Homecoming 2015- or - Sam's first official Date

Homecoming in Germany isn't quite the same as in the states. 

1.  First of all, it's not on your first official game at home (you know, your Home coming!) Ya, but I think that's mostly true in the states as well, now, because someone has to have their first game at home, right?  And who wants to have Homecoming the first weekend of the football season.  No one!
2.  Also, there are no parades.  I tried to get one going, as I was the cheerleading coach at this time, but with the approval we would need from the Garrison commander and the need for the MP's to block traffic and on and on they said "maybe next year."  Well  thanks- I won't be here next year!  I personally think the Garrison commander would have been fine with it, but sometimes getting a meeting with the commander to discuss something is not so easy!
3.  The king/queen, and court are announced at the pep rally and only the pep rally and there is no running them around the field in fancy cars during half time.
4.  The games are played on Saturdays, because of the travel time involved in getting to your opponent and so the Homecoming game is played Saturday afternoon, so that the players have time to get to the dance that evening.  Even then, it's a pretty quick turn around!
5.  Most of the kids can't drive (you have to be at least 17 and have a valid stateside license to drive in Germany.  Since the majority of people have a 3 year rotation here and most parents try to keep their child from having to only do their senior year here, the kids are generally here from 15-18 years or 13-16 years old.  That equals= not a whole lot of kids with driving ability), so going to and from the dance are a constant stream of parents, dropping off, picking up.
6.  Germans don't make corsages well, so there is always someone making extra money by making them- different clubs, random individuals, etc.  Some kids just don't even bother with them and then there are people like me that find it on Youtube and DIY it!

Other than that it is still the usual display of raging teenage hormones and loud, obnoxious music that very few people actually enjoy.

I got to go to the pep rally the day before,  because I was also on the homecoming committee for the football team.  We had 12 Varsity and 12 JV players hand out flowers to the 12 Varsity and 12 JV cheerleaders and thank them for all they did for the players.  Sam forgot his jersey, like he seemed to do all the time this year, so he quickly borrowed someones, so he could be one of the guys giving out the flowers.  Afterwards the girls kept asking me who it was that gave them their flower- but of course I wasn't paying attention to who was giving whom a flower.  I was just trying to make sure it all went off smoothly.  The girls really liked it though and that was what was important.  Afterward the cheerleaders did their performance, the Juniors and Seniors gave their powder puff performances- meaning the boys dressed up in the cheerleading uniforms and did a dance to a song.  Some of them took the girls flowers to use in their dance and never gave them back.  The performances were hilarious and the Juniors definitely, hands down won, but of course the whole thing is rigged and the Seniors walked away with the trophy.  The pep rally was the most fun part of the whole thing.  I have got to make sure I am on that committee again!

The JV lost their game and the Varsity won theirs.  I helped pin flowers onto all the dads of seniors for football, cheerleading and the band.  I did a horrible job.  I only learned how to pin a flower onto a lapel afterwards, when I pinned the boutonnière I had made on Sam.  Guess I should have Youtubed it!

Sam got face masked in the game and came out with a scratched eye.  That kid messed up my Homecoming pictures- which one was it, which one.  I will kick him in the neck!

 And I can do it too.  You know how I know?  I kicked Sam in the neck in front of the school!  He would not ask Sara out. 

 He kept avoiding it.  He said she kept getting away from him, or he couldn't find a convenient time.  I wasn't convinced though, because they go to church together and are in seminary every morning together. I told him it wasn't nice to make a girl wait until the last minute, because she had to buy a dress.  So I told him if he didn't ask her that day I was going to kick him.  As I was picking him up from football, I asked, "Did you ask her today?"  He said, "no, she disappeared."  So I kicked him- right in the neck.  He knew the consequences!!  His friends just died!  At home I laid down the law.  "No asking tomorrow, no wrestling!"  He knows I don't like wrestling, so he knew I was serious.  Plus, I just proved that I would kick him in the neck with all his friends watching if he didn't do what I told him to do.  The next day she disappeared again on him.  So he found her at lunch and had to ask her in front of all of her friends.  I had scared him enough that he was willing to do it.

Of course she said yes, because I had already texted her mom and asked if she would say yes if Sam asked.  I didn't want to pressure him too much if there was a chance she would say no.  That really would have been mean!  He had a cute little football that said, "want to tackle Homecoming with me" on it, but he lost it, so he just asked- lame!

As far as I know they all had a great time and had lots of fun!

