Basketball!

For the first time, I, Scott, will venture into the blogging world.  It was bound to happen sooner or later.  

This past Tuesday Kayt and I went to an OSU Men's Basketball game vs. Purdue while Kristen and Ella entertained the Relief Society.  We had a blast.  Other than freezing on our walk from the parking garage to the stadium, it was an exciting night.  You can see Kayt's frozen smile next to the huge Greg Oden.  She was still warming up while we waited for the game to start, poor girl.

We were in the student section, where we got a few looks at first.  But after Kayt went right along with the OH-IO! cheers, everyone was thrilled to have a mini-fan.  I was a pretty proud papa.  Also, because there was a gorgeous little girl doing all the little cheers we were on the jumbotron a lot.  It's strange how everyone looks for their "moment" when the camera is on them.  You immediately have this urge to act out of character (think crazy fans screaming and dancing on the jumbotron) or say something stupid (think local news).  I think I composed myself pretty well.

Anyway, in the student section you only sit down during TV timeouts, so I held Kayt the entire game.  All fans got a rally towel to wave, so Kayt was going crazy.  By halftime she had burned a lot of energy, and I had too trying to hold on to her little wiggle-butt, so we got a bratwurst. Someone has to teach her that fatty meat is OK, as long as it's delicious.

Now here I have to interject something about the game itself.  Ohio State has a young athletic team that is fun to watch but their lack of experience shows sometimes.  Purdue, on the other hand, was ranked #12 in the country and is probably fundamentally superior to OSU.  The game was tight going into the last few minutes and all of a sudden the crowd kicked into another gear. It seemed that everyone finally realized that this could go down to the wire.  OSU started attacking the basket, making foul shots, and playing spirited defense.  The game ended up going into overtime with Ohio State eventually winning!

Kayt liked the basketball well enough, but she LOVES Brutus Buckeye, the official mascot of The Ohio State University.  I think he's basically a living cartoon to her.  While everyone else was screaming for the players or at the ref, Kayt was screaming, "BWUUUTUUUS!"  Although we were close to the court, we never got his attention.  After the game we were going to try and find him but he exited pretty quickly.  Still, Kayt was determined.  One of her favorite books lately is The Little Engine That Could.  She kept telling me, "I know we can find Bwutus Daddy.  I know we can."  Well, we couldn't so Kayt got a new white OSU beanie after the game.  This was mostly a guilt purchase for having frozen her on the walk to the arena, and for failing to find Brutus.  I justified it by reasoning that it surely had gotten much colder and I didn't want to tempt fate twice by freezing her on the way back to the car too.  She can't get sick, right? Right.  Kristen has now instituted a "No more beanie rule."  We have a few.

All in all, it was a wonderful night.  We watched some good basketball, had some good food, saw Brutus in person, didn't get sick, and didn't embarrass ourselves on the jumbotron.