NFL Hall of Fame 2016

I had an opportunity to go to the NFL Hall of Fame weekend festivities this year when my sister called me up and told me that she had an extra ticket to the events. As soon as I was able to make some trades for my weekend work schedule I packed up my bags and headed north to Canton, Ohio. It was going to be a fun filled weekend and I couldn't wait to spend some time with my big sister. I arrived at the hotel on Friday afternoon and after catching up with my sister I headed out to do a quick tour of the NFL Hall of Fame.

So excited to be here to experience this awesome weekend and see these 8 men receive the credit that they are due and have their bust revealed for the Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame set up lockers of all the Hall of Fame inductee's. Here is the locker of one of the greatest to ever play the game, Brett Favre.

Andrea also got me some tickets to the tailgate party before the Tim McGraw concert. It just so happens that there were some Hall of Fame members just hanging out in the tailgate tent too. I just had to meet them and get a picture. There were a few that got away before I could meet them, but I did catch Randal Cunningham, Mean Joe Greene, and Jim Kelly. It was definately an experience meeting all of them.

Andrea and I getting ready for the concert to start.

Tim McGraw concert was pretty good considering I only knew his older songs. Thankfully he sang quite a few of his older hits. 

Saturday morning we headed to downtown Canton for the Hall of Fame Parade. It was a lot of fun to see all the enshrinee's past and present riding in the streets. There were also plenty of floats and quite a few big balloons floating down main street. 

Saturday night proved to be the absolute highlight of the entire weekend. The Hall of Fame enshrinement was a very special event and it was so cool to be in the presence of so many great NFL players and coaches. 

How many guys do you recognize? There were so many amazing people here I was in star struck overload. To name a few in this picture are Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Andre Reed, Bill Polian, and Bruce Matthews.

The other side of the stage was packed too. Derrick Brooks, Jerome Bettis, and Marcus Allen.

Here are 5 of the 6 men who were about to be enshrined into the Hall of Fame.

Here is the last one and the reason why about 75% of the people were at the Hall of Fame, Brett Favre. The stadium was full of the gold and green of the Green Bay Packers fans.

Marvin who was known as a guy of few words and he went first and it was cool to see him finally open up and speak about himself. Marvin was a guy that I grew up watching because we lived close to Indiana so we usually would get the Colts games at home on Sunday's. I got to see quite a few of the Manning to Harrison touchdowns. I was able to see him play in person about 3 times, including his second trip to the Superbowl. I was happy to see him get the credit for all of his hard work and dedication to his craft as a WR.

Next up was the big man, Orlando Pace. Being a former lineman made me excited to see this man finally get the credit he was due. I never got to see him play in person, but I watched quite a few St. Louis Rams games with Orlando leading the offensive line. He was such a dominate force for the Greatest Show on Turf. The coolest stat about Orlando was that he blocked for 3 straight NFL MVP's (2 Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk).

Kevin Greene was a bit of a surprise to me. I didn't become interested in football until I was about 10 or 11 years old. That is about the time that Kevin was near the end of his career and was playing for the Carolina Panthers. I learned so much more about the person and player, Kevin Greene, during the weekend and his speech. He told some funny stories and thanked all the people that got him to where he was today.

Mr. Ed DeBartolo Jr was another man that I was unfamiliar with until this weekend. After his speech I had great deal of respect for this man who truly put players first and treated all of his employees as family. I really enjoyed listening to him tell stories about his time being an owner for 23 years of the San Francisco 49ers. He is the only owner to win 5 championships.

In between speeches I would just wonder around down near the stage and I encountered so many famous people. I spotted so many that I couldn't keep track of them all. Most were there in support of one of the men being enshrined. Aaron Rodgers was present to see Brett Favre as well as play in the Hall of Fame game.

Tony Dungy was a man that I actually knew quite a bit about. He was Marvin's coach in Indianapolis and just earlier this year I read his biography, Quiet Strength, which I would highly recommend. I am glad to see that his contributions to the game were recognized with enshrinement. He is truly a great coach, but an even better person.

