Crazy times

So, the last couple of weeks have been quite busy...

First, my mom was here over the weekend of October 28-29. We had a great time spending time with her and she always enjoys hanging out with the girls. We watched the OU-OSU game on Saturday, which was entirely too close for comfort (38-35). For some reason, OSU plays their very best game against us almost every year. I have this theory about that... we are their biggest game of the year every year. No matter what bowl they go play in, we're higher ranked than their opponent will be. My other pet peeve about OSU is this: if OU beats them, we brag about it for a week or so. Then it's on to the next game on the way to a championship season. If they beat us, they brag about it for a year (or more). I guess that's the nature of being the little brother. If you beat up your big brother, you brag about it at family gatherings for years...

Then on Tuesday, we had another guys' poker night. Much fun was had.

Then around came Friday (November 5th). A group of 7 of us from Community Group drove to Tulsa to see the David Crowder Band play in concert. We left here at 5:00 and all of us piled in our Suburban. A little tight for the 3 guys in the back seat, but still, when's the last time you got 7 people in a car that wasn't a huge van? Did I mention that this was a group of all guys... with the exception of Shelli Jones (who was with her hubby, Justin). She was a good sport about being the only chick (even if she wished that some other girl[s] would have gone). The show was at the "24/7 Club." This was really the youth ministry building of a church called Victory Christian Something Or Other. I think it's kind of silly when churches call their youth building things like 24/7 or 180 or things like that. There seem to be lots of those "numbered" youth ministries in Tulsa. The opening band, Mutemath, was great. They really put on a great show - there was quite a buzz in the room after they played their set. Then Shawn Macdonald, then of course, David Crowder Band, who were terrific as always.

After the show, we tried to find a place to eat (it was only 11:00), but most places we tried had already closed. Finally, we settled on Bennigan's. Bennigan's used to be a favorite late night place of mine, but we don't have one here in Fayetteville, so I haven't been in a long time. After dinner, we drove over to Stuart's house to stay the night. Shelli went to bed right away and all of the guys (including Jay and Roger, who decided to stay the night with us) stayed up to play poker and Halo. Of course, since we didn't start poker until 1:00 a.m., we were up until around 6:15 a.m. Boy was that dumb (but the games were fun). We slept for a couple of hours, then drove back to Fayetteville.

Later that day, we watched the OU/Texas A&M game (Stuart came over as well). Another close call (42-35). In fact, we didn't even lead in the game until the third quarter. The first 1 1/2 quarters A&M was pretty powerful on offense, but we eventually took over and won the game. At least we have a couple of easy games next up (Nebraska & Baylor).

Next up in the list of guy oriented fun activities... the midnight release of Halo 2. Several of us waited in line at EB games on Monday night to get our copy of this much-anticipated game. We played just a little bit online that night, but I think the Microsoft servers were overwhelmed because we had a little bit of a hard time talking to each other. (Since then, it seems like everyone is connecting just fine). The next day (Tuesday), we had a Halo 2 party here at my house. All in all 10 people came over and we had 5 Xboxes and 5 TV's, so that meant that there were 2 guys per TV. It was lots of fun, of course. Halo 2 is different than the original Halo, but I think most of the improvements/changes are good. I do miss the old pistol, though. I have to say that I really like playing online, but playing a LAN game with all of us in the same house still is a huge blast.

So, it's been quite a run of fun activities. Is it possible to have too many fun things on your calendar? Maybe so. We were planning on going to Oklahoma this weekend to see the OU/Nebraska game. However, because the game starts at 6:30 p.m., and it's going to be cold and rainy, the girls can't go. That means Elise would have to stay with them at her parent's house while I go to the game with the rest of her family. Also, Elise and Maitlyn have been sick. So, with all of that, we decided the best thing to do was just stay home this weekend to chill out. Of course, we can always watch the OU/Nebraska game on TV Saturday night because championship teams get TV coverage.