Yello!

What a week we have had! On Thursday, the girls and I headed off to Lincoln (along with about 1300 St. Edward-related fans) ready to spend the next three days watching our boys basketball team compete in the state tournament. Francis came down later in the day in time to watch the first-round game that evening between St. Edward and S-E-M (a school that consolidates Sumner, Eddyville and Miller). It was fun to see Kalie and the dance team performing at halftime and nearly every player we had in uniform that night in the game. We won easily that first night (89-52) and proceeded to the semifinals on Friday against Wallace. That game was closer (54-43), but we made it to the final championship game on Saturday morning against state tournament regular Spencer-Naper. An exciting game came to a 46-42 conclusion with the Beavers coming out on top! Yay for the Beavers! They are not only talented athletes, they are also great kids. And cudos to first-year Coach Martin. What a great time it was for the players, student-body and our whole town! If you’d like to check out some stories about our players and the state tournaments, a couple of links for you to copy and paste are http://www.theindependent.com/stories/031107/opi_ayoub11.shtml and http://www.columbustelegram.com/articles/2007/03/11/sports/sports1stedward.txt

In addition, we were excited to watch Kalie receive recognition for the NSAA Believer’s and Achiever’s award during the halftime of the State Class B Boys Basketball championship. She was honored, along with other high school seniors from two Omaha schools, North Platte, and Gretna, for her high school activities and accomplishments. Here’s a picture!

One nice surprise following the award ceremony at the basketball game came as we were returning to our seats. One of my college roommates whom I had lost contact with over the years was in the crowd, recognized our name and came to find me! It was great to see Denise again and, hopefully, we can stay in touch!

When we weren’t watching basketball, we were either shopping or hanging out with Jesse at his Haymarket apartment. Thanks Jesse! It was definitely a memorable three days!