Christmas 2014

Wanda and I love to watch Christmas movies, this year starting right after Halloween (even though we love to watch them any time during the year!)   The girls both loathe them, but Daisy sometimes gets caught up in some of them!  Many of them pretty much follow a standard formula--main character(s) start out with things going pretty good, then a lot of turmoil that turns lives upside down, then everybody has a Merry Christmas!  Our lives seemed to follow that formula this year...
We came into 2014 with a few health concerns.  Wanda was having some trouble with her neck, shoulders, etc. from the auto accident she was in last year.  My mom wasn't 100% recovered from her colon cancer she had treated in 2013.  Other than that, life was moving along.  Daisy was getting really immersed into the Robotics team at Rose Hulman.  She was named the driver for the robot they built and they even part of the winning team for our Regional event held here!  They guaranteed a spot in the world championships in St. Louis!  Martha was finishing up her Junior year in high school.  Our Church was truly blessed with an incredible Pastor who helped us take one of the biggest steps in our church history by moving into another building!  I thought 2014 was to be a truly remarkable year! 
Then life came crashing down in truly horrendous fashion.  In February, Mom's cancer came back.  Treatments didn't promise much, but chemotherapy gave us hope we'd be able to have her another year or two.  Wanda had shoulder surgery in April that the surgeon felt went successfully, but it's not been the recovery we thought it would be.  In the same month, our house had some drainage problems that required someone to come out to fix.  The month continued on with a serious health threat for me.  After eating lunch mid-month, I had some severe pains in my stomach/left kidney area.  I thought it was a kidney infection.  The doctor started checking things out and I was recovering.  The Robotics Championships came, and, along the way, I found out Mom was going to the hospital.  The Robotics team had continued problems with their robot, but a lot of valuable experience was gained.
May continued to be worse for us.  Mom's prognosis was grim and her life was ending.  Waiting at the hospital during the final time, I got severely ill and had to come home, missing the time of Mom's passing.  I had a cat scan at the hospital and they rushed me right over to the emergency room after reviewing my results.  More testing was ordered and prognosis wasn't looking good.  I then went to my mom's funeral service in the midst of it all.  The doctor sent me for a MRI and was the most scared I'd ever been in my life.  Wanda had to come in to help soothe me so they could finish the test. 
June came along, with one more test to go.  By this time, enough was known that it didn't seem to be cancer at this point, but surgery seemed inevitable.  We're figuring some unknown part of my pancreas was going to be removed, at the very best possibility.  My fellow employees and my boss committed to give me their sick time to get me through any time off I'd need from work.  I had many praying for me.  The test finished up and the surgeon came in to tell me the news.  I was completely healed and my health problems seemed to stem from the blood pressure medicine I started taking!  I know in my heart that it was actually a true miracle from God!  The power of prayer should never been underestimated!
After suffering so much for half the year, God then gave us so many blessings!  Daisy was named Team Captain on the Robotics team!  Martha's Spell Bowl team made it to the State Finals!  I won some gift cards to a home improvement store that helped in many ways, including equipment to keep our drains cleared, new steps for the back porch, and other things.  Then, in February of next year, we won a trip to a dude ranch in Montana for Wanda and me that looks to be like so much fun and a nice, relaxing time for us!  We've been blessed in so many other ways also, including having such a great church family who have done so much for us and my work family who are truly a pleasure to work with! 
We're still facing some challenges.  Wanda's having pain and suffering from the accident.  We're struggling to find the right college for Martha next year.  Something happened with the relationship I had with my family through the year and I fear for their salvation.  All-in-all, though, we're really enjoying life together and looking forward to 2015!

Merry Christmas to everyone our there, from Kevin, Wanda, Martha, and Daisy, along with our cats Zippy (featured in yet another Christmas picture above), Angel, and Midnight!  May God grant you the most joyous of holidays!

 I decided to do a Christmas entry for my blog!  Of course, how can you have a Christmas blog without Zippy the cat pictures!
This has been a year with such big ups and downs!  Here's the bad stuff...

• Mom found out she had colon cancer and had to have some major surgery, plus some "mild" chemotherapy.  She seems to be  bouncing back pretty well though!
• Our van broke down and needed major repairs, at a time where the money was already pretty tight.  In the process of Wanda coming home, she was in a wreck that she's still trying to recover from.  Lots of therapy and maybe surgery at some point (hopefully not!)
• Martha's a Junior in high school now!  Not that that's really a "bad" thing, but it's that much closer to time until she's out on her own! 
• Our church was without a Pastor for the first part of the year, but our great church family still stayed together strong!

OK, now for the incredibly good stuff!

