An Impala, a State Championship, and a Superbowl

Hey gang.

This weekend was nuts. From the minute I got out of work until late Sunday night, we were shot out of a cannon and up to the hilt in unbridled chaos. And while a lot of the stuff we did was cool enough, it didn't really leave us well-rested and ready for yet another work week. 

That's why I'm taking Monday off of work. I need a day of sitting around in my pajamas on the couch and not doing shit after a weekend this crazy.

Things kicked off with Kris and I picking up Alayna's FIRST CAR in Clare. We had told Kris' best friend, Kim, and her husband, Matt, that we were in the market for a car for Alayna. Matt works on cars and is always buying used ones, fixing them up, and reselling them for a higher price, so we knew he would be able to hook us up with something nice if he came across one. 

After a couple months, he learned that his sister-in-law's daughter was looking to replace her 2012 Chevy Impala, and that the miles on it were low and the vehicle itself was in great shape. Vehicles this good at this price point are hard to find, so we expressed interest and his sister-in-law said we had first go at it when they decided to sell it. Took her about four months or so to find a new vehicle, but a couple days ago they got a hold of Kris and let her know that they were finally ready to let the car go. Kris got the money around, and when I got home from work on Friday, we drove up to Clare (with Alayna in tow) and met the sellers at the Marathon station on Hamburger Hill.

As it turns out Matt's sister-in-law just so happens to be my best friend BP's oldest sister, and the 20-something year-old that was selling the car was his niece. Small frickin' world.

Anyway, the car runs great, and we'll be keeping it in the garage, driving it sparingly, until it finally becomes Alayna's this summer. Not sure neither Kris or I myself are quite ready for that bullshit yet. The rest of the weekend entailed three main events: Alayna's Solo/Ensemble performance down in St. John's, Abby's State Championship with Northeast Pom (down in Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti), and our Midland friend group's annual Superbowl Party, which was once again hosted by the Griffins. All this went down back-to-back-to-back with near to zero down time, so Saturday/Sunday was f***ing whirlwind.

Again, thank God I took Monday off.

So yeah, since I took more pics of the rest of the weekend, I'll just tell the story in the captions. Strap yourself in, folks. . .

Alayna, ready to hit the road for the morning's Solo/Ensemble excursion. She was scheduled to perform a duet with her friend, Lexi, around 1pm, and once we got her performance scores we'd have to hit the road and continue on to our reserved Hotel down in Ann Arbor.

The Cannonball and Lexi coordinated their outfits so that they could match for their duet. They ended up scoring a '2,' which obviously isn't terrible, but they had been working hard the last few weeks with practicing and had been hoping for a '1.' They were assigned the stingiest judge, unfortunately - all he was doing was handing out '2's and lower - who said they needed to work on their 'dynamics.' Dick.

Around the same time, our friends the Johnsons were already southbound and about an hour a head of us (they didn't have to stop in St. John's for orchestra stuff.) Abby hitched a ride with them (not surprisingly.)

We were still at that frickin' school in St. John's when the Johnsons sent us this pic of the girls already asleep in the truck.

Fast forward an hour or so (fortunately we weren't all that far from Ann Arbor from St. John's, which was nice), we arrived at the Doubletree Hilton and checked in to our room. The team was scattered across the bottom three floors of the hotel, not blocked all together like usual.

Abby wanted to stay with the Johnson's overnight in their room, down on the second floor, so Alayna got herself her own queen-sized bed for the evening.

While we were settling in to our hotel room, Erik had driven over to the U of M neck of the woods, a short drive away, so the girls could check out what a college town looked like. They walked down a few roads lined with party houses, Solo cups and folding chairs littering front lawns, and the girls talked incessantly about what it would be like when they attend U of M (because, you know, that's where they're going now.) 

The view from our room.

The Johnsons (and Abby) returned about twenty or so minutes after we showed up.

Here's a few shots of the hotel room. You know, because you have to take pics of every hotel room you stay in. It's the law, folks.

This mirror was a little too low for a urinating man to tolerate. Nobody needs to see that.

One of the nicer showers I've ever had in a hotel room, it was pretty badass.

Alayna was pretty excited about all the free toiletries on hand.

Teammates making Tik Tok vids in the stairwells. Usual teenage nonsense.

For dinner that evening, all the Pom Team families went out to eat at a nearby Chili's in order to celebrate the team's achievement of actually making State's (for the first time in the school's history.) We blocked off a huge section of the restaurant for our party, and the girls and their coach all sat together. Our servers must have been thrilled.

The volume in this restaurant was insane.

Some teammate's social media post.

Alayna, taking pics of her sister eating (she opted to sit with the team instead of us and the Johnson's.)

Invoking the Lion King with some ketchup. 

Our section of Chili's. The girls' table is in the far back of the pic, and you can see Kris and the Johnsons there at the center.

The leftover debris from the meal. We were there about three hours (it took a long, long time for food to show up), and then eating and waiting for bills with a party of, like, sixty-some people. The service did a great job, though - they definitely earned their tips this evening.

After the meal, Kris and Courtney wanted to pop into a nearby Marshall's to snoop around (the restaurant and the store were in the same stripmall-ish sort of shopping center.)

We picked up a couple small things for the girls, but Kris didn't find anything she liked. I found an awesome Viking drinking helmet that was marked down to $3 because the box was destroyed and it was clearly a return (though the item inside was still shrink-wrapped.) It's one of those helmets where you can put beers on top and there's drinking straws that run down - it'll make an appearance in this post once we get to the Superbowl party pics.

Once we got back to the hotel, we grabbed my cooler and made our way down to the pool in order to meet up with the rest of the team and their families.

