Winner gets the good hardware.

This weekend was the Kentucky State Middle School Wrestling Championships. You will recall that Justin got there by way of his first place finish at regionals a couple weeks ago, and Dominic got there by his runner-up-to-Justin finish. Dominic ended up losing his last match to his friend Ian who wrestles for Trinity; they have been back and forth all year and it was Ian's turn I guess. Sadly, Dominic was wrestling GREAT. He was actually winning the match 4-0 when Ian caught him too far over and managed to pin Dominic. I was sick over it but he had wrestled SO WELL at the tournament it's hard to feel bad. He would have placed if he had won that match. We were extremely proud of him. Next year he will be a force for sure.
Justin had to work his way to the finals too, and he had a fairly tough draw in the brackets. Jeff and I kind of knew he could/should/would win it all, but you know how things are; you don't know what will happen 'til it happens. In wrestling anything can happen on any given day. The best part is that there were some "favorites" to win among the wrestling gods in KY, and Justin was somewhat under the radar except for those who are around him a lot. He wasn't really favored to win. But he was on his game Saturday, which he needed to be, and he pulled out the victory. Better still, he won in a spectacular way, stacking his way to the pin in the first period of the match. Justin controlled the matches all day, and only one boy scored on him at all. We were happy for him. He did get some really nice hardware and a nice giant bracket to put on his wall. I told him he has to keep winning tournaments so we can pin brackets all over his walls and cover up the holes and scratches in the drywall...The best part of the (very long, tiring) day was all the good wrestling folks who were happy for Justin and made it a point to tell us they are really happy to see the good, respectable, hardworking boys win, and how much they think of all our boys. We think so much of them too.

Ice Ice Baby

Well I always think of Mom when some natural disaster hits, so here's to you, Mom.
This was one crazy storm. Last Tuesday had it all- 20 degree temps, freezing rain, snow, lightning (yes, lightning), and trees and limbs falling...nonstop...all night long and all at the same time. The sound of trees cracking, crashing, ice falling, hitting the house and roof was a bit unsettling. It was one of those "not much we can do about it" things except say our prayers, sit, and wait. The power was off too. We waited until morning to fire up the generator with the futile hope that for some reason the power outage was only temporary. When we finally got some daylight we saw that the outage was indeed NOT temporary, and we settled in for several days without power. It was beautiful and awesome and treacherous all at the same time.
Now, I live with MacGuyver. If you know Jeff you know he's pretty resourceful and hates being unprepared for stuff. Like back in September after hurricane Ike blew through, when the gas prices were sky high, and we went to get gas for our generator and found most gas stations either closed (no power) or out of gas, and the ones that did have gas were disturbingly creepy- full of mad, short-tempered people tired of paying 3.85 for gas and then waiting in line for it. So he happened to have a day or two's worth of gas ready for the generator, and we had just stocked up at the store. Also, he had bought a bunch of candles and wind-up flashlights. We had plenty of light. We also had developed a system using the generator back in September. We knew how many things we could plug in at once and rotated the garage freezer with the fridge. We put our beer out on the patio. (Yummmmmm) We also have natural gas at the house, so we can cook on it or on the wood stove, and we have hot water in the upstairs bathroom. Phone service was out, so no internet. All in all, a crazy week but we are only minimally out of whack. I have been on the phone nonstop for two days, folks wanting to "get on the list" so Jeff can come rescue them from their tree disasters. Too icy right now, but he'll be full force by the end of the week. This town looks like a tornado came through, and I'm not kidding. Enjoy the photos...God bless us all.