Bracketology

It was a wild weekend of basketball here at the Dravenstott household. All of us entered the traditional Drav-Clav March Madness tournament (includes all of the Dravenstotts and Clavadetschers and makes it clear why I didn't hyphenate!) My kids all filled out a bracket for the first time in recent memory and so had a personal interest in the course of the games. One by one our brackets have succumbed to upsets; Daniel lost his tournament winner, Duke, on the first day, and I lost my final two teams by yesterday afternoon. Rob sails on in first place, followed closely by his brother and Aden (whose bracket title is "Umm . . .what?").

We had fun sitting around the fire watching basketball on Saturday as snow drifted past the windows full of spring flowers and Easter wreaths. Aden started asking about the colleges themselves: where they are located, how big they are, if the weather is rainy or cold, etc. I answered with a typical Mama Bear slant: everything far away is either too large, too cold, or too rainy. Aden's interest in colleges tugged at my heartstrings; we have a few more years before the interest gets deep and personal, but those years are passing quickly.

Yesterday afternoon Rob and I took Daniel to his first Denver Nuggets game at the Pepsi Center. Since it was a Christmas present, I had splurged on good seats and it was awesome to see how tall, quick, and strong the pro players are when you sit close-up. We bought junk food, swapped stories with the people around us, and hammed it up for the in-house camera during free-throws. Daniel made it on to the jumbo-tron doing some of his dance moves, with me in the corner frantically directing the camera his way. He pronounced it a "dream come true" though he didn't realize he was on the big screen until after the fact, when I told him and Rob showed him video on the camera. A fun weekend full of basketball, taunts and jibes, college dreams and big screens. I love March Madness!