Hangin With the Boys

By Chris

Sheww. I still remembered the password. Since the madam of the blog skipped today, and I finally had a free minute, I thought I would fill in the blank. Today was the first time Ben, Nick and Dad all went together for an ODU basketball game this season. Nick and Dad went solo to the first two games, which was great for a variety of reasons.. Lauren secured a free ticket for tonight (well . . . sort of free . .. it comes with the thousands in tuition we are paying). That, plus my two season tickets had us all there to root on the Monarchs to a victory over Iona. I have this thing called the "Bank of Dad." The records are kept on my Blackberry. Any money the boys earn ends up there. Then, they can spend it with me. So, Ben hit the Bank of Dad hard tonight. The ODU Store has lots of neat stuff. He got a big old "No. 1" foam finger and a crazy blue wig. He sported both for the entire game. It slightly embarassed suddenly cool and almost-teenager-with-long-hair-and-American-Eagle-clothes Nick. But, not too embarassed to prvent him from taking little brother Ben around to all the concession stands and hookin' him up with dinner sans dad during halftime. Of course, Ben embraced persona Super Monarch Fan and danced to the music, blue hair and big finger drawing all kinds of attention. This got him a very long appearance on the Jumbo-Tron screen at the game. Realizing all 6,000 people were seeing him on the four screens . . . he hammed it up and danced more. Humongous Ben showing off for the whole crowd. That's so Ben. The camera loves him . . . and he loves the camera. We also got selected as the "row of the game" . . . of all the rows in the building. So, we have free tickets to see a Christmas lights display now (so, family blog readers, we'll be pilin' in to the Green van soon to hit that display if anyone wants to go) Pretty cool. That got us on the Jumbo Tron too. I don't really like to see myself on that thing . . . but Ben thinks it is really, really fabulous. During our evening prayers, he thanked the Lord for such a cool evening. Then, I thanked the Lord for the same. The boys and I at basketball with my boys from my college days. Pretty nifty. Sometimes God gives you yucky, sour lemons. Then, on nights like this, he gives you tasty lemonade, just to make sure you don't forget you're blessed. Go Big Blue ... and Praise the Lord!