An upgrade from last year

Face-off. Shannon is the farthest purple player to the right.

Last year Shannon and I got snowed out of going to the K-State Hockey Alumni Game.

This year we had snow the weekend prior to, but the weekend of the hockey game, it started pretty nice. So, Thursday Shannon and I drove to Wichita, ate with Jayme, Charles, and Nikki and then used Mom's house as a hotel. She was up in Colorado while we were in town. After some stuff and lunch on Friday (at Doc Greens' which I really enjoyed), we drove up to Manhattan.

Rhonda was there already and we just hung out for a while. Friday was Chris' birthday so we at at Houlihan's to celebrate. Then Saturday morning was the game! It rained...and was windy...and was cold. But it wasn't snowy and icy. :)

Club players in between periods.

Jenette and I didn't play, but Shannon did. I did run the scoreboard though. The game was fun to watch. About 17 alumni players and another 20 or so current club members. It was a good time. It ended with the club winning over the alumni, 11-8.

Club players warming up goalie.

Afterwards, we went out to Milford Lake for a picnic. It was cold and wet. Jerry and Colette had set up some tarps to block the wind and rain. That helped a lot. Jerry also brought a generator and super heater. That also helped a lot. It was nice to sit and chat and eat with the players. :) The hockey team has always had some pretty good people on it. So we are able to sit and chat with them.

Can you spot Jeremiah?

Winners!

Our inline hockey team, the Hawks, won the summer season! That isn't too surprising. The season started with I believe 6 teams. By the end of the season, we were down to 2 teams and 2 players from a third team. Of those two teams, our team has players who regularly play ice and have played with each other for a good amount of time. The opponents, Minor Threat, is mostly made up of high schoolers (?) some of which have never played before. We actually played them the last 3 weeks because no one else was around, and won every time.


We also had our neighborhood picnic on Sunday. Complete with inflatable jumpy house, face painting, clown, and neighbors.

Lightening bolt! Lightening bolt! Lightening bolt!

This past weekend, Shannon and I were visited by his youngest sister Michelle and her buddy Coleman. We know Coleman, too. He's a goalie for K-State.

On Sunday we went to have a picnic of sorts at Hunter Park. We had a pretty nice time. We picked up some foods from Whole Foods and then sat in the labyrith and watched some LARP type activies. Crazy. I've never seen it in real life.


After lunch and entertainment, we found the start of the 18 hole disc golf course. There were a lot of parties playing. Basically the entire time there was a group we had to wait for and then a group waiting for us. It's a nice course though. The first part is all in the woods, then it moves to by a stream (which we did visit), and the end is all open and fieldy. It was nice. And pretty close to our house, too.


While we were there, Coleman noticed a rather large bird with some lunch in it's talons. It's not a great picture, but it looks like a bald-eagle with a squirrel or something. Pretty cool!

Stat Picnic

This was the coldest, windiest, and shortest Stat Department picnic I've ever been to. It was alright though. We had some burgers and hot dogs and other random foods brought by the people in the department. Thanks to Shannon and Newgen for grilling the meat (and 2 veggie burgers)!

By the end of the picnic, everyone left was huddled around the grill warming their hands. :)