Birthday and Basketball

Today is my Dear Mother's birthday. To celebrate her important day, I was supposed to go to visit her in Topeka, where we were going to hang out and do girl stuff together. Being the wonderfully understanding and accommodating mom that she is, she was totally agreeable when I called her last night and asked if I could reschedule our date for Sunday. My kind and compassionate mother completely understood that today I had an opportunity that I just couldn't pass up! Last night, our friend Terry called and offered to sell us his tickets to the Big 12 tournament because he wasn't feeling well. This afternoon we went to K.C. and watched the Jayhawks' victory over the A&M Aggies! We'd never been to the conference tournament before, nor had we been to the new Sprint Center, so we were very excited about both!

The game itself was fun, albeit a little too close for comfort, as we only ended up winning by 6 points. We didn't play terribly, but we weren't terrific either. Brandon (my friend Paula's favorite;) thankfully had a great game and came away with a career high 28 points. My favorite player Darnell had a solid 14 points, while Sherron contributed 9. One of the issues that made the game less enjoyable was the ridiculous number of timeouts because of all the TV commercials. It just seemed like every time we'd get on a roll and the crowd would get loud, the game would stop. Along with all the timeouts, the refs also had to stop a couple of times to review the tape or fix the clock, which made it such a disjointed game. The other issue that made the game not as exciting was actually the crowd itself. Although the KU fans clearly made up 80% of the fans in the arena, you wouldn't really have known it most of the game. The place was really fairly quiet unless the 'Hawks made a big play or went on a run or something. I usually felt like my voice was echoing throughout the Sprint Center because hardly anyone in the place was cheering or clapping. It was way too calm for a KU Basketball game!

Speaking of the Sprint Center, the building itself is pretty cool. I took a bunch of pictures (big shock), so you can check them out if you're interested. The coolest thing was that there was a QuikTrip inside the building--I love QuikTrip! The video board seemed a little small, but then again we were in the 3rd row from the top, so we were actually looking down on the screen! The top sections like ours had very little leg room and that scary steep pitch that made you feel like you'd tumble to your death if you made one wrong move. As you were walking down the aisle, you had to step over the cup holders from the row in front of you, which were attached to the back of the seats, which made it especially treacherous!

The downtown area around the Sprint Center was pretty cool too. A lot of the stuff has always been there, but it seemed like there were some new restaurants and shops that I hadn't seen before (not that I've ever spent a lot of time in downtown KC). It would have been a fun place to hang out for the whole day if we'd had the time!

So back to the original point of this post: my mom is so awesome that she wasn't even upset that I postponed her birthday celebration to go watch basketball today. She's the best, and I'm so lucky to have a wonderful mom like her! Happy Birthday, Momma! I'll see you tomorrow!!