Life's a Ball, Even When You Drop One

January 16th was my dad's birthday. My mom was sneaky and called a bunch of my dad's buddies to meet up for a surprise game of basketball. My dad thought we were all headed to the gym - with a quick stop by the church to drop off a case of water for a service project (nice decoy mom!).

When we got to the church, my dad walked in the gym to drop off the case of water and "Surprise!" Except my dad was so confused it was somewhat anticlimactic. He saw some of the guys and said, "Hey, you guys are here for the service project?" They started to laugh and my dad got more confused. Then they tossed him the basketball and he got even more confused. It took him about 5 minutes to grasp that my mom had told him a giant lie about the service project. Happy birthday dad!

Next came the big day - the 49er/Giants game. I wore my helmet to breakfast to show how committed I was to the game. After church it was all 49er gear all day long. I went to sleep at half time and my mom said she could hear me on the monitor saying, "hut one, hut two, hut three," until finally at "hut six" my room got quiet and I fell asleep. I awoke the next morning and my parents broke the news to me. Williams had touched a ball with his knee and then fumbled a ball in overtime - 49ers lost. I understood the magnitude of this loss immediately and have been walking around ever since saying, "Niners sad, niners sad." Maybe next year Niners.

Lastly, I had a ball with my Grandpa who popped into DC for a last-minute business trip. Poor Grandma missed the fun, but I'll see her in a few weeks. Grandpa gave me fudgsicles, played baseball with me, and let me stay up late to watch a movie and eat popcorn with him. We also visited the MLK memorial and took a trip to the car wash. Seriously, does it get any better than that!?! What a ball!