Hi Linda, thanks for the good wishes!
Hi Chris and Tracy, can't hardly stand myself! I'm supposed to get lots of work done in the next 3 days before I go, hmm, not sure that's gonna happen
Well, Vegas was a bit of a bummer. Apparently because Andrew's team has several pretty big guys on the line, the average team weight was enough to bump us up to a division with 13/14 year olds. Played a team from Minnesota on Thanksgiving Day, and lost 26-6. I drove down for the consolation game on Friday, where they played a team from British Columbia, and lost that one 31-6. My observation from that game was that our backs and ends were a lot smaller than theirs, and not as fast either, so anytime their runner got past the line into the secondary, we just couldn't bring him down. The other very frustrating thing was the condition of the field. They play these games on the high school fields, and it didn't look like this field had seen any water in months. Dusty, no traction on the dead grass, and hard as a rock. Nasty. I need to get rich and fly us all to Florida next year for the Eastern version of this tournament, get us out of the desert. I remember the fields being bad last year, but not this bad. Ok, done griping. Andrew wasn't too upset about it, since it was against older kids. Drove him home after, stopped and had Steak and Eggs in Mesquite.
Then stopped and saw my dad. He lives in St. George, Utah, with his 4th wife. He's 83 yrs old, and has prostate cancer. He had a very bad reaction to a medication they gave him during a procedure a couple of years ago, and then took an incredible fall off a ladder head first into the pavement about a year ago. he survived, but both incidents have left his mind a little worse for wear. I don't get down to see him very often, its about 300 miles away, but I was glad to get this opportunity. His wife says the prostate is getting worse, but mentally he seems about the same. Sad to see him like this, we used to always talk for hours about all sorts of crazy stuff, politics, religion, science. He drove trucks for many years, dropped out of college after a couple of years not because he was having trouble, but because he thought he could make more money driving to support his family. Taught me to drive when i was 7, in a subaru with a stick shift. On his side of the family we seem to have a history of our bodies outlasting our minds, but he seems happy enough. It was fun to have him stand up next to Andrew, they're exactly the same height now! I'm about 2 inches taller than them, but I'm sure that won't last.
Saturday bought a driver's seat for my car from a salvage yard. Wish I could have bought it and installed it before my trip, my seat is falling apart and very uncomfortable. I'm hard on chairs. GRRR. Then went and saw HP with the family. I've got to say I wasn't that thrilled with it, visually it was wonderful, but the plots of these HP movies just seem too random and non-sensical. I've only read the 1st book, guess I ought to read the rest, maybe it would make more sense to me. Kids said lots of things were left out of course, so maybe that's it.
Sunday was fun, kind of a 'Stump the band' at church. I'm one of the music leaders, and as our main service instead of a sermon or anything, we just had members from the congregation come up and say a little about a favorite hymn, and then we'd all sing 1 verse of it. It was easy for me, I just have to sing and wave my hand in the air, but the organist was awesome. She even added a nice twist at the end. The last person requested "I heard the bells on Christmas Day" and she picked a Bells sound for the organ, very cool. Quite a workout, but very uplifting and inspiring.
3 days, wow!
You are doing a great job! Keep up the good work! 
Are the guys playing at the National Youth Football Championships? Sounds like a lot of fun! 
:thewave: 
, but I just realized that this is your 1st trip to WDW! 
Woohoo! :thewave: 
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