Friday, January 30, 2009

Davidson vs. Chattanooga

On Wednesday night, David and I drove to Chattanooga to see Stephen Curry and the rest of the Davidson team play basketball once again. This time, Curry put on a show worthy of his reputation. I think David counted 4 or 5 jaw-dropping plays including this one at the end of the first half:




And we get to see his mouthguard as he runs off the court! Naturally.

Our seats were on row seven, just to the left of midcourt so we could hear the players and coaches talking (yelling) to each other. Unfortunately, my batteries in my camera died during warmups, so this was the only (pitiful) picture that I got:













But we did enjoy the game. We also had a wonderful pregame dinner at the Easy Seafood Bistro on Broad Street. David had the pork medallions and I had the mahi-mahi; both were delicious! Don't miss it.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Thought for the Day:




Can a Luke Skywalker's light saber deflect a spell cast by Harry Potter's wand?

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Kitchen renovation

Having my parents in town when you are discussing home improvement projects is both a blessing and a curse. That they are willing and able to help, both with the grunt work and with the technical aspects, is certainly wonderful. That my mother is not a fan of procrastination, even by someone else IN THEIR OWN HOME, can sometimes lead to her nagging persistently reminding us that we need to get started if we are ever going to finish. Come to think of it, maybe that's a good thing too. And so it happened that we started our kitchen renovation today. There's nothing like peeling wallpaper off of a wall to set in motion a home improvement project. Here's what my kitchen/family room looked like before:









And here's the demolition in progress:












Nicholas was especially good at peeling away great swaths of wallpaper.













This is really only going to be a cosmetic makeover (walls, countertops, and backsplash) so the demolition is superficial but dramatic. We haven't finished the wallpaper yet, but hopefully, we'll get that done and start the painting in the next week or so. It should be fun! Thanks, Mom and Dad!


Saturday, January 17, 2009

Nicholas playing basketball

Nicholas is playing basketball, and to his delight (and to David's chagrin), David is his coach. Don't ask David how it happened, he will blame me. In my defense, I only asked him to sign Nicholas up, I NEVER said anything about volunteering to coach. The kids are (mostly) having fun, and I have to say, although traveling and double-dribble are overlooked in this league, our team is the best at adhering to the traditional rules of ball handling. Some other fundamentals of basketball escape them, but they are only six.

Nicholas bringing the ball down. Trey says, "I'm open!"








Trey on a fast break.








Conner setting up the offense.








Look at that defensive hustle!!








Nicholas relaxing at halftime.










Our whole team. Yes, we only have 3 players. Yes, there are other teams who have 7 players. Yes, we play 3-on-3. Don't ask about that either. It's not the quantity of players, it's the quality.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Davidson Basketball revisited

On Monday night we drove from Knoxville to Boone, NC to see Davidson's basketball team play Appalachian State. In case you don't know, it's a 3 hour drive from here and it is pronounced a-puh-"LATCH"-uhn. David and I went with two of his coworkers, Tonya and Kevin. Kevin drove and apparently has never been beyond the city limits before, because he complained about the winding road for a solid hour. In his defense, it was a VERY winding road and we were on it for more than an hour. We joked that we would tell him about the 4-lane shortcut on the way home. He didn't exactly fall for the joke, but you could tell he was HOPING we were serious.

After a lovely dinner at the Dan'l Boone Inn (where Tonya wanted to hear about the desserts, but was hassled by our antsy dinner companions who were worried about missing tip-off), we headed to the arena. We spent a very cold (and antsy) 10 minutes trying to find Will Call to pick up our tickets, and we all really DID worry about missing tip-off. When we saw Dell Curry entering the arena just as we did, I felt better. (No, we are not stalking him.)

The Appalachian State fans were really revved up for this game. The arena was full and there were a bunch of people wearing "Beat Davidson" t-shirts.


This whole section was full of them.










Here are Kevin and Tonya at the game. Can you believe Kevin wore a UT hat to a Davidson game?!??




Here is a picture of David and me. David let me wear the tasteful Davidson shirt instead of the gaudy discount shirt.









We had a few minutes of Curry highlights......
(notice how he's playing with his mouthpiece in this one. Play is still going on!)







