North/South Football

"Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable." ~Wendy Wasserstein
In New Mexico, a handful of seniors are chosen as all-stars and get to play in a game.  They split the kids up and the north plays the south.  Last weekend was North/South Football for the small schools.  It was a little like the Civil War for me....I had Soldier Cousin playing for the South and the Logan kiddos, including my potential future husband (you know when he catches up to me in age and cuts back on this 10 year age difference...we're cute together in the top left picture, no?), playing for the North.  So I just cheered for all the kids whenever they did something good and spent half the game on the south sideline and the other half on the north. 

That's the thing about small town New Mexico.  All the small town kids across the state know each other.  We know each other's parents and what animals we showed and what judging contests we won.  Take my potential future husband's family.  His family and my family have been friends for three generations.  His mom played against Soldier Cousin's mom in North/South basketball when they were in school.  My mom, aunt and grandma taught his dad in high school.  My uncle and aunt are good friends with his grandparents.  It was sure fun to watch the boys play against each other!

Most of the family came into town to watch Soldier Cousin and, because it is my family, we all stuffed our faces with Mexican food before the game and had cake for Aunt Evil Kineval's birthday after the game.  And we cheered like crazy during it.   A group of people that we knew from Melrose (just an hour or so from Logan) would periodically yell, "Number 50, yea!" and our whole family would go nuts screaming and cheering. Yep.  We were those people.

The Family

Oh, and because it was Cousin Kevin's birthday, we had to give him a little shout out.  Uncle Black Belt even took his fake teeth out to hold them in the picture for the celebration.  Why?  I have no idea.  As Cousin Kevin said, "This is where reality shows come from."  Yep.  Those are our genes.

Nothing says happy birthday like a denture picture.

It was a great night for Soldier Cousin and we couldn't be more proud of him!  He's got about a month before he heads off to basic training, and this was a perfect way for him to wrap up his high school football career!