Football State Championship 2014

On December 6th, our Skiatook Bulldog football team went to the 2014 5A State Championship in Oklahoma City.  We played Lawton MacArthur in Yukon, Oklahoma. 

To say that we were excited is an understatement.  Our little town hasn't had a state championship in football since 1974.  I've never seen the entire town so united in a common goal in my life. 

The week before the game, people were posting pictures of themselves in their letter jackets from high school on Facebook.  It was the funniest thing to see all of the football players' dads trying to squeeze into their twenty five year old letterman.  Jim pulled his out and put it on.  He had to suck in a little but, by gosh, it fit. 

Our downtown area had all the windows painted for the football boys with their names and encouraging words.  It was so wonderful to see how much excitement there was for our football team.  We weren't expected to do as well as we did at the beginning of the year, which made it even better.

New Year's Day luck



New Year's Day is always a time of tradition in our house.  My Momma is from deep south Alabama, where you don't break tradition, no matter what.  She's been following the same Southern traditions for years.

The most important tradition for the New Year is eating Black-eyed Peas.  You have to eat them for good luck in the coming year.  It's also a tradition to eat greens for wealth.  Believe me, we eat the greens because we could always use a little more wealth! Ha!

I was so proud of myself after cooking our Christmas ham, I took the bone with some good chunks of meat left on it and froze it wrapped in tin foil.  I use three or four layers of tin foil just to make sure the ham doesn't get freezer burn. 

I started the ham cooking in two tablespoons of olive oil.  It's best to get some color on the meat, bringing out all the flavor.



It doesn't look very appetizing coming out of the freezer.

 

Put your dried and soaked black-eyed peas in a pot with just enough water to cover the peas.  Add one onion, rough chopped and let the ham and peas cook until the peas are soft.  You'll have to add water occasionally as the peas soak it up quite a bit. 

 

We've been forked

Tyler picking up the forks some of his "buddies" left for him

A couple of mornings ago, Jim came back into the house and said, "We've been forked!"

I thought, "What on earth is forked?" Then I remembered.

I glanced outside and was instantly impressed. I mean, how on earth did teenagers put so many forks into our grass? It had to have taken at least 30 minutes to get all of that work done.

It took Tyler at least 5 minutes to get it all out of the yard.

Teenagers-they just kill me sometimes!

Letterman

#gagecancook2015