......before he picked up 2 quick fouls and McKillop benched him for most of the first half.

The halftime show was worth the 3 hour drive all by itself. There were 3 frisbee catching dogs who were just amazing. David saw a similar show at the UT-KY game the following night, and said the second show didn't even compare.












As the second half began, we had high hopes of seeing some of Curry's magic. But after he got his fourth foul with nearly 15 minutes to go in the second half, he took a place on the bench once again.

Here is Curry SO not fouling:










And here is what we saw Curry doing most Monday night--taking a seat.












And finally, here he is checking back into the game! Yay!









We did get to see a few more sweet shots before the game ended:

Look how the ball isn't even in the frame, yet his feet are still WAY off the ground. Do you think he can fly?









But he was held to the lowest number of minutes in his college career. So let that be a lesson to you, don't take Kevin to a game with any EXPECTATIONS as he will remind you at every turn how he drove three hours to see Curry sit on the bench.


Monday, January 5, 2009

A fun weekend!


We visited our good friends, Ed, Wendy, and Nora this weekend. They live about 4 hours away so we only get to see them about 3 times a year, but we always have a good time. It was even more fun this time because some other mutual friends, Trey and Susan, were also in town. David, Ed, Trey and another friend, Jay, were all roommates their senior year at Davidson.

The first night we were there, the kids had such fun that Nicholas fell asleep in Nora's closet!!











David loves to take the Megan and Nicholas back to Davidson's campus. It is a beautiful campus with lots of room to play.












This is how the children behave when Wendy is in charge.


And this is what they do when David is.










Actually, that is just a joke, because look what Wendy lets them do at HER house:



Yes, they are on the OUTSIDE of the railing!






Naturally our trip included a trip to the gift shop--er, I mean BOOKstore. Here's the textbook area (notice the sign at the top):

And here's, well, the rest of the store:



And, although I didn't take a picture of it, as predicted, I did find (but did not buy) a $75 sweatshirt with sewn-on letters.






The reason for the timing of this trip was to attend a Davidson basketball game, and especially, to see phenom, Stephen Curry.

He was amazing. I've seen him on TV but in person, you can really appreciate how good he is. However, he does have the most annoying habit of playing with his mouthguard in between plays. In fact, he apparently dropped it during the game, and, without hesitation, picked it up and put it back in his mouth! Yuck.

You can see it sticking out in this picture. The guy on the right is Max Paulhus Gosslin, who is David and Nicholas's favorite player.




This picture is to prove that we made it for warm ups, and (contrary to allegations made by parties who shall not be named), did NOT miss tip off!





The game was sold out, which is unusual for Davidson basketball (notice all the exclamation marks),


but very common this season!







Nicholas enjoyed seeing the guy climbing the catwalk prior to tip off.


We considered paying him to stay up there the whole game to entertain the kids, but settled for feeding them snacks whenever they got restless.











At the end of the game, we spotted another reason we are such Steph Curry fans: his dad, Dell Curry, used to play for the Charlotte Hornets AND for Virginia Tech! AND his mom, Sonya, started a Montessori school. You just can't get any better than that!







After the game, we visited a local sushi place for a delicious dinner.

Notice the Murray family dressed in their (loud) Davidson T-shirts. $27 for all 4 (and 3 free hats), including shipping. Notice none of us is wearing the aforementioned $75 sweatshirt. ;)









This is Susan, Nora, and Wendy (who is wearing a tasteful Davidson T-shirt :)






Here are Megan and Nicholas with Nora in front of the wildcat (a very popular photo op).










And the former roommates, David, Trey and Ed.

And I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ed and Wendy for their wonderful hospitality. Without fail, we are treated to good food, a comfortable place to rest, a very welcoming spirit, and always some interesting discussions. Usually involving corn. Our children have a great time playing with Nora (we frequently don't see or hear them until mealtimes) and we are often introduced to a new board game. This time it was Apples to Apples, which was a very amusing game indeed. Wendy, I hope you will accept this photo rich, entertaining, paperless, public blog post as a thank you note, 'cause this is probably all you're going to get! What can I say, I can't find a stamp;-D.