Posting Colors

Ryan's getting to do some very cool things during his Freshman year. In baseball, he's getting to play ball in Baum stadium, and having a locker with his name on it. Pretty neat for a boy who grew up cheering for the Hogs. And with ROTC, he's recently been chosen to be on the color guard for a few events. Saturday he got to present the colors during the last home football game. Which, in any Hog fan's mind, would typically be the pinacle of all events at the UofA, if we weren't having a horrible year in football. Which we are. No matter that we lost only by 4 to the #7 team in the nation. We'll have a new coach by next week. Even though the game was cold, we got to see our little boy out on the field, sat in the most comfortable seats we've ever been in, and put away at least one whole bag of Kettle Korn!

 

TV time

Richard got to travel with his friends to Aggie Land and cheer on the HOGS. As often happens, their group was discovered by Arkansas TV reporters and they were interviewed before the game on Friday night. It was fun to see Richard on TV before we headed out to soccer! So thankful for his fun friends...and the fact that they didn't get in any trouble!

BEACH PICS

It's always fun to take pictures on the beach. The air is clear, our skin is tanned and everyone is smiling! I found these new tshirts when we took Ryan to orientation at U of A and just had to have them for our picture. The HOGS were playing in Regionals and we watched them in Orange Beach on ESPN. They won the regionals and went to the college World Series in Omaha the next week. It was a good time to be anywhere in an ARKANSAS RAZORBACK tshirt! 

COTTON BOWL 1/7/12

January 7th! Ryan's birthday present from Richard and I...a wonderful weekend with his dad at the biggest Razorback game of the year in Dallas! Friday morning....Richard and Ryan make it to the Big D via a stop in Stillwater, where Richard had a church job on Thursday night.

Not many people have tickets for sale in the early hours of the morning. Game time is 7pm, but they know that Arkansas fans will be coming in droves to get to the game and tickets will surely be available. Around noon they buy tickets and for some reason Richard has them checked out at the will call window and they confirm his idea that they are counterfeit! For the next two hours they give a complete description to security, give their phone number to the police, and look all over for the guys who sold the tickets. They appeared to have disappeared, even though one of the policemen recognized their description and had seen them before. Richard headed over to the WM across the street to get cash (they were running short, after losing $200) and on his way over, spotted the ticket sellers, who had changed clothes. Richard calls the security agents, Ryan goes over to get the closest policeman, and they surround the guys. The chance that they were going to get their money back was slim. Even if they caught the guys, they could always deny selling them tickets.

Well, evidently, with 5 security guys and one policeman present, Richard got in the seller's face, and asked for his money. After a few minutes of denial, the guy opened his wallet and gave him his money back! Ryan had described a cross necklace guy #2 had on, and he had it on under a t-shirt. Richard and Ryan left the bad guys with the security detail and headed to the car to settle down until closer to game time.

This is about the time I got their call and Ryan was feeling kind of like SUPERMAN! He was so excited after "taking down the bad guys" he told his dad..."We should buy some more and go after some more scammers!" This pretty much nailed down his desire to go for a FBI job.

Short story: One of his high school friends was working at an AT&T booth and offered Richard a FREE ticket and then they bought another single. Richard traded the single for something closer to the good ticket and Ryan and Richard sat one section from each other in a SOLD OUT ball game!
NOT ONLY THAT, but Richard was sitting beside a KState fan who was by himself and offered to change seats with Ryan so they could sit together. OH YEAH...on the 45 yard line in the club seats on the third level.

That wasn't even the BEST PART: The Hogs won 29-16!

A fabulous weekend for my two fabulous guys!

All Region Choir

Couldn't be more proud of my kiddos and their accomplishments in choir. SO thankful for a teacher who encourages them to do their best and has trained them well. Erin placed 3rd chair in Junior High Mixed Choir, Alto 2. Ryan placed 2nd chair, High School Mixed Choir, Bass 1. I must add that he tried out on the Saturday morning after a particularly hard football game that we lost. He had been beat up pretty bad, had a swollen ankle and was limping around! SO, under the influence of lots of ibuprophen, he made 2nd chair out of about 160 guys! It was my first trip to EVER chaperone to hang out with kids all day waiting for them to try out. (On a side note, I was able to take the "early" bus home and took someone I didn't record on the offical list, and subsequently failed at my chaperoning job.)

The ALL REGION clinic was Saturday and the concerts were that evening. I don't mind saying we questioned the Arkansas Patriotism (or something) because the concerts were scheduled RIGHTINTHEMIDDLEOF the Razorback game in Fayetteville. And we weren't playing a directional school, we were playing another TOP TEN team! With our iphones in hand and ESPN scoring updates muted...our entire family was in attendance at the Alma Performing Arts building and loved the concerts.
They were very impressive...Ryan, Erin and the HOGS.

SOUTHWEST CLASSIC

For the last three years Richard and I have gone with friends to the Southwest Classic in Arlington as our Anniversary trip. This year, our friends bought tickets for their kids, and at the last minute, we decided to take ours too!

We left late after Ryan's ballgame, and Richard was the champ and drove us ALL THE WAY while we slept in the car! It was 4:30am when we arrived and must've found the only motel in Arlington with an available room for us. We slept for about 4 hours and because the game was at 11am, we had to hop up and head to the game! In true Richard-fashion, we got a parking spot RIGHT BY THE FIELD, and then bought tickets outside in less than 15 minutes. We bought our tickets for half price and in the section right beside where we sat last year. Ryan sat with friends, Lauren and Sheridan sat with our friends and their families, and Richard and I sat with a bunch of folks we don't know! It was a terrible first half, but the Razorbacks hung in there and pulled out a 42-38 win! We met up with our cousins at half time and had a mini reunion.

Loving the HOGS, big wins, and FAMILY TIME!  

Sweet!

The boys are headed to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl! A ticket was Ryan's birthday present from us! They'll pick up Gramps on the way. Getting back in the car for a 10 hour trip is a BIG deal. That will be 8 states in 4 days for the boys and our Sequoia. Ryan has to miss two days of school, but it's a BCS bowl that may not happen again for awhile! Go Hogs! Wooo Pig Sooie!

All the way to Tallahassee

We've returned from a wonderful week in Florida. And it all started with a BIG WIN for the HOGS in the super-regional. It wasn't hard to find the FSU campus and it wasn't hard to get a ticket. Evidently, HOG fans were saving their money for Omaha. We were 6 of about 50-75 Razorback fans there!

The FSU campus is really pretty and when we got in, because there weren't a lot of Razorback fans, Richard just walked right up to the players warming up and asked for some baseballs!
WOW! What a souvenir! After the game we mingled with the families and their players and got autographs. It was really fun for my kiddos (and Richard) and a great game to boot!


I will admit that I was against driving to FSU: adding 2 hours to our 12 hour trip, risking getting soaked..(the Thursday game had a 4 hour rain delay!), and basically, I wanted to get to the BEACH! Once again, my adventurous husband was right, and I'm not just saying that because we were on ESPN! (Several of our friends sighted us and my brother even called.)

Today the HOGS won their first game in Omaha! Sheridan is seen here with the winning pitcher...Kuechel.
GO HOGS GO!