Friday, January 31, 2014

let's get ready for some football!

My team is in the Super Bowl! This (mostly) never happens.

In fact, it's only ever happened once before. It's spectactular that both times will be incredibly memorable for me, for reasons other than (or let's face it, in addition to) the Seahawks playing.

Our first Seahawks Super Bowl was just after we had gotten married. Things were a bit stressful. Ben was working two jobs and I was student teaching and taking classes. Money was tight, and so was time. My lead teacher had a friend in management at one of the big Reno resort hotels who had given her two tickets to their huge annual Super Bowl party. She always had a big to-do at her house for the game so she gave the tickets to us.

It wasn't a big thing to her but it was to us. This was before Ben worked in the hotel industry and we got to attend events like this all the time. We were astounded at the free food and favors, the huge tv's, and all the team spirit of all the attenders.

We (the Seahawks) didn't win that day, but it was a day I'll never forget.

This year, we're in the game again.

It's been another stressful and tight-on-money year, with just a few stand-out great moments. Work has been stressful, with our third principal in the three years I've been here. Every new administration comes with a new set of standards and expectations, so changing those every year is exhausting. Plus, our accredidation visit is this year so we've been struggling to stay afloat with everything that has been loaded onto our (collective) plates this year.

After finding out my beloved Seahawks were going to the Super Bowl, I really wanted to call in sick. Since we're a day ahead, the game is showed on Monday morning. It's enough to basically close down the base. Most squadrons have the day off to watch the game, but the schools are still open. Under normal circumstances I would have used one of my personal days and stayed home to watch the game, but I've been so sick with these other food intolerances that I've used them all up.

Our principal agreed to let us watch the game at school though.

She said as long as we had educational activities linked to football going on, we could have the game on in the background.

I don't think the words were all the way out of her mouth before I was planning and crafting and creating! Football spelling games, word searches, stadium architecture, graphing the winning teams, mapping past locations, ticket design...there are so many places to go with this!

So here we are, a few days before the big game. I'm ready for a win, and I'm ready to remember this second Seahawks Super Bowl as a bright and exciting day amid some darker ones.



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