It wasn't our day.....

It's been a busy couple of days with all the football activities leading up to yesterdays Thanksgiving Day game with our big rival... Waterford.... unfortunately the "Football Gods" weren't on our side yesterday and for the first time in 7 years we had to give the bragging rights back to Waterford with a 20-loss.

It was still a fun day full of Good friends, good food and good memories.

Wednesday night we had the last Team Dinner of the season, complete with a couple of wonderful speakers who had played Viking Football in the past who shared their memories and thoughts on the game ahead.

Thursday morning Dave and Ryan were up and out the door at 4am to cook breakfast for the team with the Youth Football Coaches. I headed to the High School at 6am with the crew in tow to get set up and Breakfast was served at 7am to 60 hungry football players.

From there we headed out to the field to get our spots staked out in the stand for the game.. there were a couple of thousand people there yesterday and I wanted "our spot" to watch th game and didn't want it taken while we were on the field for Senior Day. Anyone who knows us, knows where to find us at game time... top row to the right of the press box!

Once we were all set up, Dave and I headed to the field to meet up with Alex for Senior recognition.. the moms were all presented with Roses and the dads all wear their sons away jerseys.. its pretty cool and a fun way to start off the last game these guys will play.

It was a good game, but we just couldn't get it in the end zone.. The guys played hard.. real hard. But we have several key players who are out injured and it showed.

Ben runs the water out for the team and at one point toward the end of the game, he came out of the huddle with the water bottles and the Ref helped him to the sideline kind of comforting him... it was then that I realized that he was crying... he takes this game very seriously and these boys are all his "brothers" and he was so sad that they weren't going to win that he just couldn't hold it in. I got a picture of the Ref comforting him as they got off the field... you will see it below.

After the game, we headed home for a yummy Thanksgiving Dinner followed by dessert at Tom and Claudia's house. By the time we got home, and got the kids in bed we were so exhausted and I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow!

Enjoy the pictures....

Dave and I getting ready for Senior Day.



Dave and I with Alex




Seniors and Captains out on the field at the beginning of the game Alex is #63

Kick off.. Alex #63




Aric #67

These are from the end of the game.. I didn't realize at the time that Ben was so upset. Look at the poor little bug with his head hung low.. he had tears just streeming down his face. The Ref was so sweet with him.

Better luck next year Vikes....

Like The New Look???

Hi All!
Hope you all like the New look on my site! I sure do! It is so warm and cozy!

Anyway, we've got a really busy week coming up and I will try to get some pictures up of some of the weeks festivities!

Today Aric has his last JV game against our biggest rival Waterford! It should be a good game!

Dave is on vacation this week and we have lots of projects around the house to get done. Right now he is working on Ryan's truck which lost it's transmission last week. They have been working on it all weekend. Hopefully today it will be done because it is starting to cut into my project time!!!

Wednesday we have a sitdown pre-game dinner for the Varsity Football team followed by the breakfast bright and early on Thanksgiving morning. Dave, Ryan and the other youth football coaches will be up at 4am cooking breakfast for 60!
The game is at 10am on Thanksgiving morning and I for one can NOT wait!! This is probably my favorite game of the entire season!!

We aren't having any company for Thanksgiving this year and because we will be so busy, I have ordered Thanksgiving dinner! It will come already cooked with ALL the trimmings! I will only have to make my pies. This way I don't have to run myself ragged cooking and can enjoy the day with my family.

Anyway, stay tuned for pictures this week!

Happy Thanksgiving!!
~Vicki

Christmas Cards...

When doing your Christmas cards this year, take one card and send it to this address. If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these soldiers will receive. No matter what your views on the war, politics etc... these fine men and women have sacrificed so much.

Turn up the volume on the computer and listen to the words to the song I have playing..

Lest we forget...


A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington , D.C. 20307-5001

Peace...
Vicki

Beach Day!!!

Yesterday the weather ws just beautiful, so I packd up David, Ben, Caroloine and Jake and we headed out to the beach for some fresh air and exercise!

