Senior Year: Titan Football

Lee’s Summit West High School Song

When you gaze across the open plain,
You’ll see a glowing flame.
A flame of wisdom, pride and honesty
That is home for me.
Titan strong and Titan true
The path of knowledge of which we choose.
We will always be loyal to the silver and navy blue.

May you enter these hallowed halls of West
And strive to pass the test.
Building lives of pure integrity
For all to plainly see.
Lee’s Summit West
We’ll be true.
Our loyalty lies
With the silver and navy blue.

Along with the Star Spangled Banner, this is how we kicked off our Friday nights this fall - listening to the Lee's Summit West High School Song!

Then ... we'd hear the Rolling Stones, "Start Me Up" and we knew kick off was just minutes away!

Hunter's senior year he started each game playing Center and did an impressive job.  He learned so much - in that position, in football, in life, in building loyalty - from the Titan Football team.

Below are a collection of some of my favorite highlights and pics of the season:

The boys huddling before kick off!

Hunter and his girlfriend, Ashley

Hunter pumps up the crowd. Sadly, this was one (of only two) games they lost all season.

#59 - With his O Line crew

Dayne, Daphne and Olivia at the Homecoming Parade

Dayne was a regular attendee at the football games!  (so much socializing to do!)

Papa & Susan show their support!

Game 8 @ Lees Summit Titans win 56-0.  This was especially great because the coach of this team made a point to boast about how bad they were going to get revenge on the Titan's after the previous season's loss.

One of Hunter's biggest fans: his Nana!

A very rare moment.

Definitely a big fan of Hunters; his Pops!

Hunter with Dick & Marilyn, who joined us for Titan Football Senior Night.

One of the major highlights of the season was the game versus Glendale (Springfield).  The Titans had several things against their favor, largely was the field in which they had to play on.  Nearly all of the area football fields are field turf - not the "old school" dirt and grass!  Glendale, however, had an old school field and they planned to use that to their full advantage.  Despite we had experience near drought conditions, somehow their field was drenched and had mud puddles galore!   About halfway through the game the referee noticed several players who were playing with the "wrong size" cleats.  So, not only were the conditioned to play on that field, they were taking further advantage by using cleats that ensured they could maintain traction and not slip and slide all over the field - as our boys were!  Halftime score was 28-0, Glendale.  This was a concept so foreign to the Titans.  They weren't going to have their football season end like this.  The Titan's let Glendale score the first 28 points, and they went on to score the last ... ....                    T H I R T Y  F I V E points!  Yes, they won after being down the entire first half!  The game was right out of a movie where it's predictable ending - the team who is not looking like it will win! - does!  Only, in real life it seemed a sure thing that they were NOT going to win!  That was one of the best football games we had ever witnessed!

The 2011 Titan Football season was a great one!  The team showed so much class (they had several shut out games back to back at one point in the season!) and learned so much about team building, loyalty, and as the last game of the season taught them: devastation.

The boys took Titan Football to the semi finals in 2011.  To the surprise of no one, they played the same team they had played the year in the semifinals (and defeated): Staley High School. We knew it'd be a tough game.  Rumor had it that Staley has dedicated each Monday's practice to The Titans.  They wanted revenge for not getting the chance to play for the State Championships in 2010 (that the Titans went on to win!  Click HERE to read that post!)

The Kansas City Star summed up the game best in their title:

Staley needs four overtimes to vanquish Lee’s Summit West 76-70

The game seemed to last forever. One team would score, the other team would score.  This repeated for over four hours.  It was just a matter of which team would make the slightest mistake.  Sadly, it was our Titans who did.

The full article was a great one: staley-needs-four-overtimes-to-beat-the-Titans

The field that night was heart-wrenching.  A football field filled with high school boys in tears is one that a mother would be okay to never see again.  Somber filled the field.  A field we were so used to hearing whooping and hollering was instead filled with sobs and coaching and managers consoling the boys.

The season's final scores:

Hunter Senior Photos

A few months back I treated myself to / invested in a nice camera.  I have always appreciated photography from afar and finally took the chance that I might be able to express some creativity and appreciation.  Below are the Senior Pictures I took of Hunter one fall afternoon around our city:

2010 Football State Champs // 2011 State Semifinalists

Graduation date is set for Wednesday May 16th with plans for a Graduation Celebration Party on Sunday May 13th.

