irma decided to track a little more west that anticipated, which put us directly in her path.

Thankfully she had weakened to a tropical storm by the time she made her way up this way, but they still cancelled schools and closed businesses as a precaution.  We had crazy wind and rain all day, and a few places around town lost power for several hours.  We fared pretty well; there were several times I was afraid the tree in our front yard was going to snap and fall over, but we ended up with just a few small branches in the yard.

In fact, the most tragic casualty at our house was my phone that I dropped in my coffee cup that morning....don't drink and scroll facebook before you're fully caffeinated friends! I am happy to report that after spending the day in a bag of rice it is back up and running like new, albeit with a slight french vanilla scent.

We are certainly counting our blessings and praying for all of those who did take a direct hit from Irma and Harvey a couple of weeks ago.  I am sure I am not alone in saying that I am ready for hurricane season to be o-v-e-r!

Irma was far from our thoughts on Friday night though as we hit the road on Friday to take on the defending state champions at their place. We beat them last year at home, so we knew they'd be out for revenge this time around.

Gotta love those Friday Night Lights!

When I asked Eric about the game he said that if we were ahead or close at halftime, we had a shot at winning, so I hoped it would be a good ball game.  It ended up being a GREAT ball game!  It was a close first half, but we scored right before the half to go up 14-7.

I guess Eric knows what he was talking about because we pulled through with a 21-13 win!  It was one of the most fun games I've been to in a long time, and coming away with the win made it that much sweeter! This team is shaping up to be a really fun group to watch, and I feel like there's an excitement on Fridays around town like we haven't had for a few years.  I sure hope it continues!

Hoping for many more nights that end like this!

Labor Day Weekend

What in the redneck?!?  Yes this really happened last week...

Don't you just love when someone hypes up a game and then disappears and never tells you what happened?  Yeah me, too, says the girl who neglected to update her blog last week. So here goes:  THS did in fact win game #1 of the season in a nail-biter that never should have been a nail-biter in the first place.  We also traveled down south this past Friday and came away with another big W to start our season out right!

Raising their helmets to the Alma Mater

This week is going to be a HUGE test for us.  We're playing the defending state champs who are #1 in 4A (THS earned itself a #9 ranking in the state's top 10 list last week), who we actually beat last year at our place.  We know they are going to be out for blood this year, so we have to come ready to play!

The view from one of the campsites...not ours unfortunately.

After our big Friday night trip and win, we kept the fun going this weekend, loaded up the camper, and headed up to the lake for some Labor Day fun! We ended up going to the same campground we went to on our maiden voyage (since it's a quick drive from the house), but we felt like seasoned vets this time around.

These seasoned campers knew exactly what to do with their afternoons.

We stayed in a different part of the campground this trip that had more modern amenities...aka sewage hookups on site...but I am not so sure that poop pumps make it that much better (says the girl who doesn't have to empty the poop pump).  It was nice but it felt a lot more crowded this time, as we had campers and cars as far as the eye could see.  Lucky for us there was plenty of football on tv this weekend so our attention was drawn to the outdoor tv area our friends set up, but we all agreed that we need to move closer to the water next go-around (i.e. the waterfront campsite pictured above).

These two have decided to give up city life to become full time glampers....clearly they have it all figured out. 

The good news is that is was still very relaxing, and all of our teams won (cough...Tennessee...cough), so we're calling the weekend a success.  And no we did not haul both the boat and the camper up in one trip, but we did test run this set-up through town and I'm pleased to report we did not take out anyone/anything with our caravan.  The looks and phone calls we received on our trip through town were quite comical though!

We finished up our weekend helping the Vols pull through their ridiculous excuse for a football game on Labor Day.  Of all the games to go in to over time, it had to be the Monday night game.  I am just glad the GA Tech coach decided to go for 2 during the second OT (although that would not have been my call), so I could go to bed.

Can you tell who went camping and who stayed home and rested this weekend?!?  

Happy 4 Day Week!

It's Game Day!

Today's the day.....the first official game day of the 2017 football season, and I am PUMPED!  I walked outside this morning and there was a dare I say cool crisp feeling in the air that immediately put me into a football Friday state of mind.