When Sam got home, though, he said, "That was a lot of work.  I don't think I am going to do that again."  Yep- that was a whole lot of work to get dressed up and dance a couple dances with a girl.  Crazy kid!!  He just doesn't understand the power of a throat kicking mom!

Are You Ready for Some FOOTBALL!!

Sam made the JV squad this year, again.

He was disappointed and so was I.  But, in the end it was the best thing for him.  He played the entire time.

The only time he ever came out was if he was injured, potentially injured or when they did something really odd.

He was a captain.

And he got to come up to Varsity for their away game to England and the European Championship game- That they WON!!!  Sam played all kinds of positions, but mainly a receiver, a punt returner, kick-off returner, and corner back. 

He played on the line occasionally when they needed someone and they even had a play where he played Nose guard.

  He crawled under the Centers legs on that one.  He said he always made sure to say "hi" to the Center at just the right time when he went through.  He also played Center, where he hiked the ball and then ran fast through the middle and caught the pass on the other side.  I didn't even know that was allowed!  That play always confused the other team, because of how the line lined up.

The year started out well on the JV, 

but quickly turned bad as they lost more and more games.  This was probably due to the fact that all seasoned linemen where taken up to Varsity.  We knew one of the quarterbacks well, as he is our next door neighbor. His mom said he was googling "how to play quarterback without a line."  Fortunately, we had fun watching the Varsity games afterwards, because they mostly won.  I was working with the cheerleaders at this time, so I went to most of the games with the team.

I felt bad for Samuel, but he took it in stride.

I was the locker decoration coordinator- since there was only me and one other lady on my committee, I made a lot of the stuff. 

 We had a problem with other teams finishing before football and coming by and stealing our candy we had put up on the lockers for the guys.  The football players were not happy!  They wanted us to get the film from the cameras and see who it was that kept doing it!   The brown footballs went in the center of a paper tissue Mum that the other lady made for Homecoming.  The yellow footballs stayed up on the lockers the entire time. 

 I also made them magnets with the Superman/Stuttgart symbol I came up with.

Then the team headed up to England.  They were expected to win without any problem and Sam got to go to play in the 5th quarter.  England did that because they didn't have enough players to play a JV, but had guys that didn't get out too often.  The coach said that if they were winning they would put the JV players in that he had brought up.  He only brought up a couple.  In the end, they lost and Sam didn't get to play except in the 5th quarter.  Then they came back and lost 2 more times.  It was a very depressing way to start the play-offs.

We ended up going only because another team lost to Ramstein.  That meant we had to face Ramstein- the only undefeated team and last years champions- to move up.  On Halloween day they played the semi-finals.  The JV was at home, playing Vilseck- which they won!  There was a grim outlook for Varsity.  But they held their own.  We learned that we were loosing by one point with only seconds left in the game.  And then the text came that we had won.  It was crazy!  Later they posted the video of what happened.  They did a Hook and Lateral play.  Our ball carrier barely got it off laterally as he was tackled.  The new ball carrier got it all the way past the 10 yard mark before being brought down.  The Ramstein team went nuts.  They thought they had won.  But what they didn't know is that their stupid clock that is half broken wasn't showing the correct time.  We still had a couple seconds left.  It was just enough time for us to try a field goal.  Our female soccer player hooked one right through the uprights and we won.  

They asked me to make a poster congratulating the team.  I made it a little generic on purpose because we had several teams win that weekend- some becoming European Champions and some, like us, going onto the Championship game.

That night one of Sam's friends that had been taken up to play on Varsity came to see him and tell him that coach said that practice was after school.  He sat and waited and when Sam gave no real reaction he said, "Dude, you have been brought up to Varsity!" and gave him a big hug.  

It was a crazy, exciting game.  

We never did see Sam get out in the game, but we did see him come off when they won, last minute, again by a kick from our female kicker!  And that's how we became European Champions,

The JV players that got brought up for the championship game and the JV coaches and the other Sam who came to tell our Sam that he had been brought up.  Every single one of them were put in even though the game was so tight the entire time- earning them all the right to a varsity letter.   Our Sam got in 3 times.  

how Sam earned his Varsity letter, 

and how Sam won the "Ironman" award (for the person that did everything and never came out of the game) for the JV team.  What a fantastic last year in Germany!

Bad Urach

On the Rhein there are plenty of castle ruins to explore.  It doesn't seem that there are that many down in Stuttgart, but maybe it's just because we haven't explored that much lately.  Having teenagers keeps your life fully scheduled.  We did get one day to go with the Morrow family and explore Bad Urach, however. 

Loved this hike and the castle at the top!

