Flabbergasting Friday

Who doesn't look forward to Fridays? The end of the traditional work-week, the promise of the weekend. It is also my cleaning day, when the house gets a once-over (or glance-over, in some rooms *slacker mom confession*) and the grass gets cut. (If we're super-ambitious and time stands still long enough, the grass gets cut on Fridays.) Fridays in the fall have the extra sparkle of a football game. I LOVE FRIDAYS IN THE FALL !!

I knew this past Friday was going to be a bit more challenging than most, however, when we received Ally's volleyball schedule and noticed that she had a Friday AWAY game after school. Since Ally is the football statistician, and we love our Chieftains, we knew we had to make it all work. No matter what. No problem, the game was at 4:30; she'd be done around 5:30 and we'd drive on over to Mark's game by 7:00. Not a problem. I even built in an extra 30 minutes "just in case" we had some interruptions.

Well, the first interruption took a little more than 30 minutes. Thursday night a little flying rock from a driving-way-too-fast-for-conditions semi carved a nice little crater in our windshield. So while scrubbing and mopping, I was on the phone with umpteen glass repair people, trying to find a technician who was able to drive up to our house between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. After being told that someone was going to come to our place and fix the windshield, I got a last-minute call that said "our dispatcher was mistaken"...so could I drive to the auto glass center in Dubuque (south) within the next hour? Oh, and the football Underarmour shirts were ready, came another call. Could I drive to Lancaster (north)to pick them up?

Long story short - my good friend Mary (who works in Lancaster at said clothing shop) was going to bring the Underarmour with her after work, so that eliminated one extra trip. I confirmed the Dubuque appointment and oops! time to put down the mop and pick up Wynne from preschool.

Now I have to be completely honest with you: this picture was taken on Thursday, not on Friday. Everything was pretty much the same, except that the rest of Wynne's class was already gone on their bus, and the teacher wasn't smiling. Preschool Day 2, Slacker Mom Strike #1.

In my defense, I called into the school on my way in and said "I'm late! I'll be there in 5 minutes!!" But other than that, this is pretty much what it looked like. Cute little girl, smiling and loving preschool.

Okay, 22 miles to the glass repair place in Dubuque. Thankfully, it is just a block off the major highway. We arrived ON TIME for our appointment, and wonder of wonders, they had a television in the waiting room which the friendly receptionist graciously set to a children's program. I talked with Wynne about her school work in her bookbag, and she had a lunch of 25-cent-vending machine Reeses Pieces. Wynne could play the next E.T., she loves Reeses Pieces that much. (Again, in my defense, the lunch contained protein because don't Reeses Pieces have peanut butter in them?)
(random picture of Wynne to fill up the space between my rambling:)

Okay, 22 miles home (after hitting a Dollar Tree on the way out of town for preschool and 2nd grade snacks--everybody eats snack for milk break these days, plus I needed some stuff to keep the kids happy before/during/after the games that night). Forty-five minutes till it's time to pick up the kids for Ally's game. Fix a late lunch for Dubs and me, finish cleaning, shower, pack a cooler of sandwiches & snacks for supper, oh and gather up the football sweatshirts because it's supposed to cool down tonight. (I think my tense is changing from past to present. Sorry about that.)
Cy decided to ride the football bus with the boys and his dad, so I picked up Ally, Paige and Shae right after school and drove 35 miles to Galena. Arrived a little late, but still plenty of time - 15 minutes of warming up is plenty, isn't it?

Ally played really well for their first time out, and only 2 practices so far. The girls lost the first game, won the second, and lost the rubber match. But Ally drilled every single one of her serves over the net OVERHAND. Our girls are all trying to serve over-hand, which is a big undertaking for 5th and 6th graders. (Here she is at the net while a friend serves.)
I've told you about Ally's pitching arm...well, that strength translates over to volleyball serving. She also learned at her godmother Aunt Marla's camp how to control the ball with her pass. (I am biased, but she does pretty darn well.) Of course, the last serve of the last game happened to be hers, and it happened to go out (went over the net, but veered out of bounds), so she said "I lost the game for us". Such a competitor.
My sports photography hasn't improved much, has it.

Meanwhile, the girls shared the suckers we brought with other kids at the game, and I tried to think of ways to keep them occupied. Why would they want to watch the actual game, anyway? That is too boring. So I made up a hopscotch-type challenge for everyone to do on the sidelines. Another mom friend called over to me and said, "You're pretty good at keeping the kids occupied, Amy," and so now maybe I have a new career ahead of me? The how-to-keep-younger-siblings-engaged-at-ballgames-job. There's a huge call for it; do you think anyone would pay me??!

Okay, Mapquest said 51 miles and 1 hour, 10 minutes to Blanchardville. (football game) It was 5:42 when we left Galena, so my logical (actually, pretty illogical) thought was that we would arrive just in time for 7:00 kick-off. In a perfect world where roads are straight, paved, and well-marked, that would be the case. But my friends, we don't live in a perfect world, now do we?
So at 6:45 we arrived in Argyle and had to stop for someone to use the potty. I won't name names, because I actually needed to gas up the tank a bit. The bad news was that, after climbing over peanut butter sandwiches, cheese crackers, and water bottles, someone got bit in the back by someone else for "making a mess" and several shouts and tears later, I pulled away from the gas station. I didn't stop to take pictures of the chaos, for it is a black, black mark on our family's existence. Ah, the togetherness of road trips.
*
7:0something, we pull into the football field parking lot and see that hey! we're up by 7 points already! Somebody ran back the kick-off 95 yards, and somebody else ran it in for a touchdown. My statistician ran to join the sidelines, and the rest of us pulled our trusty wagon over to "watch" the game. I use " " because the only watching going on with kids is to find out where the concessions and bathrooms are, and who else is there to play with.
This was a beautiful pass and catch made in the endzone by our tight end. Trust me, it was a great catch.

More stunning sports photography. Hey, it's a great shot of their pressbox, anyway.

Somewhere along the course of the day, I neglected to listen to a weather report. We were all wearing shorts and capris, and I think it was like 40 or 50 degrees out. Wynne didn't even have socks on. Ooops. In my defense (again!), I did pack the sweatshirts, and everybody but Shae was warm enough. Look, Cy wasn't even wearing his jacket or sweatshirt.

After a really good game, one in which our starting defense kept them out of the endzone, we won!

59 miles home again, home again, jiggety-jig. Only 189 miles on the Burb and we all made it home in one piece. A full, flabbergasting Friday!

I have set the Lord continually before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. --Psalm 16:8