• Wanda and I got to go to the Super Bowl in New Orleans from a contest I won!  Never have I thought I'd be able to attend one of the biggest events in sports!  And the atmosphere surrounding the game was a whole experience in itself!  The game itself was also great!  Plus I'll always be able to say I was at the "Blackout Bowl"!
• We also went to Charleston, South Carolina from another contest!  It was for a country music festival, which I'm not really a big fan of, but it was still another great experience!  An added bonus...we got to have a nice visit with Tiffy!
• God called a new Pastor to our church.  He and his family have been a true blessing to all of us!  And we're moving to another location in 2014, which offers us so many opportunities!
• And I am so blessed to have a wife who is perfect for me!  I was given such a great lifemate!  And both girls, Martha and Daisy, are amazing me more and more as they grow older!  I can see so much greatness coming for them as they are turning into adults!  
• Lastly, I have so many family and friends who mean so much to me and play such important roles in my life!  I love all of you and treasure you greatly!

May you all have the merriest of Christmas and hope the coming year 2014 can be great for you!
Kevin (and Wanda, Martha, Daisy, along with three crazy cats, Zippy, Angel, and Midnight!)

Blackout Bowl! (The Big Day!) Part Two

Now we're close to game time!  Here come the Ravens!

Now the 49ers take the field!

Jennifer Hudson and the kids from the Sandy Hook Elementary School perform "America the Beautiful".   This was extremely touching and brought tears to your eyes!  It's amazing how much these children have been through, yet they're in front of the world to sing.

We had the National Anthem performed by Alicia Keys, but it doesn't appear we got any pictures!
Next comes the coin toss! 

Then the game finally gets underway!

Here's a cool panoramic shot I took with Wanda in the picture-

The game started out well, with the 49ers getting a great play down to almost mid field.  However, it was called back and I think it killed their momentum and they couldn't make much progress on the field from there.  The Ravens possession got them into the end zone, putting them up 7-0.  The 49ers kicked a field goal to make it 7-3.  Then the game started falling apart for the 49ers.  A fumble later on killed a great drive they were having.  With the Ravens finishing the half up 21-6, the game looked like a blowout.  One thing I noticed that surprised me was we had a good mix of Ravens and 49er's fans around us and they were very civil towards one another!  It was funny watching the rivalry between an older Caucasian woman that was a 49ers fan sitting next to a younger gentleman of Asian heritage rooting for the Ravens.  It was so friendly between the two and they delighted in pointing out to the other when their team made a great play!  It's terrific when fans from two completely different backgrounds can get along so well! 
Next was the big half time show!  Here's what it looked like as they were setting the stage up-

Each person in the dome was given a pair of small flashlights to wear on the fingers of one hand.  They weren't supposed to be turned on until two certain songs were played, but everybody activated them anyways!  It still was a very cool effect!

Another panoramic picture I took made it look even cooler!

Here's some shots from the show-

I'm not really a Beyonce fan, so the show didn't really appeal to me, but it was still a great experience to be there in person and see the show!

The game got back underway, with the Ravens about to receive the second half kickoff.  I thought this was the time where the 49ers could reclaim the game and make things interesting by stopping the Ravens at this point.  Instead, the Ravens return the kickoff for a touchdown!  To me, the game seemed like it was over.  No team in Super Bowl history had ever came back from this kind of deficit.  I could see the Ravens racking up the score from here on out and the game would be a Super Blowout!  Nobody would have ever guessed what would happen next...
The 49ers had the ball when all of a sudden some of the lights start going out in the stadium and the scoreboards went off!  The field itself looked almost dark!  This was the scene-

Play had stopped!  We communicated with friends and family on Facebook and found the Superdome had suffered a partial power outage!  We didn't realize the extent of it, but heard later that areas, like restrooms and concessions were dark!  It was hard to believe what was going on!  We all started making jokes in the stands, like "Beyonce shorted out the power with her hair dryer" or "They spent so much on the dome renovations, they couldn't pay the electric bill"!  After around 40 minutes, play got back underway.  The game then started turning completely around!  The 49ers were playing with a passion and the Ravens didn't seem like they could get their act back together!  All of a sudden, the 49ers were right back in the game!  The 49ers had the ball with two minutes in the game and right down in the Red Zone!  They had four plays to score a touchdown!  Everybody was at the edge of their seats not knowing what would happen!  The 49ers wound up not scoring, but had one last chance after the Ravens couldn't move the ball down.  A very rare Super Bowl safety gave the 49ers two more points.  There was only time for one more play, with the 49ers ready to receive the punt!  Four seconds to go!

The 49ers tried to run the kick down the field, but didn't make it!  The Ravens win, with the final score 34 to 31!  Then the celebrations started!

