The Thrill of Victory & The Agony of Defeat

 Just so Carter understands how we roll in this family, we've had a long weekend of non-stop sporting events, centered around our favorite teams.  There have been highs.  There have been lows.  There have been big disappointments, followed by big cheers.  It's been great and equally tragic.  

And in many ways, just another weekend in the Armstrong house!  My Dad and sister Stacie have been with us, which has also been great!  

We're raising up 2 little sports fans and it's serious business :)

On Thursday night of last week, after Ava went to bed, Carter got his first taste of baseball while watching the Ranger's/Yankee's game with Trav and I.  Just to be clear, baseball is the only sport I don't like.  At all.  I think it's terribly long and boring and I honestly don't care one thing about it.  Travis is also not a huge baseball fan, thank goodness.  He doesn't pay much attention to it until the playoffs start. Then he'll watch a few games here and there.  I still fight it, but usually I can deal with 5 or 6 games a year!

However, both of us LOVE to see the Yankees lose and we quickly got caught up in the Ranger fever that struck most of America last week!  My Texan husband was in touch with his "roots" in no time flat and we were both glued to the game, hoping that the Rangers would pull it off!  

And they did!!  

Carter was witness to the big win!!  Can't you tell??  

He is all caught up in the excitement, that's his "thrilled" face  :) 

We were so excited to see the Ranger's prevail and will be cheering them on in their first ever world series!  

Thursday marked the first late night game Carter watched with his Daddy, but I'm sure it wasn't the last. 

I just hope Baseball doesn't become his favorite sport...  

On Saturday, we got to pick up Aunt Stacie from the airport after my Dad got to our house. We were so excited to see her and we came right back home so we could watch our Hawkeyes play Wisconsin together.  Someday we'll tell Ava and Carter about the serious sports fan that their Aunt Stacie really is.  We might also tell them about her famous trip to the ER, after throwing her shoulder out of socket, while cheering for the Hawks during a game!  But not too soon, as it might scare them.  When it comes to football, don't mess with Aunt Stacie... 

3 Generations of Hawkeyes, all decked out in our Iowa gear!

Of course Aunt Stacie, Aunt Jennie and I all inherited our love/devotion for the Hawkeyes from our Dad.  He worked hard to turn us into Iowa fans and now he's working hard to train Ava and Carter too.  So far it's working :) Ava is just now learning to cheer for the "awks" as she likes to call them!

I'm not sure who is more proud, her Grandpa or her Mother.  Probably both.  

Unfortunately for all of us, Iowa's kicking game was non-existant and the last 20 seconds were a series of bad decisions and bad play calling.  We lost.  And we shouldn't have.  

But, such is the life of a sports fan.  

Some days you win and some days you lose.  

The rest of the weekend was also spent watching some key games.  On Sunday night, we watched the rivalry between the Vikings and the Packer's with the drama that is Brett Favre thrown in for added entertainment.  Considering that I was raised to be a Packer fan, it was a great night for Green Bay.  Considering that I now live in Minnesota, it was not a great night for the many Vikings around us.  Now we get to live with endless hours of commentary on Brett Favre and his ability to still play, his relationship with the coaching staff and his new scandal, on every local news station. Fun times.  

Anyway, we were hoping to forget it all by watching the Cowboys win during Monday Night Football last night, but sadly, that was an even bigger disaster!  Poor Travis, this whole season has been terrible.  And with the loss of Tony Romo, it just crossed over into hopeless.  It's a good thing we have the Rangers as a great distraction!  

So there you have it.  Proof that we watched a lot of TV this weekend  :) 

And maybe had a little good family time too!