2 Basketball Games

Nick had two games today. The first game was with the Boys and Girls Club and is very competitive. The starting center on Nick's team was missing, so Nick had to step and play nearly the whole game against some big, tough kids. He held his own and played very well. He was tenacious on defense. The second game was with his Rec league team. He played well in this game and even posted up a couple of times and drove to the basket, scoring some points.

Both of the gyms are extremely dark and not conducive to shooting pix. I tried some different things today and was not entirely successful, but here is what I did manage. I primarily focused on getting Nick playing tough defense.



A little offense. We are going to work on free-throws at home.

Favorite Foto Friday

Well, maybe not my favorite. In fact, I am pretty sure it is not, but it is pretty interesting.

Mr (or possibly Mrs) Cuddles.

Long time, no posts

Things have been pretty quiet around here the last few weeks, hence the lack of postings. Nick has been practicing basketball on two teams, but has not had any games yet. I wonder if he is getting as bored with all of the practices and no games as I am. The games start soon, so I should have some more material soon.

Sarah's neighbor friend moved out a few months ago, but a nice young girl moved in and she and Sarah have become good friends. She and Sarah play great together and will play all day together and it is great for both of them. You can see they are two peas in a pod.

Speaking of Sarah, she really is into Christmas decorating. She is so much fun to watch getting all of the decorations out and putting them all over the house. Her style is unique and you never know where the decorations might end up. But, her enthusiasm is genuine so we just sit back and smile.

Nick and I got to go to last night's UT football game. They played Kentucky and it was our coach's last game. The coach has been at the university for the last 30+ years, either playing, as an assistant coach or as the head coach. It was a bit sad to see him go and I wish I had gotten a field pass to shoot the game, but it did not work out. Anyway, Nick and I got some great seats for free and watched the game from the 20th row. It was a very wet and cold night, but it was worth it.

Before the game starts, the team runs through the "T" formed by the band and on this night, it was Phil's last trip through the T . Of course, the media was out in force for this last run.

Although UT has struggled this year, the team rallied for their coach and put a pretty good whipping on Kentucky. Kentucky has a better record than UT but had not beaten UT in 24 years going into last nights game. The players made sure that the streak would not end on Phil's last game. Sorry Kentucky, maybe next time. UT 28, KU 10. A quarter century of frustration for KU.

Some AirSoft ActionToday

Happy Halloween. Well, it was a couple of days ago. So, what's a family to do with their old pumpkin. Pie? No, thanks. Compost Pile? Maybe later. Target Practice? Bingo.

It was a beautiful weekend and we broke out the Airsoft weaponry since we did not have any organized sports to play. Airsoft weapons shoot a small plastic BB at about 300 feet/second. Since they are so light, they don't hurt much and with a layer or two of clothes, you can hardly feel them. But, if they hit skin, they can sting and leave a mark for a few minutes.

On Saturday, Nick's neighborhood friend Josh came down with his weapons (about 3 or 4, including a fully-automatic machine gun, which was fortunately for me malfunctioning) and he and Nick took turns shooting me. I am not sure who won the battles as I took quite a few shots and one to the middle of the forehead that stung, but did deliver quite a few hits of my own. Oh, yes, protective eye wear is required, so rest easy out there. These weapons are actually pretty accurate, just ask Nick.

Today, Nick and Sarah had some pretty tame battles as she was not into getting hit. Smart kid. I did not get any images from yesterday's action as I was too involved, but took a few today.

I am pretty sure that when we bought the castle and house below, we did not envision them being used in this manner in our wildest dreams.

Camping in the Cold in Cades Cove

So, we went camping last weekend. The kids are on fall break and I took a couple of days vacation to head to the hills with the family.

We had a great time, despite the chilly fall weather. The days were perfect, but the nights were downright chilly, with the lows in the 40's and maybe even high 30's. We had a good, roaring camp fire every night, so we stayed next to that until it was time for bed.

We ended up camping with Betty and her family and a few of their friends. All in all, there were about 6 families and lots of kids, but all middle and high school age ones. Sarah and Nick did not mind and had a ball. Right next to our camp site was a large, very steep hill. The kids had a ton of fun climbing it last year, sliding down on their rears and in the process getting filthy. The bad part is that there are not any showers, so once they got dirty, they stayed that way. Anyway, once we got there, they pretty much headed straight for the hill.

Nick and I rode our bikes around the 11 mile, hilly, Cades Cove Loop road with some of the other campers and he made it all the way. At times, I struggled with the hills and car traffic so I know he was worn out afterwards. I will say that those 11 miles are much harder than the level 20 mile route near my parents house on the IL rails to trails route that we sometimes take while visiting them.

One afternoon, Sarah and I took a little horseback ride. I had a mean horse who walked as close to the trees as she could I think in an effort to try to knock me off. She did not succeed, but I had to continually try to get her back on the trail.

On the way out of the camp ground, we saw a mama bear and two cubs on the side of the road. They were in pretty thick woods and picture taking was difficult and my results were not good, but we can say we saw bears this year, which was a first for us on a camping trip. We also saw lots and lots of deer and a few turkey.

Late Season Soccer

Nick has one football game left and no practices. Sarah has one soccer game and one practice left and no more softball. This means our nights are largely free again and I get to work on that honey-do list a little more regularly.

We went camping this weekend, so I guess I need to download the images and see if there is anything worth posting. I did not take very many, really, probably less than 50. Including the 5 or 6 of the 3 bears we saw on our way out of the camp.

Anyway, here are some more of Sarah and her team. The team shot was crazy. I think it would have been easier to pose 9 cats. Whew, they did not want to cooperate. This was the best of the lot.


A little hug to celebrate Sarah's goal.

A Night To Remember

What can I say. I had a ball.