Home Life

Tonight, our Packers scrimmaged the Steelers.  Zach’s hand is really hurting but he played great!  This is his week for playing running back and he was excited!  I also got a Packers jersey so Zach and I can match!  🙂

Toward the end of the scrimmage, he had to ask the coach to put him on the line because his hand was really hurting.  I was very proud of him that he sucked up the pain and instead of sitting, moved to a different position.  When he got home, his hand was very swollen and he could barely move his thumb.  We hope it’s not broken but we are going to take him to the doctor tomorrow morning to make sure.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Today, Zach got to scrimmage against his old football team from last year (the Broncos).  They came over to our field to play and it was fun seeing all the coaches and players from last year.  They have matured quite a bit as they don’t have as many kids who are brand new to football.

Our kids played pretty hard, but experience won out in the end.  🙂

Tonight, Kirstyn had a few of her friends over for a back-to-school get together and they had a great time!  They decorated cupcakes, played games, and watched a movie.

They also had a fun time trying to scare Zach, Ben, and I, who pitched the tent out in the back yard and were having a junk food eating, movie watching, father and son campout!   The boys really like to do this kind of thing.  They think that if they’re out of the house, they can stay up as late as they want, eat as much junk food as they want, and watch as many movies on Dad’s laptop as they want.  The funny thing is that they do eat a bunch, but they can barely make it through one movie before they start to drift off.  🙂

Today, Zach got his football jersey and his helmet stickers!  He’s pretty excited, although he gets teased a little bit from the die-hard Bears fans on his team and in his class for liking the Packers.  🙂

While Zach and I were at football practice, Sarah and Angela were up at Metea at Senior College Night!  Yikes.  Once again, this kind of stuff just reaffirms how old we are getting!  Fortunately, we look and feel pretty young!   🙂  I think Sarah can’t wait to get out of high school and start college.  We think it will really be an eye opener for her and we hope she is prepared (at least a little more prepared that what we were thinking when we started)!  🙂

Tonight we had a date night with some friends at a Kane County Cougars ball game.  Angela found out that it was “Country Night.” with a band playing before the game, and fireworks to country music after the game.  We had a great time!

Unfortunately, the Cougars lost, but the music and the fireworks were awesome!  The stands were pretty packed, although the picture above doesn’t show it (taken about an hour before game time).

Football practices went much better this week.  Zach really has enjoyed tackling.  I like the way that things are run this year with the team.  We have a green team and a gold team, and each gets a chance to play on each side of the ball.  We also have a set number of QBs and RBs, but we have one RB slot on each team that rotates throughout the season.  That way, everyone gets a chance to play in multiple positions.  Zach has really enjoyed playing on defense.  He loves tackling.  🙂  He is still center on offense and enjoys that.

Tonight, we had a treat…  There is another team that practices at the same field who we had a watermelon relay with!  The boys line up and carry watermelons down around cones and back, passing them off to the next in line.  After the relay, you then eat the watermelon and have a great time!  🙂  Our boys were funny to watch, as some of them are not much bigger than the watermelon they were carrying!  🙂

After the relay finished up and they ate their watermelon, we finished up the last half of practice.  The kids had a lot more energy after that, having just had a break, a lot of fun, and some great watermelon!  🙂

Tonight we had the Anderson family over for dinner.  They are good friends of ours and moved awhile back from Naperville to Long Island, NY.  We miss having them here and I think they really miss being here too!  🙂   We had a great dinner of burgers, brats, chicken, and all kinds of stuff.  Then we just hung out in the back yard, enjoying the wonderful weather and getting caught up on what’s going on in each other’s families!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a picture of everyone together, so the above pic of Spencer, Seth, and his girlfriend will have to suffice!  🙂

Today, Kirstyn, Zach, and Ben went to Phillips Park (and the Zoo) with Angela.  They had a GREAT time playing in the park, getting wet, and really enjoying themselves.

After getting worn out by all the playing at the zoo, Zach had his first football practice, with me as an assistant coach!  We have a few who played last year on our team, but most are brand new players who are very excited to play football.  The kids have a lot of energy, so that will make up for them being on the small side (again)!  🙂  We have a small (in numbers) tam as well so we hope that some will be added as the pre-season practices go along.  I’m really looking forward to it!

Football takes a lot more discipline than soccer does, so I hope I’ll have the patience that I need!  🙂

Today kicked-off the official start of the St. Raphael Football season!  Zach went to the first day of his “hitters” camp for the 1st and 2nd year players.  He is very excited to be playing again this year, and I’m excited to be coaching him this year!  The coach that he will have is an awesome guy, and loves working with kids.  As soon as I found out that he would probably be coaching, I threw my name in the ring as an assistant coach!  We’re going to have a lot of fun this year.

Zach is a little rusty from the “off-season,” but I’m sure he’ll come right back up to speed.  I saw him make some good hits and he wants to tackle this year, so that is a good sign.  🙂