Unfortunately, we couldn't stick around to see the post game events, since our bus was leaving an hour after the game was over and we wanted to be sure we made the bus on time.  We went back to the hotel, got everything packed up, then went to bed.
We got up the next morning, had a great breakfast at the City Diner with our friends Leah and Patrick!  Then we went on to the airport for our flight back.

(Our flight to Houston is on the lower left, at the very bottom).
We made it back home with no problems!  It was really late, but I had took the next day off from work to allow us to rest for a bit!  We picked up the girls later that day, who missed us alot! (Or so we hoped :)  They loved the souvenirs we brought back!
Thus ends a trip that we'll remember forever!   It was something we never thought possible!  We are thankful to Frito Lay and Pepsi who provided the trip for us, Annie Cummins of Genesco Sports Enterprises, Inc. who was a big help in getting everything together for the trip, and all of our friends who helped us out in various ways!  We'd like to make another Superbowl some time (but maybe not next year in the open aired stadium in New Jersey!)

Blackout Bowl! (The Big Day!) Part One

We got up Sunday morning and started getting everything ready to go!  I picked up our tickets from the lobby.  Here's what mine looked like-

I finished getting dressed and was all ready to go!

They provided a bus to take us there, making it a lot easier to get to the Superdome!

The bus driver was really interesting to listen to!  He transported all sorts of celebrities to parties the night before!  He had to maneuver into a parking lot I didn't think he'd ever fit the bus into!  We got out of the bus and saw the dome from our lot.

The dream I had of getting to my first Super Bowl was now clearly coming true!  Something I'd never thought I'd do in my life was about to become reality!  It took a little while to make it inside the dome, but we finally got to our seats!  Here's the first view we saw-

Such great seats!  It would be very easy to see all of the facets of the game from here!  It's still amazing how small it seems in comparison to what you see on TV!  When you're watching a game at home, it looks about twice the size it really is!  Wanda was a bit weary from the walk so I went out on my own to check out the action around the outside of the dome!  It was some experience to see all of the fans and what all goes on!  The downtown area was all decked out for the game too!  Here I am by one of the buildings decorated for the game.

Here's one of the fan areas that had a stage set up with various musical acts playing.

Yes, definitely at Super Bowl 47!

Another part of the Fan Area.

A shot of the fan area and downtown.

Things were winding down, so it was time to head back inside and start enjoying the game with Wanda!  Pre-game ceremonies are starting and we're both anxious to get things underway!

The cheerleaders start practicing on the field-

Next, the game is almost underway...

 

Blackout Bowl! (Day Three)

We went the next day to see a bit more of New Orleans.  One strange part of navigating the streets of the city there are medians in many parts, prohibiting left hand turns.  You might have to go a couple of blocks just to find a place to make a U-turn just to get to the other side!  We decided to have a more conventional meal for lunch this time around and we stopped at a Golden Corral along the way.  It was so good!  We went around to some sporting goods stores hoping to get some nice shirts to wear to the game.  Unfortunately, the better shirts we were finding costs more than we were wanting to pay.  We figured we'd go ahead and just wear a couple of nicer shirts we brought with us.
Our travels took us back to the same area from the night before for another parade!  This one had more of a family theme about it.  Here are some of the pictures from the parade.

    

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 They have some costumed Star Wars characters at one point.  Here's General Grievous and Darth Vader on one float-

Of course, the geek side of me has to note that General Grievous died before Darth Vader came to life, making this float impossible!

And here's our haul from the parade:

The traffic leaving the parade was horrendous, but we made it out eventually!  We had a light dinner when we got back, then went to bed.  The Superbowl was awaiting us the next day!

Blackout Bowl! (Day Two)

We got up the second day of the trip and decided to head out.  Hearing of all of the activities going on around the Superdome, we thought we'd check out the downtown area.  The route that we took brought us to a ferry across the Mississippi!   

We both had been on an open area ferry in the Ozarks when we were kids, but this was a mostly enclosed one.  It made for an interesting trip and allowed us to see quite a bit of the riverside!

Here's the rearview of the infamous Superbowl numbers that make an appearance at every game site these days-                                                                                                                                                                                            

 And here's Wanda enjoying the ride!

 

 We saw a cool looking drawbridge along the way!

Our next stop was to get in some shopping!  We happened on this one mall about 6 PM to shop at Target, but we noticed the smaller stores in the mall were closed.  It seemed odd for a Friday evening.  While exploring the closed areas, I saw something that resembled a "Santa House" we have in our malls at home.  Instead, this had a cajun theme.  When it was open, there would be an alligator mascot you could pose with!  

 

Eventually, we found out that there was a parade out in front of the mall!  So we decided to go ahead and check it out!  The infamous Clydesdales were leading the procession!

Here are pictures of some of the floats.

 Then we headed back to the hotel after a long day!