Someone is very excited for Parents’ Weekend at USAFA:

“I’m going to Colorado on Thursday. I am very excited. I’m going to see my brother there. I love the mountains.”

As soon as we return, it’s back to spelling and writing practice 😄

One tradition of the WA football team is to share a team meal every Thursday before Friday’s game. Usually the meal takes place at school, but last week, it was at someone’s home. The host family has a pool…which meant the guys had an opportunity for silly antics such as throwing one another into said pool.

It’s all about having fun and team bonding.

I am thankful for parents on the team who take great pictures. Here are some scenes from the first game.

The next day was Meatopia, where the boys filled up on protein. It’s like a locust invasion.

We love it!

Our kitchen was bustling this week. Cornermouse was hired to make 200 cake pops (among other things) for a football parents’ event last night. Mid-week, they got right to work, forming the dough and rolling the balls.

Molly has perfected the art of strategic placement.

Meanwhile, Ruth and I began baking 200 cornbread muffins. She proved to be quite a hard worker!

After the cake balls had time to set, the rest of the Cornermouse crew came over to do the dipping and decorating.

These guys sure are honing their art skills with cake pops.

While the workers were laboring inside, the younger ones played outside.

After a few hours, the job was finished!

The team posed for a pic.

What I don’t have pictures of are all the other food items we provided for the football parents’ meal: cookies (baked by Aunt Judi), coleslaw, and baked beans (prepared by my mom). It was a gargantuan effort, and I was thankful for the help!

We placed some Cornermouse business cards next to the cake pops, which proved to be potentially good for business: a handful of people took cards, including a bride-to-be who is interested in having cake pops at her wedding!

The main course at the event was a pig roast, provided by a local BBQ restaurant.

After the eating, it was game time. Here, the three team captains take the field.

Though it wasn’t pretty, WA defeated their cross-town rival. Afterward, Derek posed for a picture with his loyal supporters.

As for our bustling kitchen, it hasn’t stopped buzzing with activity, as we are hosting another Meatopia today for the offensive and defensive lines!

It doesn’t matter how much I plan ahead for the upcoming school year, summer always seems to come to an abrupt end. However, as much as we ALL love the laid back days of summer, I must say that the school year does bring a welcome routine and daily sense of accomplishment.

We said goodbye to summer last Monday:

Derek: 11th grade
Peter: 8th grade
Jeremy: 6th grade
Ruth: 2nd grade
The Air Force flag is in the background, paying homage to Jake in his sophomore year of college.

The sun and the moon celebrated our first day of school with us by putting on a unique display. We thought we would miss the eclipse completely because the clouds were thick all day. Knowing the eclipse was scheduled to happen at 1:18, we sat down to lunch and lamented over the cloud cover preventing us from seeing the much-hyped phenomenon. Then suddenly we saw a slight break in the clouds just after 1:00, so we quickly pulled out Jake’s telescope with the sun filter and pointed it toward the sun..

For just a couple short minutes, we were able to gaze at the moon-covered sun while the clouds peeled back.

What I find almost just as amazing as the eclipse itself is the fact that scientists are able to predict the date, time, and location of such a wonder. As Albert Mohler put it:

This is where Christians understand, for just one example, that the predictability of this kind of eclipse is only made possible because God to his glory fine-tuned the universe in such a way that there are predictable laws and principles whereby the movement of celestial and heavenly bodies can not only be measured, but also predicted.

It was a memorable way to celebrate the end of our summer break and beginning of the school year!

Jake has said more than a few times how strange it is to see doolies roaming around, especially when they call him “sir”.

Those doolies just finished basic training and were accepted into the cadet wing this week. I don’t know where the past year went, but it seems like yesterday Jim and I made our spontaneous trip to CO to watch our son be accepted.

No spontaneous trip this year, but thanks to Flickr, I caught a glimpse of Jake as the guidon bearer for squad 22.

When he called tonight, he described how difficult it can be to ensure the guidon is perpendicular to the ground while marching, to hold it in one hand while saluting the officers, and to keep it from slipping from his gloved hands, etc.

We are looking forward to seeing him bear that flag in person during the Parents’ Weekend parade!

We were given eight primo White Sox tickets over the weekend. Four were in a suite with a buffet of good food; four were in the front row behind home plate. We had made plans to get together with my parents anyway that day, so we asked if they’d like to join us at the ball field.

We four in the suite looked down on the four behind home plate.

We couldn’t get over how good their seats were–they said they could see the pitcher’s facial expressions!

Being that close to the televised action, their mugs landed on TV throughout the entire game. The following clip is thanks to Aunt Judi:

When Ruth learned that her brothers were on camera, she wanted a piece of that action. So she took a piece of cardboard and made a sign to try to gain the attention of the camera.

Alas, the only camera attention she gained was my own. But all ended well, for after a good game with an exciting ending, she and Jeremy got to run the bases!