Yet Another Sport for the Todds

Well, nice of you to join us and welcome back. Oh, wait. It's me (or I for you grammarians) that's been gone for a while. Another post I'll fill you in, but the short of it is that I have been traveling like a maniac and trying to cope with migraine triggers. My diet will be a post in and of itself.

Any way, one other reason for the absence was that we had multiple sports going on at one time. I think there was actually one weekend when Christopher had basketball, football and baseball, which brings me to today's post. Flag football. He decided after the season had already started that he wanted to try football, so we did.

Don't be deceived by the bright shining sun. Most Sunday afternoons when we played, it was honking cold. I mean really cold. Like the first game was the Sunday it snowed and we didn't get out for a week. Was I missing basketball. (But I did like that we had practice and a game immediately after it and we were done for the week.)

If you look really carefully (and with a magnifying glass), you can see Christopher about to make an incredible "rip." New sport, new lingo. Rip is what the rest of us would normally call a tackle. But, they don't tackle in this sport. Except that they do....accidentally. Whatever it's called, my boy is quick.

I don't believe in luck so providentially he got his dad's old number - 17. Pretty cool.

Ok. It was just hard to get good pictures of him playing so this is just one that shows him - all of him in action.

Taking the handoff which became key. It took a couple of games for the coach to realize that even though he was probably the youngest out there, he was smart, fast and could follow directions. They combined all 10-14s so there was a bit of a size disadvantage, but Christopher made up for it. He got the listening award and the enthusiasm medals. That's my Christopher.

The coach, the elbow in the far left, developed this awesome play. Christopher would take a handoff and then shovel it back to the quarterback. Took them a time or two to pull it off, but after that it worked every time.

Christopher just completed a pass to the quarterback. Killer play and a fun season. Fun, that is, if you like sitting under five blankets with six layers of clothes on.

Whew! This Year is Flying By!

I can't believe it's already the 10th. This year is flying by....2011 is just around the corner. Well, not really, but I do feel that way a bit.

Last week was a bit of a blur. Work started back and we were super busy. I guess that's good - it was busy doing kind of normal things and not just holding a thumb in the dike. Compounded with that busyness was sheer exhaustion from watching ballgames every night. All the teams that we even sort of follow played last week.

We started with Georgia Tech, which didn't turn out so well. Then, we turned to Troy University. My dad played there and my parents live about two blocks from the campus. The boys especially like to watch them. After double overtime (and long after I fell asleep), they lost. What a bummer. It was all riding on our last game...THE game.

Now, I had been waiting for this game for a long time as all good Alabama fans had. Two years ago, we purchased a large LCD TV that is on the wall above our fireplace. It's a beauty, especially for people who really don't watch a lot of TV. Ever since we bought it, I have been secretly waiting for an Alabama championship game so I could watch Alabama win and see the very blades of grass they were playing on.

Well, of course, I believe I was putting a little too much focus on that because a couple of nights before the game, it started acting up. Now, I'm not blaming God for intervening in my game-watching, but He certainly did allow it to happen. James was having a few friends over to watch so we all ended up in the guest bedroom on the bed, on the floor in chairs around the bed. An hysterical sight to be sure. (And, just to show you how into the game I was, I didn't get a single picture - not one.)

In the end, it was all ok. For those of you who don't know - don't tell me who you are - the Tide won. Keith, James and I stayed up until 2am watching every word of every interview. Did you know ESPN replayed the game at 2 am? (We didn't watch it again - it was just too exhausting.)

Back to the TV, I am wondering if He did have just a little to do with it....it seems to be working fine now.

Arggh. Football.

I am so glad football season is over for us.  We had tickets to the Chik Fil A Bowl to see Georgia Tech (hubby's alma mater) play LSU and I had planned to take the little guys home to Alabama to watch the Tide play Utah.

CBT quickly got bored of the game (and what Tech fan didn't) so he grabbed the camera and started snapping everything in sight.  He is quite creative with the camera.

We don't have many of us together, so this one will be a treasure.

James stayed faithful until the end, donning that awful yellow hair (even on the MARTA train on the way down).  He was quite the target for LSU fan jokes - you can imagine their assumptions about his level of intelligence as he is there with this on his head and SHORTS in the 30 degree weather!!

He was using all angles and shutter speeds.  Yep - you're looking at this one correctly.  He held the camera upside down after he did several self portraits the normal way....my creative child.