Spotted another soon to be Hall of Fame member, Peyton Manning. He was in the house to see his former receiver and coach give their speeches. Peyton is the man who beat the majority of Brett Favre's NFL records after he retired 5 years ago.

The man that most came to see was Brett Favre. The first NFL player that I loved watching was Reggie White when he played with the Green Bay Packers. It just so happened that Brett Favre played on the other side of the ball. I have seen few people play football with as much emotion as I did Brett Favre, which made it no surprise that he got so emotional during his induction speech. When he retired he was the top of every QB record. Brett spent some time talking about his father and how much he meant to him. After his father passed away he said he spent the rest of his career trying to make him proud. Well, I think I believe you did it Brett!

Sunday was another pretty cool experience at the Hall of Fame Game Day Roundtable event. It included lunch and then an open discussion in which the players, coach, and owner spoke about things during their careers. They talked about who they didn't like lining up against, who they would like to see in the Hall of Fame, and other stories that had probably never been heard before.

The teams coming out on the field for the Hall of Fame game. Wait, they don't have on their pads and helmets!

Head of the Hall of Fame making the announcement that the game is going to be cancelled due to problems with the field. There were many boos that were being made throughout the stadium.

My sister working her last sporting event as a member of the NFL. It has been a lot of fun getting to attend events over the years with her and I will never be able to thank her enough for all the perks she has given me over her 9 years with the NFL. 

The stadium was a high school stadium so you could easily see the players as they were leaving. Here the Packers were getting a bite to eat. None of the players were looking up or trying to acknowledge the fans screaming at them. Then one fan yelled that Clay Matthews was awesome in Pitch Perfect 2 which caught his attention and he looked up to say thanks. I thought it was pretty hilarious.

One last picture with my big sister before we both head back to our homes. I had a lot of fun getting to just hang out and relax. 

The Hall of Fame weekend proved to be a pretty awesome experience which was capped off by a rare cancelled game. It was just another event that I will never be able to thank my sister enough for getting me into all the events. I would highly recommend going to the Hall of Fame events anytime one of your favorite players is being inducted. Thanks for reading and God bless!

NBA Finals Game 6

A month ago an opportunity presented itself to be able to go to the NBA Finals. This was an event that I had on my bucket list and it just so happened that my favorite team was playing at home for game 6. There were a few problems with this opportunity. First Jennifer had to work, so I needed someone to watch the kids. Just a quick call to my parents and they were more than happy to come up and watch the kids. Secondly, I didn't have anyone to go with me so I sent out a few messages to see if any friends were interested in making the journey with me. I had some people interested until they found out the price of the tickets. So, I made the decision to make the 5 hour trip by myself.

Ready for the big game!

My first pictures after arriving at the stadium were with the huge Lebron picture on the side of the building. Growing up I was a huge Michael Jordan fan and Lebron is the only player that has come close to filling that void in my eyes of the greatest basketball player of all time. I can't believe that I was going to get to see one of the greats on the biggest stage.

View from my seat. I was literally the top seat in the building. If I turned around there was the wall of the back of the stadium.

Since I got to the game about an hour and a half early I spent some time walking around the stadium and seeing everything. It was also free t-shirt and towel night. I really felt sorry for the people that had to put out all 20,000+ of the freebies.

Let's do this! Ready to cheer on Cleveland to the win!

Since I had some extra time before the game I decided to Facetime the kids to make sure they were being good for Grandma and Grandpa. They were happy to see me and I was glad to see them too, even though it had just been about 5 hours since I had seen them.

Little recap of each quarter's score. The first quarter started off with a huge momentum swing to the home town Cavs. They were firing on all cylinders and broke out to a 31-11 lead. From then on I could breathe a little sigh of relief, but I knew that the Warriors were a tough team and could quickly put together a run. Thankfully the game never got closer that 6 points before the Cavs would pull back out in front.

This trip was worth every penny that I spent on it and I still can't believe that I actually went to the NBA Finals. It was a fun and action packed game with lots of highlights and most importantly it forced a game 7 for a winner take all game out in California.

