Away games

Louie and Benny love sports. Doesn't matter what it is, they love to watch and play. (Well...baseball probably tops anything else.) They do pretty well at whatever they take on, but the one thing they don't understand is "home" and "away." If the crowd is into the game, they want to join in the fun. Especially when the home arena is playing JOCK JAMS! I tried to explain that we were rooting for the blue team, but whatever the kids in the stands were doing, they did, too.

Kevin was able to take a day of vacation on Wednesday, so our family activity was to go down to the Cintas Center for a basketball game. The XU women played league rivals, the Billikens of St. Louis. Maggie Hennegan is in her sophomore year, and although they lost she had a great game with 16 points! (I babysat Maggie starting when she was two, then eventually her and younger brother, Andrew.)

Maggie Hennegan, #5
Not the clearest picture, but we were sitting on the other end of the court!

Maggie shooting (and making!) a free throw.

Part of Maggie's fan club.

And then came the end of the first half. This is the look on their faces for the spectacle that was the halftime show.

OK, I've tried a number of times to upload the video of halftime, but it won't work. I'll edit it later to see if it can be put on here, so I'll try to describe it here. You may have seen it before, about 500 kids, ten and under, run out onto the court, whip out plastic jump ropes, pogo sticks, and two things from the '80s that I can't remember their names. One looks like Saturn that you jump on and the other is like a "ball and chain" that old time prisoners use but my sister would skip over hers and it kept track of how many revelations it did. Have you seen this before? Well, the boys hadn't and they didn't know what to think of the chaos of children running rampant all over the court. It did keep their attention, though!

By the end, they definitely knew who they were rooting for: "the blue team" and "number 5, Mommy's friend," but when the fans did the cheer where one side yells "X" and the other "U", Lou just couldn't resist! Hey, the kid's got spirit, oh yes he does, he's got spirit, how 'bout YOU?