School in 2020 has been the weirdest thing ever. I remember thinking that we were so relieved to get cheer tryouts in before our schools dismissed back in March. It was wishful thinking, but we expected to travel for cheer camp in July and to have a very normal football season. It's so bizarre to realize how far from reality that would be. One of the things we were most looking forward to this year, was having these two girls on the same squad, cheering at the same games. Molly is my cousin -- I'm the oldest in my generation and she's the youngest -- but she's only three years older than Ella. They are four years apart in school, meaning they would never have the opportunity to cheer together and wouldn't be in high school at the same time. We were so lucky that Ella was able to try ...
football
Small Town Friday Night
This is one of those posts that I write every year and I feel like I say the same thing over and over again. Do you mind? Living in a small town is one of my favorite things. It has its disadvantages, certainly, but there are so many wonderful things that we choose to focus on those instead. High School Homecoming is the highlight of football season and everybody in town turns out for a full week of events. With dance pretty much monopolizing our lives, we had to opt out of the weeknight activities, but boy did we shop up on Friday. We don't send our girls to school on Homecoming any more because it is always too hard to get them checked out and either lined up for the parade or camped out downtown to watch. Josh sat in a carpool line for hours one year and vowed to never do that again! ...
It’s Almost Thanksgiving
I am so ready for some holiday cheer around here. I know I'm beginning to sound like a record skipping, but the last few months for us have been full. And not full of things we love, but full of work and travel and stress. I'm wishing I wasn't working on this Wednesday, while I know my littles and my husband are snuggled up together at home. After taking a half day on Monday AND Tuesday for nasty dental work, I pretty much had to be strapped to my desk today. But tomorrow. Tomorrow I get to wake up slow and eat pigs in a blanket and drink a strong cup of coffee. I get to be greeted by a Tasmanian devil with bed head and a too-big grin. I get to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade with Ella while our sweet daddy scoffs (why don't men other than my daddy enjoy the parade?!). I get to make ...
Hey, Tigers!
Words aren't so much necessary for this post, you can see just how giddy we were in the pictures. We had the best day tailgating in Tuscaloosa with our friends and family. We were all a little stressed out during the first half of the game, but we recovered well after the half. There were shakers left in every seat in the stadium and watching the crowd shake them together is pretty special to watch. I'm sure there have been louder games, but with every seat in the house filled, it got pretty loud - especially any time they played a song the crowd likes to sing along with (see here). Just ask Josh, since he had a splitting headache from the noise the entire night! We finished the game with a very loud, very excited, four-times repeated rendition of Rammer Jammer and even hung around to ...
Homecoming
Homecoming in our tiny little town is always such fun. People share photos from high-school on Facebook all week. The marquees on the schools boast of activities. Our yard is full of cars every day because there is something going on at the high-school. The kids in our family always want to ride in the parade and I never get to see it. I don't get to take many Fridays off from work that aren't vacation or holiday related, but this year I decided to spend the day at home with my family. I somehow convinced Taz to bow out of the parade and watch downtown with me. After dropping Ella off at the parade line up, we walked the few blocks downtown from our house. In case you haven't figured it out yet, we live in a TINY town. This is downtown. We have exactly one traffic light, a mom and pop ...
Roll Tide Anyway
Just because we don't have a game today, doesn't mean we can't say Roll Tide! ...
Homecoming Week
Friday night was our small town homecoming. Since we live across the street from the high-school where we graduated, the week of festivities provides with several nights of family events to attend and the girls love it. We enjoy hanging out with our high-school friends (especially those we don't see as often) and watching our girls soak up the traditions we loved as children. On Tuesday night, we watched the junior varsity team secure their first win of the season. This was the first game we've managed to catch since our SD started helping Cory coach and the girls loved it! Of course we had to give him a yell from the sidelines and they affectionately refer to him on these nights as "Coach Daddy", which I love. What is better than staying up late on a school night to enjoy school spirit ...
Rammer Jammer
It's hard to believe our trip to NYC was almost a year ago. It was after that weekend, we decided that taking a kid free trip involving an airplane and an empty hotel room was a yearly necessity. Although a football game doesn't really compare to 5 days in the Big Apple, we knew we wanted to go to the season opener in Arlington and what better way to celebrate the kick off of football season than a mini-vacay with your favorite person. I opted not to take my camera and instead enjoy having fun instead of trying to document it all, so we have plenty of iPhone snaps, but not a single actual photograph of us the entire week. We boarded a plane last Thursday afternoon and were in our Ft. Worth hotel room eating Dominoes delivery by midnight. I hate I didn't document my travel outfit (one of ...