I usually take quite a few pictures, but I was just really living in the moment and kept forgetting to take as many during the game. Most of my pictures were taken during a dead ball or timeout.

Only one more game for the Cavs to become the World Champs! I was so pumped after the game that I really couldn't believe that it had just happened. The only thing that would have made it even better is if this was actually the winning game for the Cavaliers!

After the game I headed back out to the car and the city was going absolutely crazy. People were everywhere and celebrating the win. I knew that I would be awake after the game because I figured that my adrenaline would have kicked in so I decided to start the journey back home. I drove a couple hours until I was just outside Columbus. I decided to take a quick nap before heading out again. Well, 5 hours later I woke up to the sunrise and a couple of people talking outside the car next to me. I started up my car and backed out and then completed the rest of the three hour drive home. I was so glad to be home, but I was extremely excited to mark something else off my bucket list. I was even more excited a few days later when the Cavaliers won the championship and ended a 52 year drought for the city of Cleveland. It was great to be a part of history too because it was the first time a team came back from a 1-3 deficient to win the NBA Finals. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Brinley's 1st Round of Golf

This morning I got up and decided that since it was a beautiful day I didn't want it to go to waste sitting inside all day long. I really wanted to play a round of golf since it is one of my new favorite hobbies. Ever since I got the kids a set of clubs for Christmas last year I have wanted to take them for their 1st round of golf. I tried earlier this year to take Landon, but the course I took him to said that he was too young. So, I decided to and take Brinley this morning. I called the course beforehand to make sure that it was ok to bring my 4 year old and they said that she could. Just FYI it was the same course both times and they do not have a age limit posted. When we arrived at Meadowbrook Golf Course the guy that I had just talked on the phone with tried to talk me out of playing with her because he said she was too young. I told him that we wanted to play and he took our money and said have a good day.

Arriving at the 1st tee box. I was super excited to teach Brinley as much about the game that I know, but today was just for fun. I hope that she and Landon grow to love this game at an early age so that I can have a couple of playing buddies.

Putting for her first hole. After she finished I asked how many times she hit it to get it in the hole and she thought for a second and then said 20. I didn't count all the times she hit it, but she was probably pretty close to her real total. 

Things were going pretty good until hole #2 when Brinley started to say that her bag was getting too heavy. I had expected this at some point, but not this early into our round. I really didn't mind. I just wanted to have a good day with my little lady. 

I wish that I had continued to take pictures of her on the next few holes, but I was just doing well to carry all of our things from one hole to the next. By hole number 4 she decided that she could get her ball to go further if she kicked or threw it. Again, I didn't really care because I just wanted her to have fun.Then on hole 5 she discovered the ball washer and she fell in love with it. She wanted to clean all of her balls, but I told her we had to wait until we saw another ball cleaner. Then on hole 6 we decided to take a little break and sit down and enjoy a snack. Brinley had some Cinnamon Toast Crunch and apple juice to snack on. She also discovered the shoe cleaners that were attached to the hole markers so she had to clean her shoes. Hole 7 is where she said that she didn't want to play any more and that she just wanted to find more ball washers. So off we went to find more ball cleaners.

As we made the turn to the back nine holes Brinley was only worried about finding her next bench to relax and eat more snacks. She never once complained, cried or said she wanted to go home. 

Brinley just enjoying hanging out with her daddy. She also enjoyed finding every bench on the course and seeing how comfortable each one was. Also I let her watch a show on my phone for holes 12-16 while she sat on the benches. 

By hole number 17 she had come back around and decided that she wanted play again. We discovered that Brinley did better when she put her ball on a tee every time. She was able to make better connection with the ball. 

Nice follow through with her swing. 

Brinley posing with the 17th flag. 

Brinley excited to be on the 18th hole. She is standing on the shoe cleaner that became one of her favorite things. She always wanted to clean her shoes off every time. 

Putting her ball up on the tee.

Brinley wanted her picture made on this big hill on the 18th hole. So, of course I took it for her.

18th hole! 

I am so proud of the way Brinley played today and so glad that we got to have some fun together. She was a trooper and I can't wait to play with my little girl again. I wouldn't mind to be her caddie any day.

