This Week's End

I'm not sure how we fit everything we did into our weekend, but I'm glad we did because it was full of fun times.


4:45 p.m. Friday
After four mornings of Marketplace 29 A.D. with 136 kids and volunteers from 30 churches {seriously!}, we had a family night to give parents and siblings a chance to experience some of the marketplace themselves and hear more about what their kids had been doing this week. It was officially from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., but I was there from 4:45 to 8:15 p.m.

9 p.m.
After we finished wrapping up an encouraging, powerful week in a make-shift first-century marketplace, Greg and I went to Racer Madness while the babysitter did home and watched TV while our kids slept. I'm finally in baseball mode here at the end of that season {more on that in a minute ...}, but I still haven't gotten over Murray State's last basketball season so I'm happy for another college basketball season to begin. Granted, no team will probably ever compare to the 2011-12 Racers in our hearts.

We saw the guys play with the returning players and were entertained with 3-point shooting and dunk contests. Isaiah Canaan {not surprisingly} won the 3-point shooting contest after initially tying Stacy Wilson, who was impressive. And we won free tickets because of it! Before the contest, the players randomly drew a section number and whoever won, each person in that player's section received a voucher for two free tickets to the Nov. 24 game against Old Dominion. So, from Section 108, thanks for your precise shooting, Isaiah!

THIS is Racer basketball: 38 conference regular-season and tournament championships. 15 NCAA appearances. 25 consecutive winning seasons {tied for fourth in the nation}. And so it begins again ...

11:24 p.m.
Despite walking in the house ready for bed, I got caught up in the end of Game 5 between the Cardinals and Nationals. If you didn't give up on the Cards and go to sleep, you understand. With one out remaining in the win-to-advance game, the Cards managed to finish their comeback, first tying the game and then scoring what managed to be two winning runs.

After some celebratory texting with friends, I went to bed around midnight.

8:45 a.m. Saturday
My college friend Laura, her husband and their three boys -- 3-year-old Atticus and 1-year-old twins, Sawyer and Townes -- arrived for the day of MSU Homecoming festivities.

9:30 a.m. 
My favorite of this town's many parades begins. And, as always, it's entertaining ...

I'm telling you, if you are raised in this small town of ours, you are an expert parade-watcher by age 5, if not earlier. It's not even surprisingly if you've walked {or been pushed!} in a parade before you're 2. There are parades for Fourth of July, Homecoming, Veteran's Day and Christmas. All that candy collecting is serious business ... 

11 a.m.
With our friends, we ate lunch at Los Portales. There was much conversation, laughter, salsa and cheese dip.

12:20 p.m.
Cate had a soccer game. Our friends' kids napped.

3 p.m. 
We walked in right as the football game between Murray State and UT-Martin was starting. It was an exciting game that didn't involve much defense on the part of either team. The Racers fell behind, but they had a chance toward the end. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough: 66-59 Skyhawks.

6:30 p.m. 
After meeting back up with our friends and leaving our combined five kids 5 and younger with my generous mother-in-law, the four of us adults headed to Murray Christian Fellowship's alumni party. {Just for the record, the two youngest were already down for the night ...} It's a tradition of catching up, remembering, laughing and eating in a way that takes us back to our days in this campus ministry that was an essential community in so many of our lives.

10:45 p.m.
Home. Bed. Ah ...

So. What did YOU do this weekend?
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