Another winner!

I could be talking about the football game, though today's game against Indiana left much to be desired, and may prove to be a real harbinger of doom (especially if, as it looks, Forcier is nursing an injured throwing arm), we can actually add it as another W on our schedule.  It was a dismal reminder, though, that we are relying on the courage and convictions of a freshman quarterback or two.

It does not, however, take a winning game to enjoy a fantastic pregame party, and this was one of my favorites.  At least once a season we rock the tailgate world with a full on made to order breakfast buffet, with eggs (plain, scrambled, or omelet? And would you like green pepper, mushrooms, or onion on that?  And what kind of cheese?), pancakes (would that be blueberry, chocolate chip, or plain?), bread (feel free to use the toaster, and help yourself to butter or homemade jam), and, of course, the usual sides of fresh fruit, sausage, bacon, cheese, crackers, taco dip, and chips, not to mention mimosas, beer, and wine (those are not all breakfast foods, you say?  Not a standard breakfast, maybe, but this is a tailgate, after all).  This is by far my favorite tailgate of the season, and as I walked back from the game I pitied all the people who were cleaning up the pizza or sub boxes from their own pregame revelries.  We love our tailgating crowd!  But alas, we've been spoiled for all other tailgating experiences.

Tailgating: a Calvin's-eye view

At the tailgate on Saturday Calvin decided it was time that he learned to use my good camera, and, because he's always so careful with his own things, we let him have a go at it.  The first picture came from my dad's iPhone, the rest are entirely Calvin's doing.  In other news, holy moly we're beginning the season with a 3-0 record, and that's great news!

Hello 2009 Season...

...and Go Blue!  Both last week, then again, and especially, this week, have brought back to Michigan fans that once familiar enjoyment of watching a good football game.  There are still improvements to be made, but that just adds to the air of excitement.  We wouldn't want the season to be boring, would we?  Go blue.

Football season kickoff

It's that time of year again!  The leaves are just starting to turn colors, the nights are cooling off, the rains are coming in, and the Michigan Marching Band can be heard practicing nightly, at least by those who live in the area.  We had our first tailgate of the season today–a time to reconnect with good fall friends and good fall foods–and we even had an enjoyable football game following!  The past few weeks many Michigan football fans have been walking around with big question marks hanging over their heads.  What will the season be like?  Who will be the quarterback?  Will our coach be headed to court?  And, really, we are still walking around with question marks hanging over our heads, but they might at least be a little smaller, since the game on Saturday was actually enjoyable to watch (easy to say, of course, since we won, but I remember a day when a game against Western was not question mark at all, and a win against Western nothing to celebrate). But regardless of the team or the game, the tailgate marked the beginning of a great season of parties to come. 

Go blue!

Easter is eggciting

I had to do it - it's the obligatory cliche.  The pictures from our Easter weekend are now up in the April 2009 album.  It truly was a wonderful weekend.  Friday was our Easter bunny day, and after visiting Creep E. Bunny (he's the one in yellow) at the local resale shop Calvin begged to go visit the bunny at the mall as well.  Of course it didn't take much begging (ha, where do you think he got the idea in the first place?) since Creep E. Bunny didn't make for really great pictures, but on our way out the door a nice lady told Calvin the Easter Bunny would be coming to our house that weekend, at which point he walked back to Creep E. with a very expectant look on his face and I had to explain that it was all just a figure of speech.  Keeping no secrets we'd already told him the bunnies would just be people wearing costumes, so I'm sure he expected the guy to actually show up for drinks and hors d'oeuvres or something.  I actually had far less difficulty getting him out of the mall display where, while the bunny was much more inviting, the guy doing the jig behind the camera to make kids smile for their photo op was a little iffy.  Calvin refused to take his eyes off that guy and I'm sure he was thinking something along the lines of "what institution did they just let him out of?" or at least that is what I was thinking.  I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't do these crazy things if I wasn't a scrapbooker, but Calvin had fun just the same.

Having gotten the bunny visits out of the way, then, we spent the latter hours of Saturday decorating eggs.  I say the latter part because the earlier hours were spent pretending it was fall.  Who tailgates in the spring?  Well, actually, tens of thousands of people this year, that's who.  We've attended a handful of Michigan Spring Football games in the past, most of which amounted to a sprinkling of giddy tailgaters in the Chrysler lot, but this year was a whole different animal; an animal that wrapped itself all the way around the stadium in what had to be a three hour line just to get into the locker room for a quick tour.  We opted out of that one, visited the inside of the ever-changing stadium (Calvin's first visit to that part of town!) and then retreated to our usual fall tailgating spot to enjoy the usual tailgating treats.  Ahhh we love our tailgating crowd!  But that brings us back to the Easter eggs, which was a resounding success.  Who knew an almost three year old could color and dye eggs without making a mess?  The whole hard boiled bit helps a lot I am sure (doubly so when you hear about the egg hunting situation), but the dyes and crayons stayed exactly where they ought as well.  I was incredibly impressed, but I still would not have ventured such an activity while in our church clothes on Sunday.  Instead we spent our dressed up Sunday afternoon going for a (muddy) walk on our (muddy) path to take some family pictures (which you already saw) before the extended family arrived for an Easter party.  We then followed up said walk with a (slightly muddy) egg hunt in the back yard.  You know how I mentioned the hard boiled-ness of the eggs?  Calvin did a great job finding the eggs, and really seemed to get a kick out of finding each one, after which he dropped, and I really mean dropped, if not half threw, each one into the basket.  Out of a dozen eggs I think three survived un-cracked.  Did I mention that we will be eating potato salad for every meal this week? 

Ahhh Easter.  We hope yours was as beautiful as ours.  With love, from the Ophoffs.