The door from the stairwell to one of the floors was completely sealed off. Nothing creepy about that whatsoever. . .

For being a Hilton and everything, the pool area was pretty dingy. Erik and I assumed that it was probably due to the company buying an older hotel and fixing it up. . . just not putting as much effort into the pool area as they did, say, in the rooms or lobby.

Erik and I, along with Harper's dad and Cassidy's dad, hung out at a table and had a few drinks while the moms all congregated at a nearby table and did the same.

The kids spent a couple hours either in the pool or the hot tub (Alayna and a couple older siblings stuck to the hot tub the entire time.)

#pomparents.

Team selfie in the hot tub.

And a weird foot picture. . . for some reason.

The weekend had been going great up until the morning of the competition, so it was only natural that disaster reared its ugly head. As the team got ready in the morning (hair, make-up, etc.) Abby realized she couldn't find her pom uniform. She texted Kris in a panic, and immediately Kris began reaching out to parents seeing if someone else had accidentally grabbed Abby's the night before out of the coach's room. Kids tore apart pom bags, the coach began freaking out and crying, and eventually it became obvious that Abby had accidentally left her pom uniform back home in Midland. Since we had left the house Saturday morning before Abby was picked up by the Johnsons (due to Alayna's Solo/Ensemble performance), Kris had laid out all of Abby's pom stuff next to a bag for her to pack so she didn't forget anything. Unfortunately, the team had a last-minute dress rehearsal at the school that morning, and they practiced in their uniforms. Abby's uniform was still in a small, drawstring bag that she had taken to that practice and not packed in her main pom bag for this weekend, and so now the fate of the competition was up in the air. We headed down to Eastern Michigan University's main arena to check in to the competition, and from there we weren't sure what was going to happen.

The line to get in was moving fast, so we were able to pass through and get inside pretty quick. I ran into a bunch of my students inside - my school's team are usually heavyweights at these things.

We had gotten there early enough to get some decent seats in the back row, meaning we had a wall to lean back against (which was awesome.) We had not idea whether or not Abby was going to end up performing with the team today: she was either going to be sitting out for the competition or else the rest of the team would have to wear their team fleece zip-ups like she was. Ultimately it was up to the coach to make the call, and we knew that was going to be a hard call.

The team getting fired up before heading out to perform. In the end, Abby and another teammate (who's been injured) sat out the competition, and accompanied the coach to the sidelines to cheer on the team. 

A team pic after the competition. It was definitely a bummer that Abby couldn't compete with her team at this competition, considering how hard she had worked alongside her team to get to this point, but she handled it pretty well. Definitely a learning experience, I'll tell you that much - I doubt she's going to be forgetting to pack shit ever again.

Awaiting the scores, formed up in their usual circle-things.

They did okay, but it wasn't great - we knew we were going to get slaughtered at State's, and, sure enough, we came in last place. Considering it was the first time the school's ever made it to State's, we still called it a win.

We drove back to Midland in the early afternoon, and had a few hours to kill before our evening's Superbowl party over at the Griffins'. Abby wasn't up for anything in the evening, and chose to stay home and veg out on the couch in front of the TV. No one could really blame her.

Alayna gave Watson his heart meds (he's got a heart murmur or something, so now we get to give him expensive-ass meds every day for the rest of his life), and they taste absolutely disgusting so we have to put peanut butter on it so that he'll eat it. She apparently felt like Samson was being left out.

Around 6pm, we headed over to the Griffins for the evening's big event, with all the usual suspects in attendance.

Like I've done in previous years, I was tasked with drawing up the annual Squares board that Erik puts together.

This took about a half an hour, but it made keeping track of scores - and possible winnings - much easier.

I'm sure I've explained this before, but this is how this works: whatever the last digit of a team's score is at the end of a quarter, that corresponding square - and whomever has claimed it with their $5 - gets one-fourth of the pot ($125.) So let's say at the end of the first quarter, the Chiefs had 15 points and the 49ers had 9 points, I would get $125. The numbers are randomized so that folks never know what squares they're actually buying, so it's all a total crap-shoot. For those of us who know nothing about sports, this is pretty helpful. I bought five squares, but sadly didn't win anything this year. . . yet again. I felt bad for the Larsons, who spent over $200 and only won once. Susan won twice, and Mees won the last one. Ladies cleaned up this year.

The spread this year was awesome - kabobs, shrimp, a taco bar, lots of dips and sides, chicken, desserts. . . this group will f***ing eat.

Finally giving my newly-acquired (and previously-discussed) Viking helmet a test drive. . .

Once I figured out how to shut off the drinking tube (with an attached clip thingy), it worked out pretty well. I only drank two beers out of it, though - it sucks them down pretty fast, almost dangerously so.

Mitch, Erik and Collier, doing some more grazing.

Go Sportsball.

The wives had put together some Husband Bingo, where they drew a name out of a hat, and on the bingo board there were several reactions laid out. If their assigned husband reacted a certain way at any point during the game, they got to claim that spot on the Bingo board. Kellie drew my name, and (obviously) did not do well this evening.

This helmet works awesome. Maybe too awesome, gonna have to use it sparingly.

The Real Housewives of Midland: Kellie, Susan, Danielle, Nagatha Christie, Mees, Courtney, Deanna, and Stephanie.

This beer was awesome - I've been sitting on it for over a year and finally broke it out. The habanero really gave this stout a kick.

So there you have it, gang - an insanely busy weekend, filled with highs and lows. We're looking forward to a few quiet weeks around here before the usual mid-March insanity. 'Til next time. . .

- Brian