Crazy Weekend

Ever have one of those weekends that starts out perfectly normal with just one or two things going on and then things seem to blow up into craziness? That was our weekend. Going in to it, we planned on attending a wedding Friday night, going to a Shrine event for a few hours Saturday, and watching my brother play baseball on Sunday. Take that and throw in an arena football game (complete with security/police encounter), a family dinner, and golfing in a thunderstorm and you have our weekend. Intrigued? Stay tuned.

Some photo highlights from the wedding--there's not much else to say--it was beautiful, everyone was happy, typical typical typical:

You know the reception is going to be a good time when the bride shows up in kicks like this

Softball teammates, past and present

Having a good ol' time!

Don't we clean up nice?

Saturday morning/early afternoon, Darrell and I headed up to Dell Rapids for their Quarry Days, which is basically just a reason for a small town to throw a party and have a good time (tons of small towns in the area have similar events). Well, as a part of the Quarry Days, they had a cardboard boat race. Even though Darrell didn't march with his Shrine Unit in the parade (he doesn't have a uniform--nor is he able to play a fife), they nominated him to be the Admiral of their boat.

The reason why Darrell was Admiral of the boat--he's easily the smallest one of the bunch

The proud admiral -- the costume was not his idea, but the other guys decided he looked like a gay George Washington

Some of the competitors in their preliminary heat

More competitors and cool boat designs

Darrell (on the far right) in the championship heat -- he blew the competition out of the water!

A proud and victorious salute to his men after winning!

So up to this point, the weekend was going pretty normal. Darrell and I spent the afternoon recovering from the wedding and race with a long nap in preparation for going to an arena football game. The Sioux Falls team was playing in the first round of the playoffs, and their game was against a team from Omaha, who happens to be a major rival. Well, the tickets my parents have happen to be right next to the section where the opposing fans sit. When we got there, some of the fans were in our seats, as well as any seats around them that were empty. My dad asked the people in our seats to move, and after a few minutes decided to talk to the security guards about having all of them move. You see, Omaha's team name is "Omaha Beef", and every fan there had these obnoxious loud cowbells. Which they were doing their best to hit as close to our ears as possible. Needless to say, the fans were not thrilled about having to move. I don't think I've ever seen that many women flip off my dad before in my life.

Long story short, throughout the progression of the game, the fans saw fit to be rude to us at any time possible. Every time my dad or Darrell walked past them, one fan in particular called them "a$$hole". Finally, in about the fourth quarter, Darrell came back to our seats and told me "if he says that to me one more time, I'm just going to turn around and tell him 'Sir, there are kids around, please watch your language'". Well, Darrell himself never walked by, but when we left (a few minutes before the end of the game), he said it to both of us. I happened to be closer to him, so I turned back and made the comment. He looks me square in the eye and says "F*#@ you". Darrell heard this and was instantly between us, then instantly getting pushed to the ground by this guy. By this time, my dad was trying to get involved and was being held back by some Sioux Falls fans, while the security guards were doing their best to keep the Omaha guy off Darrell. We all made it out of there fine and without any injuries, although it took Darrell quite a bit of time to calm down. When it comes to fight or flight, Darrell is fight 100% of the way. He will always fight intelligently--he would have never thrown a punch at the Omaha guy--but he is always fight. Kind of endearing, but sometimes, kind of intimidating.

Anyway, after that incident, the weekend played out pretty normally. Darrell went golfing while I went to my brother's baseball game (sometime I swear I'll get a picture of him on here, but Darrell's camera doesn't like uploading to my computer, and that's always the one we use at his games), and although my brother got all of his baseball game in before the storm, Darrell's golf had to end a little bit early. But I'll definitely take that over him getting struck by lightening--which it's doing pretty ridiculously right now. Plus the rolling thunder that is rattling our wine bottles. Crazy crazy.

Here's to hoping this week goes a little bit more normal--and no encounters with law enforcement of any kind!