It's (one of) the most wonderful time of the year

We've been doing this since Wednesday and it's our plan for the rest of the weekend. The annual "Watch basketball until your eyes hurt while snacking and drinking a whole lot of beer." Our friend Matt arrived Wednesday and Uncle Ryan, who was working in Charlotte this week, took a ride to Greenville to spend a few days with u too. House showings have put a damper on completely letting loose, but we're not complaining. We also spent yesterday morning at our new house while the home inspection and other various testing took place. More details later!

But for now a few pics!
We went out for lunch downtown and then passed some time at Falls Park. Harley joined us too!


"Uncle" Matt and Lane (in green) walking on the bridge.


*Disclaimer* Parker slept the entire time in the stroller so I don't have any pics of her. (This is mostly for my sis (the 2nd child in our family) who constantly reminds me to make sure I take pics of my 2nd child) :-)

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The Scene around here...

Yes, it's that time of year again. Definitely bigger than the Super Bowl or any other type of championship, in our house at least. The NCAA tournament. My husband L.O.V.E.S college basketball so this time of year is like his Christmas. In fact, a friend of ours from Peoria comes down to Greenville and they spend 4 days doing nothing but watching basketball. Matt takes off 2 days to sit in front of the T.V. This has been the tradition and I must admit, I kinda like it!

Brackets laying around (Our highlighting system-Orange=over Green=good, engineering degrees at their finest!) (Don't worry, we have spreadsheets in there. C'mon, Matt never does anything without making a spreadsheet...from buying a house to choosing a place for dinner :-)

Laptops available to get up-to-the-minute scores and highlights

Buckets of beer on ice

The unmistakable sound of the Illini bottle opener, playing the Fight Song, as one of the guys cracks open another beer, platters that once housed cheese and lunchmeats for sandwiches, trays full of dip, the never ending chip bowl...

Homemade pizzas to keep hungry bellies happy

Yells of delight,


yells of disappointment

Yells from the mama to NOT WAKE the sleeping baby (That ones new this year)
Whistles, shoes on the basketball court, swishes in the hoop, bricks on the backboard, the sound of upset (sorry Kansas!) even though it totally messed up all of our brackets, we were totally pulling for Northern Iowa. Illini fans = not fans of Bill Self.

AHHH! the sound of the NCAA tournament. That's the scene at our house these days. Too bad our beloved Illini are not a part this year. But we are still watching them on the NIT, not the same, but still rooting. Oh and we have brackets and we bet, big money (5 whole dollars), we've done this for at least 5 years. It's a lot of fun. Especially for me because I win the majority of the years. My secret: don't think at all about your picks, base them on how well you like the name of the mascot or if the town is a place you would visit. It's worked for me so far! And the goal of the guys, you can bet, is to just beat me, for once! Hah!

And because this technically is Lane's blog and he wasn't mentioned or pictured once...a few more pics from our Friday...

"The NCAA tournament is awesome!"

"The NIT...what the heck is that? Is that even a real tournament?"

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Victorious Illini!

So we went to the game last night and ended up seeing a GREAT game. The 1st half was horrible. We were all looking at each other at half time like...what the heck!?! There was a group of about 7 guys behind us, all Illinois fans as well. And a few scattered about in our section. So we had a small cheering section and other fans to high five!

We went to a bar for dinner before the game. We were with a few other people from CAT and surprisingly only 2 Clemson fans out of our group...the rest pulling for Illinois. So we had nice representation of Illinois apparel!

Lane went with us...the smallest Illini fan and he was awesome. Had fun with everyone at dinner and really took all the sights and sounds in at the game. He switched back and forth between Matt and I during the game and just had a really great time. He wasn't a handful at all. I was expecting him to maybe want to get down and walk around, but nope. He was so happy and content to sit in our laps? and watch what was going on around.

The car ride there.

We had a bunch of extra seats in our row so Lane got his own...when he wanted.

After an Illini win...Lane a little overwhelmed by the excitement.

Final score

Jammies for the car ride home.

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