A Handful of Farewells

Early Thursday morning Lisa and Joli packed the car and left. They were happy about the thought of getting home to their own beds and pets and of course the arrival home of DADDY, but it was still hard to see them leave. The house was so quiet without Joli's constant singing and chittering. But I can't be too sad as they'll be back soon for the winter holidays and I don't have much time to get the Halloween decorations down and try to be more organized for this next round of celebrations. I'll have to be more organized as I'll have not just Lisa and Joli but a whole house full of kids and grandkids. Where are we gonna put everyone!? I don't really know, but what a nice problem to have - a house overflowing with loved ones.

And speaking of Halloween decorations coming down, farewell to the pumpkins, skeletons, candy and everything spooky and haunting. Well, most of it anyway. Some of my witches, which I don't really think of as being specifically Halloween themed as witches celebrate year round, will stay up.

I started out at the beginning of last month so stressed about getting everything done, not having finished putting things back in order from the painting and remodeling, but it turned out, with lots of help and enthusiastic support from Lisa, to be a wonderful month of holiday fun. I still have plenty left to do, but except for a needing to switch a dresser and cabinet around in two rooms, the rearranging part is done. If I don't get distracted (snort! fat chance) I should be in a lot better shape to get organized for December. Thanksgiving is already taken care of as Sam plans to host it at his new home.

Last but not least, last night was a farewell - William's last football game of the season. It's been a season full of drama. We lost a lot of important players from last year before the season even began due to a variety of circumstances and we lost even more to injuries and bad grades as the season progressed, including our star quarterback (torn knee ligaments and a cracked femur!) and William's best buddy on the team (grades - tsk, tsk, tsk James! William's grades are passable but could be better too. Maybe I'll start having study dates for them at my house.)

We had a lot of away games this year, which is tough because there's so much long distance traveling involved, and we also played a lot of teams that were in higher divisions, bigger schools with larger teams. We only won three games all season and yet the kids kept a positive attitude through it all. William's position was changed several times and then with the shrinking roster, he ended up playing multiple positions.

Here's William (#66) last night going out as one of the Team Captains. It's an honor to be chosen. They go out for the coin toss and shake hands with the Team Captains from the opposing team. He was selected three times. They don't know they're selected until right before the game starts so we don't know ahead of time. The first time I got chatting with some other parents and didn't see him go out. The second time I was late and didn't get to the field until about 30 seconds into the first quarter. So he was happy I got to see him go out this last game.



He also plays offense, special teams... I guess it's easier to just say he doesn't leave the field except for a few extra point kicks and I don't even think he came out for those last night. Here he is on the offensive line.



They line up all still and then SNAP! BLUR! Watch carefully or you'll lose track of where the ball goes. Even when you concentrate, sometimes they do such a good job of faking the ball that you follow the wrong guy. Along with watching the ball, I have to watch William too. It's easier on defensive plays because William's job is to tackle the guy with the ball so they're usually close to each other. In the photo below William is the last purple blur to the right.



Last night William got quite a few good tackles (but he complained he didn't get one last sack - what a spoiled boy!) and it was made even more confusing by the fact that the other team's star player and ball carrier was a kid with our same last name! So several time over the loudspeaker you heard the announcer say that the person who RAN the ball was tackled by, uhm, HIMSELF? Everyone was very entertained by that. But coaches on BOTH sides of the field kept yelling out to "him" and you could see William looking around confused, not sure when he was supposed to pay attention to the call and when it was the other kid they were calling for.

In the end, the score was 21-6. Here are the kids after the coach's last talk to them, raising their helmets together for the last time. Tired, dirty, and ecstatic to end the season on a win.



Here's William leaving for the locker room and showers. He walked away a JC player and when he came back out he was, yes cleaner but, more importantly, officially now a varsity player.



I love football season but with all the away games this year, I admit to being happy for the season's end. But wait....

William announced on the way home that he's decided to be on the wrestling team. Which starts immediately.

Uhm. Hurrah? (of course hurrah, but give me a bit of time to adjust to the news, okay?)

One more thing before I dash off to get aforementioned football star a photo album for a school project. After the game we went to Sam's house and we all played on his new video game - Guitar Hero. I'm not at all into video games but Oh. My. Gawd! SO FUN! Rock out! You gotta try this! Of course Sam was wailing away on the DIFFICULT setting and after a few songs William had totally mastered the EASY setting while I was still struggling to hit all the notes but hey, at least I beat the pants off hubby who took a deep blow to his air guitar reputation. Snicker.