Heading home from our first round of golf. She looks so big here! 

I really thought it was great when we went through the clubhouse to go home and the man said to have a good day. I said thanks and then he asked how many holes we made it through. He couldn't believe my 4 year old walked all 18 holes with me. Well he just doesn't know Miss Brinley Kate very well! 

Here is our score card from the front nine. After every hole I would just ask Brinley how many shots it took her and it turned out to be some pretty funny responses. I have no idea where she came up with such random numbers, but I wrote down what ever she said. I actually had my best round ever at that course. I shot a 69, which was the first time I had shot under 70. Jennifer said that Brinley was my good luck charm and I quickly replied that I thought so too, but I just couldn't take her back every time.

Her reward for being such a good golf partner was her own icee. This also helped cool her down a little because it was a pretty hot day. She was even nice and said we had to get one for her brother who didn't get to play golf.

I had so much fun playing with Brinley for her first round of golf. I hope to have many more rounds with her as we get older. It makes me so happy to get to spend so much time with my two little ones because I know someday they may not enjoy hanging out with their old man as much. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Landon turns 3!

Landon is such a great little man who I still cannot believe is already 3 years old. He is always keeping us on our toes and makes life around our house interesting. We decided to have a party for him at the house with our families while everyone was in town for the 4th of July. We couldn't think of a better theme than Mr. Olaf himself. This is one of Landon's favorite Disney characters. Then Jennifer went ahead and thought of themed snacks that tied into the theme.

Snack table: We finished each other's BBQ sandwiches, Olaf's noses-cheetos, Sven's carrots, Kristoff's Ice-rice krispy treats, Melted Olaf's-water, and YooHoo big summer blowout chocolate milk.

Our very own Elsa and Olaf. 

Our big 3 year old. Every body throwing up 3's for our big guy.

Blowing out his candles. 

Opening up his gifts. More dinosaurs to roam around the house. 

Olaf play-doh set.

He also got his first nerf gun which was a huge hit with me and the kids. Mommy on the other hand was not a fan.

Here is a picture of my little guy on the last night of being a 2 year old.

On the morning of his birthday we woke up early and headed out to Bible School. He had gone the day before and really liked it. However, on the way to the church he said that he didn't want to go. He also told me that he didn't want to be 3! He just wanted to still be 2. Landon cried a little when we dropped him off, but was all smiles when we picked him up. The teacher said that the entire class sang Happy Birthday to him.

A little known birthday celebration is at the Disney Store. You just tell them you are celebrating a birthday and they put up a birthday message and everyone sings to you. Then they give you a Happy Birthday pin with your name on it. 

Landon with his birthday buttons. The one on the left was made by mommy for him to wear to Bible School. The one on the right was the celebration pin that he got from the Disney Store.

We found a couple of people we knew while at the Disney Store. We headed over to one of Landon's favorite places to eat for lunch, Olive Garden. 

To burn off a little bit of energy we decided to head over to the park for a little bit of fun on the playground. Here are my little monkeys.

Next we headed over to Bruster's Ice Cream for a little treat. Landon got a blue ice cream cone with a face and sprinkles for hair. 

After a little nap we decided to get a few games in at Landon's favorite place, Chuck E Cheese! Landon ran around and played like it was the best place on Earth. Jennifer isn't a big fan of the place, so after we met Chuck we headed back home.

When we got home we surprised Landon with his very own train table. He loves playing with the one at the library so much that we thought he would like one at home.

He also got a few more toys from his grandma and grandpa. Brinley even got him a nerf bow and arrow. 

The birthday boy with his cake that I made him. I let him pick it out at the store and of course he picked blue with sprinkles.

Who needs a fork when you have a perfectly good hand. 

This little guy always cracks me up. This is how he wanted to go to sleep. Right next to Super Man and with his weapon of choice - bow and arrow.

 I am so glad that we could make his birthday special. He is such a special little guy and I can't wait to see what he grows up to do in life. I am just going to enjoy watching him along the journey. Thanks for reading and God bless!