The waterfall wasn't so bad either! This is only the top of it.

Homecoming!!

We were killed- of course- but Sam got to play lots, because the other team kept making points and so he kept being put out on the kick return team! 

He also played on kick off team and linebacker and the linebacker played on the line.  No clue what was going on there!  They lost by less than the varsity did.  After the Varsity game, of course,  the "Our football team sucks!" statements started flying.  Emma pointed out that football is the only sport where people start saying that if they loose one game!  She's right.  They might say it in basketball, but other than that, can you imagine if the the volleyball lost one game and everyone started saying how bad they sucked, or cross country.  That one is hard to imagine because our cross country team has won every meet, both boys and girls for a couple years now.  But if they lost to a team once, can you imagine people going around saying, "man, our cross country team sucks!"  Nope, doesn't happen!

So... the cross country team won. 

Emma had her best race ever on that particular course- which is the hardest course in Europe.  I might point out that they won without trying.  They have all Europeans this weekend, so those that were going were either paired up with someone who was close to getting a varsity letter or just told to go slowly.  You could see who was paired up with whom, because the one was smiling and waving to the crowd and the other one was huffing and puffing and in pain.  Our fastest guy said he was going to run in the back.  I can't believe it, but he actually stayed in the back the entire time. I bet he has never run that slowly in his life!

Before the race, they gave out flowers to all the seniors.  I knew they were going to do a Senior recognition, so I made a little bouquet of flowers from the ones I had bought to make corsages with to give to Emma when they called her name.  Well they didn't call her name!  When they got to the R's it was obvious that they missed her.  At that point they called someone who was not actually a senior and so there was a little discussion going on.  That's when I piped up and yelled, "yes, but you forgot Emma.  Emma Kress is a senior."

So she got called up before they ended the calling up of seniors.  All the parents around me said, "good job, Mom," but I was afraid she was pretty upset and maybe embarrassed by me, so I handed the bouquet to Robert and told him to go give it to her.  They broke up and a whole bunch of girls surrounded Emma to give their sympathies.  That's when her Dad, who is always dashing this way, swooped in, told her that she was never forgotten in his book, gave her a kiss and the flowers and all the girls went "AWWWWW!"  Later we assured her that it was her baby face that made her look like she was much younger (they actually do have her down in the cross country files as a Junior) and that she would be thankful for that when she gets older.  Her coaches also apologized a couple of times, so I think she was good in the end.  It's just hard to be forgotten!

I made treats to be sold at the concession booth for the football game.

I made brownies and dirty white trash mix.  I put tags on them, so people knew that the brownies didn't have nuts in them and knew what the other stuff was.  Apparently the principle walked up and had an apoplexy about the Dirty White Trash labels.  They assured him that a white person made it, so it wasn't racist, but he made them take off the labels.  They said they still had people coming up and asking for the Dirty White Trash, however.  There was none left for me to take home.  The kids were not happy!

In the end, since I had to work at the concession stand for a while, I didn't have time to make the corsages.  My friend and Emma's friends mom, got the flowers and made most of them before I got home.  I ran over and finished helping her and then took them all over to the girls who were getting ready at one girls house.  I thought Emma's turned out perfect!

Emma was supposed to have a date, but his host family wouldn't let him come down because he had been down too often with other girls- he is an exchange student from Utah, that Emma met at a stake dance. He is coming down this weekend to make it up to her.

The girls were taking a really long time to get ready, but they were the same girls who had a tantrum that I would dare go to the Oktoberfest the same time as them and actually want to ride on the same train, so I decided to stay out of that mess.  The three that were ready were getting very antsy, but I told them to give them a little more time.  Finally I came up with a compromise that seemed to work- we took pictures with just the three then sent them on their way.

George, Emma and Mary Katherine 

The others came with one of their dads.  Apparently, I was still hated on.  They complained that I was trying to hurry them up.  Emma pointed out that I didn't want pictures of them, just of her- which is absolutely true and that I had been the one that had said to give them more time, but they said they were still going to be mad at me.  People will find a reason, no matter what you do- you just stay away from those people!!  

Emma had lots of fun at the dance by mostly staying away- she danced with the other two she went with and then found a couple boys to hang out with.  She also did some Yearbook Editor work.  She succeeded in getting two dates for this week with two different people that night and a birthday invitation to one of the other guy's birthday party. 

Sam is so sad that football is over now!  That Sunday we played football out back.

The little boys both learned how to throw much better and Sam had a great game with some friends.  It was beautiful weather.  I'm going to miss these days, as the weather turns cold.