Go Titans!

Tonight was the 2007 preseason opener for the Tennessee Titans! WhooHooo!!! Everyone at our church knows how much we enjoy Titans Football because we're always the ones donning Titans jerseys at the early service and making a dash out the door to get to our seats before kick-off at noon. The only problem is that Martin and I have only two season tickets. When the Titans (formally known as the Oilers) first moved to Nashville thirteen years ago, we could scarcely afford even two tickets. Little did we know back then that we would be blessed with four football loving, sports fanatic boys. Hopefully we'll be able to get a few more PSLs before too long.

With each new season, I'm finding myself more often at home watching the game on TV while Dad takes one of the boys. They literally plan out the whole season before the first regular season game and decide who gets to go to which game. And it's not just the Titans. Our three oldest boys have multiple fantasy football teams and anticipate the draft as if they were real coaches for the NFL.

But really, what could be a better father/son bonding activity than spending all Sunday afternoon at a professional football game? Oh, and the boys milk it for all its worth ... foot long hot dogs, dipping dots, cotton candy, roasted peanuts, hot chocolate, the list goes on and on. But they also really watch the game and can probably tell you more about each play then most of the other 67,000 fans attending the game.

Tonight was going to be Preston's turn to go with Dad, but we had a surprising change of plans. Earlier today, Martin overheard someone he knew on a cell phone trying to sell some tickets. Being the nice guy he is, he offered to take the tickets with him and try to sell them outside the stadium gate for her. When he looked at the tickets to see where the seats were located, he realized that she had five CLUB level tickets plus two parking passes. Since she could only find a taker for two tickets, Martin worked a deal where he traded our two lower level tickets which were outside in the 90+ degree heat for five air-conditioned club level tickets. So the whole family got to go to the game tonight! Our 3 year old is still small enough to get in free and there were plenty of extra seats once we were in the stadium. We all had fun -- even though the Titans didn't win. :0(

I realize this season is just starting, but I can't help but anticipate future seasons, hopefully as soon as next year, when our little girl will be here to cheer on the Titans with us. I can't wait to buy her a little blue and white cheerleading uniform with matching hair bows. And maybe someday while Dad and the boys are all doing the football thing, we'll be having a mother/daughter day. I dearly LOVE my boys, but I'm really looking forward to that day.

Another funny thing happened today that is related to the Titans. Take a look at this photo:


Does this look like a vacuum cleaner belt to you? Take another look:

As I was vacuuming the living room today, (yes, mom, I do vacuum my floors!) I complained to Martin that the vacuum cleaner wasn't picking up anything. That's when he discovered the belt was broken. The plastic casing on the bottom of the vacuum has a place to store extra belts, so we used the one that was already there. This was not an easy task because you have to unscrew six million screws and take the entire bottom piece off to get to the place where the belt hooks on. Of course, our 3 and 5 year olds wanted to help too. Really, how many people does it take to change a vacuum cleaner belt?

We finally got the new belt in place and tried out the vacuum. It worked great for a few minutes, that is, until the belt broke again. This time Martin pulled a new belt out of the cleaning closet. Very frustrated, we opened it up again and noticed that this broken belt was a lot thinner than the others. It also didn't have the words "Oreck" all over it. So we took a closer look at it. I said, "Look, there's words on this one too, but what does it say?"

Take a really close look now:


Yes, that's right. It isn't a vacuum cleaner belt at all. It's a Tennessee Titans bracelet, LOL! Now, the question remains how did that bracelet get attached to the bottom of our vacuum where spare belts go? So far, nobody has any clue about that ... but at least we all got a good laugh out of it!

Go Titans! Kim