The One We Left Behind...

I had every intention of explaining Cameron's absence from the Canada trip, and our insane overnight journey through the wilds of Buffalo, and completely forgot.

Football is serious business - SERIOUS business in our part of the world. Friday night the entire town shuts down to watch the Varsity games. They even sell season tickets!!!

The seriousness extends down to the freshman, except for a select few of the pre-determined stars, if you miss a practice, you don't play. Cameron wanted to play, and he's still trying to prove that he CAN play, so we made arrangements for him to stay behind at a friend's.

As for our journey? Simple - We were NOT going to miss his first game, whether he played or not; we would be there.

Boardman Versus Cuyahoga Falls

SEASON OPENER
Boardman 20
Cuyahoga Falls 0

Cameron is Number 6...he played Cornerback for the entire game. I think what that means (remember I am a football mom in training) is that he has to go after the wide receivers and bring them down. He plays on the far outside and appears to be the last line of defense if the offense breaks through the line. In other words, he has to be fast and strong!



This won't be the only position he plays this year. They are still working him as wide receiver during practices.

He doesn't have as much confidence as I thought he would - he thinks he's too small and not strong enough.

So my job has become super-confidence-building-mom. I have become very adept at pointing out his strength - especially when he decides to try out moves on his brothers...NOT!

The Voyageurs Have Returned...

We had a lovely visit to Canada, sans Cameron. Great weather, lots of time with family in Barrie, a bit of history thrown in for good measure.

These pictures are from Sainte-Marie-Among-The-Hurons; a beautiful Jesuit/Indian village that has been recreated in Midland, Ontario.

John golfed that day...

I had been lamenting the fact that all my friends were away on their own vacations, but it actually made the trip much less stressful and jam packed. We were even able to hang out at the beach for an afternoon!


The highlight would have to be the Blue Jays and Yankees game we took in on Thursday.

The boys rode the Toronto subway for the first time. For me it brought back really fond memories of my years spent going to school and working in T.O. What a great city.
By the way, I wish I could say the bottle in my hand was mine but I was holding it for the girl taking our picture! Not to say I didn't carry MANY bottles of wine on the subway in my day :)

The non-highlight was the drive home - arriving home at 3am after leaving John's nephew's wedding that ran an hour to two hours late the entire day!

Actually the real non-highlight of the trip was driving anywhere with John. We are the worst - I mean divorce court worst - at driving together. We both had serious uglies in the van. Thank God Jackson and Caeden wore headphones most of the trip.

The 1st Annual Summer Olympics

Inspired by the greatest athletes in the world, our family hosted the 1st Annual Rogers Olympiad...yesterday...in our backyard.

The nations of the world gathered to compete in swimming, track, and soccer events.

Represented by the most physically trained athletic specimens in our home, the following countries competed:
United States, featuring our lone American citizen Caeden
Canada, the Canuck cheerleader Jackson
France, the oh-so-French Cameron
Australia, the hockey playing John
Great Britain, me, because I kind-of have relatives from there!

First events - swimming. The 44 foot freestyle was a hard fought, to the wire, one-one hundreth of a second photo finish...won by FRANCE! But the 40 something mother of three was the story of this race, taking the silver medal!



Next event - football discus. The U.S. fought a hard battle but the gold medal went to...France!



Next up - the track qualifying events. The top qualifier...France!

And finally soccer qualifying won by....................france....




These Olympics will continue when the U.S., Canada, Australia and Great Britain return from an international goodwill visit to CANADA! France has to stay behind and do more training...