Papa Johns Bowl

We had high hopes for the day as we headed south on I-65 to attend the Papa Johns Bowl game in Birmingham, AL to watch USC vs UConn. It was a cold day and we had snow flurries on our way to Alabama. We got to the stadium about 10:15 and it looked like a home USC football game - USC tailgate tents and fans everywhere. It was a fun, upbeat atmosphere. We walked around the Fan Zone then headed back to the van to eat lunch before heading into the stadium. We went into the stadium about 12:15 for a 1:00 kickoff. Both UConn and USC's bands played for pregame. Immediately upon the first USC drive, we knew it was going to be a long afternoon. Like the guy behind us said, "USC brought the fans; UConn brought the football team." It was a terrible day for the Gamecock faithful. USC lost 20-7. On a bright note for me, I enjoyed seeing both marching bands play for pregame and halftime. Seth enjoyed watching and hearing the bands too. The UConn band was directly across the field from us so we heard them a lot during the game. They have an incredible sound. It was cold throughout the game and because the way the team was playing, many of the USC fans started to leave mid-way thru the 3rd quarter. We stuck it out til about 5 minutes left to go in the game and we left too - missing USC's only score of the game. Thankfully the stadium personnel had a great plan in place for traffic flow and it took us no time at all to get onto the interstate to head back home. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for some comfort food for dinner. After getting home, Jenna was checking her email and when she signed onto the computer saw the apology from head coach Steve Spurrier to all the 30,000 Gamecock fans who were at the game. Small consolation but it was nice to hear.

Ice Skating

Jenna has been pestering me for at least two years to take her ice skating. I finally took her today. We had a lot of fun and she did fine - which I knew she would since she knows how to rollerblade. She only fell twice (and I didn't fall at all!). Steve stopped by the rink on his lunch hour to watch and took a few pictures.

Christmas

We had a very nice Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve at Room in the Inn, a ministry for the homeless. Our church co-hosted 12 homeless men for the evening. We enjoyed eating dinner with them and spending a few hours together. When we got home we continued the tradition of hiding the pickle ornament on the Christmas tree. It was Jenna's turn to hide the pickle since she found it last year.

On Christmas morning, Jenna woke up first at about 7:00. We let Seth sleep until 7:30 then we woke him up. We had to find the pickle ornament first before we could open stockings and gifts. Steve was the one to find it this year. We always open stockings first and this year Jenna put a few things in mine and Steve's stockings too. We opened gifts, had breakfast and played Wii (which was mine and Jenna's big gift this year). About 11:00 we left to go to Sharon and Brad's for the day. Matt was there too. We had snow flurries for about 30 minutes when we got to Sharon's, so that was fun to see. Soon after arriving we enjoyed cheese fondue with veggies and bread cubes. It was delicious! Mid-afternoon we had Udon soup - a Japanese soup that is a favorite of Sharon's on cold winter days. For dinner we did hibachi grilling. It was a little tricky with all the smoke in the house, but once we figured out which doors and windows to open it was fine. Later in the evening we had chocolate fondue for dessert while watching the Titans play.

Seth got a black Terrible Towel from Grammy. Jenna before opening gifts.

My Birthday

I stretched my birthday celebration out as long as I could! At my age, I think I'm entitled to that. Steve said he didn't want me to cook on my actual birthday (Wednesday) so we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner that night. On Saturday, we met Sharon and Brad for lunch at City Limits. City Limits is a small cafe-type restaurant that I hadn't been to in two years. They have THE BEST grilled cheese panini sandwiches. (They use provolone, swiss and cheddar cheeses along with tomato and caesar dressing to make the panini.) That evening, my family made dinner. My only requests were peanutbutter pie for dessert and twice baked potato. Jenna made the pie, Steve made the twice baked potatoes and Seth made steak and shrimp in a garlic butter sauce. Everything was delicious.

Another Last for Jenna

A few months ago I mentioned that Jenna would be having a lot of "lasts" this year since it is her last year in elementary school. Well....yesterday was her "last" class Christmas party. I was able to go for part of it and left feeling a little melancholy that it's her last class party and she'll be moving to middle school in August. The room mom decided to do breakfast for the kids, so they had a feast of donuts, lots of fruit, cheese and crackers, eggs, mini muffins and sausage biscuits with white gravy. They had an ornament exchange and also made an ornament. Jenna didn't want to leave early to come home with me...she wanted to stay the entire morning. School was dismissed at 12:05. Jenna and I started to make buckeyes in the afternoon. We got the peanutbutter part made but need to dip them in chocolate today.

Angel Food Ministries

Today our family participated in the first distribution day for our church for Angel Food Ministries. This is a minstry where people can buy food boxes and they come to our church to pick them up. We had about 40 volunteers and we distributed 67 boxes of food - many of them donations from people giving to those in need. I'm so thankful that our church allows us to participate in this type of ministry as a family. Steve went with the guys in our small group to Columbia, TN to pick up the food (about 30 minutes from Spring Hill). Jenna helped put food into boxes as part of the distribution process, I accepted orders for January (although we had no orders) and Seth helped people carry their boxes to their cars and prayed with them - blessing the food and praying for other needs that they have. We look forward to this ministry growing. Right now people in Spring Hill have to travel about 20-30 minutes to distribution sites so having a church right here in Spring Hill will be a huge blessing to many people.

A Busy Pre-Christmas Saturday

I have no pictures to post, but we had a busy Saturday. The morning started off by me taking Jenna to gymnastics. Her gymnastics class is right across the parking lot from our church, so after she was done with gymnastics we went to a ladies Christmas craft brunch. We ate lots of good food and made Christmas tree ornaments out of cookie cutters, pretty magnets that Jenna is going to use a teacher gifts and Jenna made two canvas bags. We got home, ate a quick lunch then headed into Franklin for the Christmas parade. (Seth was marching with the band in both the Franklin and Spring Hill Christmas parades.) The IHS band was one of the lead units in the parade. We left the parade early - it was cold, plus we weren't all that impressed with the parade. (This was the first year we've gone to the Franklin parade.) We were home for about an hour then I had to leave to go to the Spring Hill Christmas parade. Steve and Jenna were going to his company Christmas party at the Predators hockey game. (We just figured it'd be easier if Jenna went this year instead of me trying to work out logistics for getting Seth home and trying to find somewhere for Jenna to stay.) Thankfully I left early to go to the parade. I don't know who came up with the traffic plan for the parade, but it was terrible. I finally just went past a "Do Not Enter" sign to get to a street where I knew I could park. I enjoyed this parade a lot more than the Franklin parade. It had more of a small hometown feel to it. After getting Seth at the school, he and I went to Panchos for dinner.