We had a blast looking for shells, and we walked the entire legnth of the boardwalk and back for a total of 2 miles! Great exercise for everyone and because we were busy looking for shells, nobody seemed to notice that we walked as far and as long as we did!
Enjoy the photo's below... if you want to listen to it with sound... scroll to the bottom of the page first and turn off the music I have playing.

Have a Great Week everyone!!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Halloween and PWS....

Don't mix. No secret there.

Being that this is our 13 Halloween with PWS, I have run the gamut of how to handle it and I think this year I may just have outdone my self!

When David was little, I dressed him up and took him around with the other kids and worried the whole time how we would handle it once the food thing kicked in.

When he was 4 we gave up Trick or Treat and traded it in for family night where we would go for pizza and a movie or bowling etc.. and just pretend it wasn't Halloween. We have done this for the last few years successfully and the kids really enjoy it.

Our school still lets the elementary kids celebrate Halloween with a party and a costume parade (Don't think for a second that I haven't been fighting to get that fixed!!!) Last year I kept Ben and Caroline home and ignored it... this year that wasn't an option, so I sent them in.. Ben wore his catchers gear from baseball and went as a baseball player and Caroline wanted to be what else but a
Princess... I scrambled for a Princess outfit on Friday morning... can you tell my heart wasn't in it?? But came up empty for Caroline.. then I saw an old evening gown that was either from a wedding or from our cruise a few years ago... and had an idea... I put it on her and took the scissors to the bottom and Wallah... We had a princess dress!!! It had spaghetti straps so I cut and tied them so that it fit her and had her wear a white shirt under it... it was perfect!

The only thing left to tackle was Trick or Treat on Friday night... it so happened that Friday night was also the Homecoming Football game at the High School! I wasn't about to miss the game to go Trick or Treating with 3 kids who have PWS.

Soooo.. I came up with the idea of a "Reverse Trick or Treat" David, Ben, and Caroline all love to visit and give things to people... so I went out and bought 3 plastic pumpkins and filled them with Halloween Candy. Then I printed up a little flyer that looked like this:


We are participating in a “reverse” Trick or Treat tonight to raise awareness about Prader-Willi Syndrome. David, Ben, and Caroline Knopf were all born with PWS.
PWS typically causes low muscle tone, short stature if not treated with growth hormone, and a chronic feeling of hunger that, coupled with a metabolism that utilizes drastically fewer calories than normal, can lead to excessive eating and life-threatening obesity. The food compulsion makes constant supervision necessary. Almost all have cognitive deficits and require special education. Social and motor deficits also exist. At birth the infant typically has low birth weight for gestation, hypotonia (weak muscles), and difficulty sucking due to the hypotonia (“failure to thrive”). The second stage (“thriving too well”), with onset between the ages of two and five throughout lifetime, usually is characterized by increased appetite, weight control issues, and motor development delays along with often severe behavior problems and medical issues.

Please help us to spread awareness by visiting the web at www.pwsausa.org


Then I sent the 3 of them out into the crowd at the Football game ( I watched) to hand out candy and our little flyers. I promised them that if they handed out all the flyers and candy that I would save a piece of candy to eat!

They went to work handing out the candy and flyers.. Caroline even got $3 given to her... she thought that was pretty cool! Dave looked at me, shook his head and said.. " You are either insane or a genius... do you realize you just gave buckets of candy to kids with PWS?" I just smiled. It went off without a hitch and they collectively handed out 60 flyers about PWS to the crowd.
They were done by halftime and then sat and ate their piece of candy and were happy as can be. So am I.... there was no stress, no tantrums, and most of all no big bags of candy to contend with for weeks. Perhaps most of all there are 60 more people in this world who have heard about PWS!

Have a good week everyone!

Vicki

TOUCHDOWN!!

This video clip is from a few weeks ago, Alex made a touchtown on a fumble recovery while out on Defense!! our friend Tim made us this awesome video! Way to go Alex!!!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com