Leading up to Big Game

The day started with a trip to the storage unit to get a few things we forgot to pack when we left on Thursday. Below is a shot of our storage space and the home for our "home" for the next couple of weeks:

Just about everything else we did was geared toward preparing for the big game - Austin's high school vs Mike's old high school. Mike came home from Wisconsin and we barely had time to say hello when he left with his girlfriend to spend the day somewhere. She attends Eastern Illinois University and they both came home for this big weekend. It was a long afternoon and evening as we met in town. The first stop was at Mark and Patty's new store - YSE. Business has slowed somewhat from the busy fall season so there wasn't much happening there. It was then off to Jimmy's Grill in town where most of the football families were meeting before the start of the first game at 5:30 - the game between the sophmore teams at each of the schools, which preceeds the varsity game each week. We got lots of pictures of all the activity at Jimmy's, starting with Patty and Mark:

and then the football "moms":

and finally, the kids, who painted their faces the colors of the team they were supporting:

Brandon eventually painted his face so they all looked like characters out of an indian war party.

The excitement was building all evening. We finished up at Jimmy's and walked to the stadium - a neutral field - for the start of the games. The game between the sophomore teams got underway and was a hard-fought struggle between the two schools. The lead went back and forth, with the Neuqua Valley Wildcats (Mike's old school) holding off a late rally to beat the Waubonsie Valley Warriors (Austin's school) by 20 - 15. It was a surprise ending, since Waubonsie was favored to win both games. The varsity players were milling around the sidelines during this game and we got a few shots (one of which is below) of Austin (#27) on the sideline cheering on his sophomore friends:

Time for the Big Game finally arrived, and below is a shot of the pre-game warmups showing Austin with his team:

The action started and although we couldn't get any good action shots of Austin carrying the ball, we did get some of him between plays on the sidelines, like this one below:

Austin's team came out flat and stayed that way the whole game. Their starting quarterback was not able to play as a result of injuries in a previous game, and the backup quarterback could not move the team at all. There were 3 fumbles and 3 interceptions for the team and they just couldn't get anything going. It wasn't a good night for the team at all. The final score was----- 43-6! This was suppose to be a close and hard fought game between these conference superteams, and it turned out to be a lopsided victory for the underdog. It still was a great time and very exciting for us to watch. We will get to watch the team again next week - with a much better outcome, we hope.

Today is another football matchup with the twins team in action. We hope the outcome is much better for them in their game. Hopefully, we'll have some good shots from the game...