Football fever

I think its official, football fever has begun. I call it that because it causes us to run around at a feverish pace and really enjoy football! Wow, its so hard to be the parent,  not the player! Riley is the one playing Pop Warner this year. A first for our family: full scale crazy tackle football. Riley was SO excited about the tackle part! He has such a great attitude best of all. Because its his first year, he is a bit behind the other boys who have played for the past 5 years {insert heaping helpings of mom guilt here}, and therefore has to play wherever the coach places him (offensive line right now...I guess he is one of the biggest kids on the team, but I was still sort of shocked at that placement!), and that doesn't include much defense right now. He just keeps working hard and actually got in for a couple defensive plays already.

The first "game" was Saturday. It was the Englewood Football Jamboree. Now, you may be like me asking what in the world is a football jamboree, I was asking the same thing! There were several teams there and each team got to play two 20 minute games so they could play more than one team. It was craziness. Everyone brings their own tents and chairs (the sun is BRUTAL) and tries to stay cool and dry and warm and hydrated. Yes, we had quite the weather that day! It started out brutally hot and sunny, turned cloudy and slightly breezy then it rained gently. Then the sun came out again. Riley's team had to weigh in together. The boys can't weigh over 120 pounds in his division. The slight problem we had was that Riley weighed 4 pounds over that limit when the season started...and 1 pound over the week of the jamboree. If you don't make the weight, you don't get to play. We were just a little worried. Friday night, Riley's dinner consisted of celery/peanut butter and grapes. He skipped breakfast altogether and came in almost 4 pounds under the limit! Big relief! Waiting patiently for their turn:

The sky looked a bit ominous. Then it was their turn to play and it started to rain almost immediately. Riley got in for his first play and the thunder began. That finished the game and all had to take a 30 minute time out (just like if you are at the pool...only its the football field). The poor team who was to play next had their game cancelled and at the end of the 30 minute break, Riley's team was back on the field. But not before it DOWNPOURED on us. The wind blew the rain into our tent sideways and we were all soaked...and freezing all of the sudden. From dripping sweat to goosebumps! Everyone tried to stay dry and had to hold down the tents to keep them from blowing away:

After the rain quit, it was back out to warm up again:

with a little hitting practice

and sprints

Like the perfectly obnoxious, embarrassing parent, I got lots of action shots!

And it was over quickly. Our team won 6-0 over North Port, a rival.

It seemed to me like the teams were quite big, spanning then entire width of the field at the end of the game.

So, we are off and running for the next couple months. Thankfully, football season is only 9 games long, so the fever will be raging and then over!