Saying Good Bye to Oz

Today was one of the hardest days of my life ... I had to take our sweet, sweet dog, Oz, to be put to sleep.

He had been having health issues for the past year or so, but nothing too serious or uncomfortable for him.  He developed a tumor on the top of his head some time ago so we took him to the vet.  At that time she was very honest with us and explained that it was either a tumor or some sort of arthritis in his head/neck.  She said they could operate to determine which it was, but ultimately there wasn't anything that could be done.  I appreciated her honesty and respect her immensely for that.

As time passed, the tumor became visibly worse.  In looked like Oz had a softball on the left size of his skull.  So bad so, that eventually the right size of his head started to cave in.  It was at that point that his health became much worse - he seemed to lose his balance, didn't always have a sense of equilibrium (walking into walls at times, walking sideways at others) and losing control of his bowels and, eventually he was not able to keep anything down.  It was at that point that we knew it was time to let him go.

Graden said it best in his farewell to Oz Facebook post:

One of the most heart wrenching moments was when Dayne expressed her worries that Oz would be alone in Heaven; that he didn't know anyone there.  I told her that he would make friends ... Oz never knew a stranger, after all!

Cleaning the house but can't get myself to clean this particular spot. It is where Oz would look out the window at the front door ... wiping his snot all over. Gross, yet adorable. It reminds me of his genuine excitement to see us and his unconditional love for his family.

RIP Sweet Ozzie ... until we meet again!

Love, Your Humans  xoxo

Chiefs vs. Vikings Game

A few months back one of my team members mentioned that his mom had four tickets to the Chiefs vs. Vikings game in October.  Knowing that my step mom, Susan, is a huge Vikings fan I thought I'd check with my dad to see if they'd be interested in coming down for the weekend and catching the game.  To no surprise, they were 'game'!.

Not only were our seats great - the weather was, too!

And to boost the day's excellence: the Chiefs, who were having a particularly crappy season! - beat the Vikings!  Up to this point the Vikings were undefeated so this was especially exciting!

As always, it was great having Dad & Susan down for a visit!

Homecoming: Senior Year

The football team did their part in making this years Homecoming a great one - with a win against Truman with a score of 42-3!

Hunter and his girlfriend, Ashley, joined several other couples for dinner at one of the kids' family's house.  Later they went on to the dance where Hunter surely made white people everywhere proud of his dancing skills ...

Dayne and Lina Photoshoot

This mosaic is made of all the pictures I took the day of the photo shoot.

This past summer Dayne had the heart-wrenching experience of having to say goodbye to her best friend, Lina, as she packed up and moved to Philadelphia, PA.

Fortunately, Lina has family here in Lee's Summit so they have plenty reason to visit.  In early October they had reason to come back for a visit and a soccer game!  Lina's dad used to play for the KC Wizards and is now a talent scout for the Philadelphia Union.  The Union was playing Kansas City Sporting (formerly the KC Wizards) so it was a great opportunity for the girls to get together and enjoy each others company and soccer!

I took an afternoon off and let Dayne miss school one day so she could spend some time with Lina.  We really enjoyed the Lee's Summit area photo shoot!  Below are some of the day's results!

Taylor Swift Concert Fun

Around February the announcement was made that Taylor Swift would be coming to Arrowhead Stadium in September!  Immediately I thought to invite Trista and her girls to KC for the weekend for some concert fun!

The stadium starts to fill up

Kylie's first concert!

Two of the coolest moms around

As soon as the sun fell, so did the temps!  It was pretty chilly but it didn't stop us from having a blast!

I thought Taylor did a great job!  It was almost like a  play where she told a story behind each song and one transitioned right into the next!

Taylor takes the stage!

"Mean"

"Back to December" ... she made it "snow" by dropping confetti from the top of her stage, cast a blue light on the confetti and the wind carried it all around the arena. Well done!!

The girls were ready to get back to warmth!

It was so wonderful having a good friend and her daughters join me for a wonderful time!