Happy 38th Birthday, Dad!
Our team didn’t get the first-round playoff
win as a gift for Dad’s birthday, but he was at the game tonight with most of
our family; and the big win was a nice bonus for Dad – and all of the players,
coaches, and fans!
I’ll start with the football news; since
that’s the top story of the day – even if Dad’s birthday was important for Mom,
Ethan, Ehlana, and me. We’ve had another
nice-weather day; and it was in the low-sixties at kick-off – awesome weather
for the first weekend in November around here!
Ridgeway won the coin toss; opted to defer; and found out that their
defense wasn’t as good as they thought when our team proceeded to roll down the
field and score a touchdown on our first drive.
We never lost the lead after that, but the game was fast-paced; Ridgeway
fought hard and put up a lot of yards too; and both teams pushed hard right
through to the end of the game. We won
by a score of fifty-nine to thirty-three, but that score looks more lopsided
than it should for two reasons. The
first is that Ridgeway only scored one touchdown and three field goals in the
first half; and the second is that they kept pushing for only touchdowns in the
second half after starting out with a field goal on their first possession –
even when that meant giving up the ball with turnovers or on failed fourth
downs.
Our team didn’t have a perfect game, and
the Ridgeway defense earned two turnovers too, but Michael and Tim had three
touchdowns each; Lucas had two more; and we only had one field goal because of
the way the game went in the fourth quarter – where trading touchdowns or
earning one on a pick-six was how we needed to play to maintain our lead and
keep Ridgeway from making a major comeback attempt. Our cheerleading squad and fans certainly had
a lot to cheer about with eight touchdowns and the field goal; so Rowen and I
had a lot of fun with our families and friends.
The half-time show for cheerleading and band was great too; though I’ll
admit that it does seem to be getting tougher to keep up with everything now
that we’re eleven weeks into the season.
Since we are moving on, though, I’m not going to complain about the
extra work and being too busy at half-time between band and cheerleading – or with
all of the work that goes on before and after the game.
We won’t know until sometime tomorrow which
team we’ll be up against in the next round of the playoffs – or whether we’ll
have home field advantage again or not; but our team is quietly confident in a
way that’s much different than a year ago when some of the seniors had a
swagger that wasn’t really justified by how well we had been playing at the
time. Michael and Tim are really
confident too, and since they’ve got some of the best numbers for wide-receivers
in our division; they’ve got the stats to back up that confidence. I’m not going to get into that, since anything
can happen in a football game, but Tim is as driven to succeed as Kyle was –
and is with his college team; so I wouldn’t bet against him when he’s on a
mission to earn another championship this year.
Moving along, the post-game festivities on the
field took a while tonight; we had a lot of work to get done before we could
even hit the showers and get cleaned up and changed; and then Michael and I
went over to Tim’s house with Rowen and a handful of other team mates - including Lucas and Rebecca. We didn’t have a full team party – or a party
at all; but we did hang out together until twelve-thirty – mostly so that we
could all wind down from the excitement.
Michael walked me home; we were first to leave Tim’s house; and our
goodnight hugs and kisses didn’t take long because Michael needed to get home
and off to sleep to be ready for his breakfast shift at the Inn. I did help him out with some Magi healing
before sending him on his way to deal with the bumps and bruises he picked up
during the game; but didn’t take that too far so he’d still be able to
sleep. After Michael went home, I came
up to my room because everyone else was in bed by then anyway; I got ready for
bed; and have only done the basic email and computer checks before getting to
this update.
Even though it’s Dad’s birthday today, I
really don’t have much more to write about because I wasn’t available for the
lunch at the Inn with some friends or the family dinner at home. Mom, Ethan, Ehlana, Michael, and I did have a
special breakfast with Dad after Tai Chi by the river, and he opened his gifts
from us then too; but that was also a bit of a rush when we all needed to get
ready for work or school too – and deal with the larger-than-usual breakfast
clean-up. That was all fun, though, and
I had a good school day too; so it’s been a fairly-awesome day – even if I have
yet again missed out on having fun with Dad while I’ve been busy with other
commitments.
I guess that is all of the news I have for
now, though, and it’s time for me to get some sleep too; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
