ALBUQUERQUE

We had such a fun weekend in Albuquerque at the YAFL State Tournament. We arrived on Friday night and many of the other team members were staying at the same hotel so the kids had fun swimming and hanging with the other boys. Our first game did not start until 2pm on Saturday so to appease Landon, we started our day out at the zoo.......This shot was taken right before going in and that's Max who spent the weekend with us there with the kids

We started out with our favorites....the apes and monkeys....which Landon is absolutely in love with! He fully intends to be a zookeeper one day and has declared that the Golden Lion Tamarin is his favorite monkey

I loved how neat it was to see the gorillas..they just seemed so close.....

This next picture was Baby Reece....so cute!

We found the polar bears to be very interesting as that one on top was working to get that big piece of plastic up into the pool behind him....and he did it eventually with audience that clapped at his accomplishment!

We had such a better experience this trip than the one in July where Mason was sick and Haven fell down and the temp was 100 degrees! It was cool and all of the animals were out and no one was hardly there....

OK so my favorite animal is the giraffe...check out this video of two of the males aggrevating each other.....

At the tournament there were 4 divisions....we were in the 2nd division and I haven't a clue who we were even playing but we creamed them 32-0. I don't know why but there were no weight limits at state tournament which means that Mason could carry the ball for the first time ever. He was soooooooo excited because they had a couple of plays with him at tight end. During the first game they did the play and he caught the pass! It was so exciting! But that was the only time he got to do it. Coach told us later that the score was so bad that they didn't want to keep running it up but that he planned to play Mason a lot on Sunday at tight end. Here of some pics from the Saturday game.....

Mas and Max....

One happy team after an easy win!

Much time was then spent at the pool at your own risk! The ballgame continued with about 20 boys in the pool!!

They also had a pizza party

Haven was a little worn out after a busy day and fell asleep on top of Daddy....

Sunday was a different story. Saturday was cold but Sunday was FREEZING!!

I don't know how Mason caught his passes but he did and he was soooo close to his first touchdown!! Oh, well....maybe next year! We were the ones that got creamed on Sunday by Rio Rancho and came in 2nd in our division which was still an awesome football season!

I do have to brag on my Mason.....we had the YAFL end of season party last night and his coach told us that Mason probably hasn't said 5 words to him all season (you all know he doesn't talk that much to adults) but that he thinks Mason has the most talent of anyone on the team and that next year he can probably pick his position on the 7th grade middle school team! We knew that Mason loved it and gave it all he had. He learned a lot this year because he hasn't played since 2nd grade and we attributed a lot of that to the very talented coaches that encouraged him (even though we wanted to wash their mouths out with soap quite frequently!!).

I want to leave you on this note........

ROLL TIDE!!!! (Isn't that baby elephant ADORABLE!!)