Super Bowl Magic:
I grew up in a football environment. My father was a great enthusiast, having both played and coached for Cal Tech. I attended many games with him. He taught me a great deal about the game, the plays, penalties and strategies.
My husband is English but he has been a football aficionado almost since he got off the boat many years ago. We were blessed with two athletic sons who excelled in sports but we guided them into swimming, golf and tennis. Nevertheless they always had a heathy interest in football.
By the time our elder son was in high school, he and his father were each picking teams at the beginning of the season to win the Super Bowl. Soon my younger son and I joined in. As a family, we had many happy hours watching and discussing the games. Through their college years and after, we continued what is now a family tradition.
Even after the boys were married, the four of us continued to make our picks. After a few years, my sons’ wives both joined in and one of them contributed a trophy, which the winner keeps for a year. Now our grandchildren play too, so this is really a family affair. Each participant picks one AFC and one NFC team. We have a rule that only one person can pick a team. That makes it more fun, but also more difficult as the family size increases. So now we have to pick names out of a hat to establish the order.
This is just one of the ways we have used to keep our family together. I’m sure all of you have similar experiences. Please share them as a comment to this post.
Category Archives: For Working Mothers
My Recipes
I will be posting my recipes here after they have served time on my home page.
Word of the week children’s game
As a writer I have always loved words, finding just the right one to best express an idea or describe a scene. I wanted my children to develop a love for words too. Our family’s Word of The Week game was the answer. It was fun, easy and the children loved it. Here’s how it worked:
Every Monday morning I posted on the refrigerator door a 3×5 card with a word and it’s definition on it. Throughout the week we all used that word as often as possible -at the dinner table, in the car, going to and from school, anywhere we were together. By putting the word into sentences and using it in everyday conversation the children learned to express themselves and expanded their vocabulary without just memorizing. Since the kitchen and especially the refrigerator door was always a family focal point, nobody was likely to miss Monday morning’s new word of the week! And at week’s end to celebrate our favorite word we took a family trip to the ice cream parlor – double scoops for all! As the children grew so did the scope of the game. Soon it expanded to include synonyms, antonyms and homonyms just to keep it interesting!