Belated Birthdays

Yesterday, my mom and I celebrated her belated birthday with some shopping, lunch, and basketball watching. I'll admit that maybe watching basketball isn't exactly normal "girl stuff" and probably wouldn't have been my mom's first choice of activities, but thankfully it turned out to be one of the most amazing games of the season, so I was very glad we were able to enjoy it together! We ended the day with a brisk but cold 2 mile walk and some lessons on Mom's first digital camera that was a hand-me-down from yours truly.

So while I was busy celebrating my mom's birthday belatedly, I was also busy missing my friend Beth's birthday! Happy Birthday, Beth!! Sorry I missed your b-day yesterday!! Although I've neglected to blog about a lot of birthdays this year, I didn't want to neglect Beth completely since she's very far away and I can't give her a birthday hug in person. As you may remember, Beth and her husband James moved to Guatemala last summer (this picture of us is from their going away party) so that Beth could take a job at the American School of Guatemala in Guatemala City. They are super brave and adventurous people who have been having some amazing experiences in Central America! If you haven't already, you should really check out their blog. There are some terrific pictures and stories about the area in which they're living and all the places to which they've been traveling. I love living vicariously through their blog since I'm confident that I'd never seek out such an opportunity! I think Beth's super strong to be taking on this incredible challenge, and I'm very proud to call her my friend! Happy Birthday, Beth! :)

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!!

Jayhawk Junk

For all of you KU basketball fans out there, I wanted to share some fun info about our hardwood heroes that I found interesting and thought maybe everyone else would also enjoy. The KU Alumni Association recently sent out a special basketball edition of their email newsletter, and there was one article in particular from which I learned a great deal! It was a compilation of silly facts about each of the players, and as a die-hard Jayhawk fan, I was embarrassed to say that I didn't know a lot of these things! So get to know your Jayhawks! I had never heard the nicknames Ron Ron and D-Block, didn't know Kaun's first name wasn't really Sasha, had no idea so many of the kids came from basketball families, and was pleased to find out that a couple of the boys read scripture as a pre-game ritual!

On a related note, I have another link that I received from a couple of different friends that is kind of fun for us college sports junkies. Apparently EA Sports is having a "Mascot Challenge" to determine which college mascot should go on the front cover of the Wii version of their NCAA Football 2009 game. Although the website doesn't actually mention the winner of the challenge being featured on the Wii game (at least that I could find), the KU website verified that this is the ultimate purpose of the contest. Tomorrow (Friday) is the last day to vote, so check out this page and then click on the "vote now" button to the right. That will take you to the page where you can pick the Big 12 conference and vote for our own adorable Big Jay, unless you're one of my Husker or Wildcat friends who'll undoubtedly be voting for someone else. :P

No matter who you vote for, you have to admit that the Jayhawk (especially the Wii version) is the cutest of all the Big 12 mascots. Colorado's mascot Chip has the face of a bumblebee, Iowa State's Cy has an evil looking sneer, and let's face it: the blank stare on Truman the Tiger's face makes him look mentally challenged, which of course, he is. Herbie the Husker and Pistol Pete both have creepy huge human heads, while Hook'em from Texas is creepy because he has a scrawny body with people clothes when animals should go naked. Of course the ultimate in creepiness is Willie the Wildcat, who somehow gets away with being half man, half beast. His scary cat face deliberately placed on a human body completely creeps me out. Clearly, you should place your vote for the happy, friendly Jayhawk, who is currently in 6th place in the polls. At least help him jump over Herbie in the standings!

By the way, why are Texas Tech, Baylor, OU and A&M not represented in this poll? Do they not have costumed mascots or something? How is it that I've never noticed this before?

Puppy Love

I just had to share a few of the adorable puppy pictures that I took on Sunday when I was at the shelter. There have been so many litters of tiny babies there this winter it's just unbelievable. They are so amazingly cute.

This is little Ray taking a nap. He was born at the shelter and his mom was a Beagle mix.

Ray is looking a little disoriented because I woke him up to take his picture.

This Ray's brother Chug.

This is Ray and Chug's brother Smooch, who was just too tired to wake up for pictures!

And the holy grail of puppy cuteness...




This precious little Pit Bull mix pup isn't even available for adoption yet. His whole litter got very sick and now he's fighting pneumonia. He was outside for a little fresh air on Sunday, but of course he needed his little sweater to protect his little baby body from any chills! That sweater is about the cutest thing I've ever seen!

How stinkin' adorable are they? Their ridiculous cuteness doesn't change the fact that I wish they'd never been born. There are just too too too many of them and not enough good homes. Why don't people just get their dogs spayed and neutered?

Shamrock Shuffle

I have to admit that I wasn't a very supportive wife over the weekend. On Saturday morning, my husband ran in the Shamrock Shuffle, a 5K race right here in Lawrence, and I didn't even go to cheer him on. In my defense, I had a wedding shower to go to in Kansas City for my friend Kristin, and it would have been difficult to go to the 8 a.m. race and still make it back home in time to get ready for my engagement in KC. I wasn't exactly dying to go watch since the temperature was 8 degrees at start time, but I certainly would have done so had I not had other important plans.

Because of the crazy cold temperature, I was extra proud that my hubby got up early for the race, which is an annual event here in Lawrence that raises money for the charities of our St. Patrick's Day parade. There were actually 386 other people who braved the frozen tundra of the levee in North Lawrence, seen here in a photo from the Shuffle slideshow. Although Chad hasn't been training for a short race like this one (he's only been running long distances and not doing any speed work), he still had a very good showing on Saturday, coming in 26th overall and 5th in his age division. The age divisions were broken into 10 year increments for this race, but if they had used 5 year increments like many races do, Chad actually would have been 2nd! There was only 1 person in the 35-39 age range that was faster than he was, so I think he did pretty well! You can see all of the race results on their website or check out the Journal-World's article if you're interested.

Chad wasn't especially satisfied with his official 5K time of 22:16, only because he ran just around 1 minute faster last summer in his previous 5K. Obviously the course conditions of last summer's race were a million times better than the conditions on Saturday. Plus, at that time he was training specifically for a 5K, doing shorter runs with weekly speed work. I think under the circumstances, he should be very proud of his 5th/2nd place finish!