We had our first team dinner of the year last night....Italian Night.  I have never seen so many pasta dishes in my life, although the dessert bar, conveniently located right behind where we were sitting, was fantastic! I am convinced if you want to feed 50+ football players, 25+ dancers/cheerleaders, coaches, and families that pasta is the way to go.  As much food as we had, there were still plenty of leftovers.  I know Eric isn't complaining that we had some of my homemade spaghetti sauce leftover. He was eating it with chips the other night for crying out loud.  I am off the hook cooking dinner for at least a couple of nights.

Last year I was no where near ready for the season since Eric was "retired" until after the first week of practice, but this year I am ready to go!  I've already got a new game t-shirt, my football themed cowbells (they're amazing), my season tickets, and I was able to do some sleuthing and get a copy of the roster so I have a stack of laminated pocket rosters sitting with my game stuff pile ready to go!

My pocket rosters always are a hit, although I can't claim originality for them. My brother played lacrosse in middle and high school and Mom would type out basic rosters with the players' names and numbers for all of the parents. They were extremely handy since helmets and the lack of names on the jerseys made it hard to tell who was who on the field, and very convenient because they could fit in your pocket.

A few years ago I decided to take the football roster and do the same after one too many games of everyone asking "who was that" or "who's number so-and-so" over and over and over throughout the course of the game. Side note - I realize that I can use a program for this but when you have a pompom in one hand and cowbell in the other for the entire game, there is no room for a bulky program even though I do buy one every year to support the team. I now have an excel file that's formatted to exactly what I need, and all I have to do is update the names every year.  I live for organization like that.

Last year we (the coaches wives) decided instead of having to print new copies every week, we would make them long-lasting for the whole season by laminating them.  This was a turning point in the life of the pocket rosters for sure.  So for the first time we will have laminated rosters (done with these) ready to go for the first game.

All that to say I am so stinkin excited about the season starting tonight that I almost can't stand it!

GOOOOOOO TIGERS!!!

Tis the Season!

Our official THS program picture for 2017

I am completely aware that it is not quite the holiday season--yet, but there is a new season taking shape around here.....football season!  The past two weekends we've been pre-season prepping with team pictures, the 5th Annual Football Coaches Cook-Off (which Eric won after 4 years of coming up short), and Tiger Night this past Friday.

Tiger Night is a tradition in our town where all of the football teams from the 5 and 6 year olds to the varsity team get to scrimmage on the big field.  They introduce all of the players and the cheerleaders and they get to run out on the field before their "game."  It's a really fun night for the whole town and it's always packed!  This week is the real deal as we open up our season on Friday night. I have my cowbells ready and I am pumped!

Post-scrimmage pep talk 

Aside from our season I am so ready for weekend cookouts and spending time on the back porch watching college games all day on Saturday. We pre-gamed a little this weekend as we hosted the end-of-the-year party (fish fry of course) for Eric's Crappie Fishing Club.

Cute, right? And I will never willingly admit the amount of this that I ate over the weekend....let's just say it didn't make it 24 hours. 

It had been a minute since we'd thrown a good ole fish fry, and the menu didn't disappoint: fried crappie, hush puppies, coleslaw, seven layer taco dip, and even a cookie cake....let's just say I was in heaven! My diet for 24 hours from Saturday night to Sunday night consisted of hush puppies, coleslaw, taco dip, and cookie cake...and I am not even halfway sorry about it.

 One half of the anglers of the year team....Eric and his fishing partner ended up winning the points race for the club this year....he was a little proud of his accomplishment! 

All of the club members who were able to make it on Saturday. I just took the pictures since I am not fishing enthusiast and therefore not a club member.  My hat goes off to all of the wives (and kids!) in this pic who fished those weekend tournaments with their husbands.  They were telling stories about one of the mornings back in February and how it was so cold riding down the lake to the fishing spots, and all I could think was I am sure that I was at home in my nice warm bed that morning!  #sorrynotsorry

If you need me this afternoon, I'll be outside Eclipse viewing.  I bought a couple of pairs of eclipse glasses at Walmart a few weeks ago and now I am kicking myself for not buying more....I could have sold them for $10 a pop this weekend! We're supposed to get around 90% totality, and it's looking like it's going to be a good day for viewing so I'm pretty excited!  I remember viewing an eclipse in elementary school on the playground with our homemade viewers...we didn't have fancy glasses available...and I do remember teachers telling us not to look at it directly, but it didn't keep them from letting us go out on the playground to see it.  Clearly we all survived.  

Happy Viewing!