Insight Bowl

On Tuesday, December 28th, we went to the Insight Bowl at Sun Devil Stadium. One of the parents at the school I work at purchased 75 tickets for the game. I was the lucky recipient of four of the tickets. Mitchell had to work Tuesday night so Grant, Brent and I attended the game. The game was between Missouri and Iowa. We cheered for Iowa since they were the underdog and because Brent was born in Iowa.

Our 4th ticket went to Grant's friend, Abram. Abram is a great kid and spent the day with Grant distracting him from the fact that his braces hurt. Abram and Grant cheered for Missouri.

Our seats were in section 14. This is located on the lower level in the corner. So when the action was on our end of the field, we had a great view.

In this picture, Iowa is preparing to kick for an extra point....they made it!

With college football games, comes the marching bands. The Missouri marching band was seated in section 12 (very close by). So we heard great music throughout the game and were able to watch their field coordination as they performed during halftime.

The Insight Bowl was an exciting game to watch. Iowa ended up winning the game. It would be fun to be able to go to the game again next year!

BAD Braces!

My sweet Grant got braces on Monday morning. Here is his sweet smile before the agony of having the braces installed.

For the last two years, Grant has been getting ready for braces. He has had a spacer put in his mouth to save the space between teeth as his baby teeth came out and his permanent teeth came in. Getting braces for Grant was for more than just fixing some of the crowding in his mouth but they are also for correcting a 100% overbite. I had no idea that his bottom teeth were scraping behind his upper teeth and damaging his gums. So not only did Grant get braces, he also received an extra special plate at the top of his mouth so his bottom teeth won't be able to damage his gums anymore while the overbite is getting fixed.

Grant with braces.

As you know, Grant is a dramatic kid. He has been really milking it this week with how miserable he is. I know that braces hurt when they are put on. Because he has the plate in his mouth, he now has a speech problem. The orthodontist said that the more he talks, the quicker he will be able to minimize the lisp. Grant's diet this week has been yogurt, milk shakes, and scrambled eggs. Yesterday, I picked him up some Ensure so he can put on some healthier calories while his mouth adjusts.

So for now, Grant is enjoying the lazy life of tv, video games, liquid diet, and a few friends coming over. In a month or so, he will be back to normal and won't even notice that he has the braces on.

Merry Christmas!

We had another exciting Christmas morning at our house. When Mitchell and Grant were younger, they would try to sleep next to the Christmas tree to catch Santa Clause (they were never successful). They would wake up as early as possible to explore the gifts under the tree and then drag me out of bed so they could start opening them up. Now that Mitchell is 17 and Grant is 13, the tables have turned. I am the first one up. I have breakfast made as well as dessert for our Christmas dinner. And I have to go to their rooms and drag them out of bed so our fun can begin.
Grant loves to play challening games. He is very good at games that require him to use his spacial abilities to solve them. So he was excited to receive the Rubics Slide for Christmas. He ended up playing this game all the way up to Kingman and back and has officially aced the "easy" setting. I'm still waiting for him to teach me how to play it. Mitchell received an IHome. The party is in Mitchell's room now!

This is not a Christmas gift. It just happened to be opened on Christmas morning. The jacket Mitchell is wearing is Uncle Scott's. He had it made when he was in Korea when he served in the Navy. Uncle Scott wrote Mitchell an amazing letter and gave him this jacket to help Mitchell pursue his dreams. Very cool!

Grant opened our family gift from Joe & Kami. The dart set is very heavy. We still need to hang it up but we are a little hesitant because the darts are real darts. When you have teenage boys, real darts, the sharp ones that penetrate skin and flesh, make a Mom nervous. :)

This is Grant's favorite gift. It is a remote control vehicle that has a camera on it. The remote controller has a video screen so it can see what the car is seeing. This is used to spy on others. Grant has had a blast with it driving it around the house to see what others are doing plus he records his voice on it so the car can talk to you.

Brent received some crash gear for when he goes motorcycle riding again with the boys. Its great peace of mind to know that he will come home in one piece.

We had a wonderful ham dinner with Aunt Brenda, Chad, Brandon, Kimberly and Brandon's boys. After dinner we drove up to Kingman to spend the 26th with Mom and Dad. We love spending Christmas with family and are looking forward to the BIG Robles family Christmas next year. The party will be at our house!