Go Kings

Thanks to my dad, I got the chance to go to what might have been the last Sacramento Kings game ever. The team might be relocating to Anaheim next year--it's still up in the air. Plus it was Kings vs. Lakers! If you are a die-hard Kings fan, you must hate the Lakers.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to take my nieces, Emily & Abby, and Elizabeth.
We had so much fun! For one thing, because of the significance of this game, the arena was packed and we were cheering so loud for our Kings. It felt like the playoff games of old when the Kings were good.

(Here is a picture from that era, taken in the summer of '03. It's me with Mike Bibby. I am also very sunburned. OK, not all of the redness of face could be called a sunburn. :)

Funny sidenote: This was taken between Joe and I's first and second dates. That is terrible grammar, isn't it? I can't think of a better way to say that...)

OK, back to the game... after being down by 20 late in the game, the Kings stormed back to take the lead at the very end. The crowd was going crazy:

It looked like the Kings would win! Unfortunately, Kobe Bryant hit a 3 with seconds left to send it into overtime. Darn that Kobe. The Kings couldn't hold it together in OT and lost.

The biggest reason it was so much fun was the company. These girls are awesome. My girls have some amazing older girl cousins (and boys too, but all the oldest cousins are girls on both sides) who are all excellent examples. I hope my girls turn out like them.

(How did they all get so big anyway? Here are my oldest three Allen nieces, Emily, Abby and Hannah, with me and my mom in the summer of '02:

It's also funny that I'm wearing the same gray Kings shirt in both pictures.)

Wow, I'm going a little crazy with the parenthetical tangents. Sorry. I must be feeling nostalgic. :)

Again, back to the game...We had fun eating snacks and cheering on our Kings. Elizabeth was an excellent fan at her first-ever game. Emily even caught a t-shirt, despite a 50 year-old woman diving to the ground in front of her in an attempt to snatch it. :) (What is it with people going crazy over free t-shirts anyway?)

What a fun night. And here's hoping the Sacramento Kings stick around!

Elizabeth

This girl is getting older. She is already very concerned about what her friends think of her. A few weeks ago, we were driving her to school one morning. We were almost there and Simon and Garfunkel's "I Am a Rock" is on (Natalie's request, by the way). Elizabeth suddenly asks me if we can turn the music down so her friends won't hear it when she gets out of the car. What's so embarrassing about Simon and Garfunkel? :)

Flash forward to just last week. We are once again driving to school. Elizabeth is absorbed in a book she brought along to read. Without even looking up from her book she says, "Can we turn the music off? I just want to talk about things." I laugh and ask her what she wants to talk about and the truth comes out: she just wants the music off when she gets out. I oblige...but then crank it up loud as she's getting out. :) Don't worry--even then I don't think anyone could hear it and she took the teasing well.

Also last week, Joe was singing or dancing or doing something (I can't remember what) and then somehow we got talking about being embarrassed of him. Joe asked Elizabeth if she would be embarrassed if he did that in front of her friends. She replied, "No. As long as they didn't know you're my dad."

Despite her embarrassment of us, we sure love her. :) She is a good example to us. She loves to read those children's scripture stories at night in bed and managed to get through all four books in about a month. I think she now has a clearer picture of the Old Testament then Joe or I do. Wanting to still encourage her voracious reading and thinking the actual scriptures might be a little beyond her comprehension, Joe found President Hinckley's book Way to Be and gave it to her. She is now a few chapters into that.

One day she asked for paper and a pencil during quiet time. I went back into that room later on that day and found this on the couch:

I also had a birthday recently (no pictures and not really worth its own post but it was a great day). One of Elizabeth's gifts was this song she wrote out for me:

I'm so lucky to be this girl's mother.

He likes to boogie

Family Day

Joe's law school had a family day last weekend and we decided to go. It ended up being really fun. The kids had a blast and it was good for them to finally see where Daddy has been going almost every day these last 3 years. They had bounce houses, balloon animals, face painting and games. Joe's friend Agnes was taking pictures for it and got some really cute ones so here they are:

The girls playing red light, green light:

You can't tell but they were actually holding hands while they played. It was so cute.

They had an adult round, too, in which Joe tied for first and won us an itunes gift card!

Look at that cat-like speed:

This boy was charming quite a few of Joe's law school friends:

Face-painting in action

The boy and I

Family picture:

Natalie was pouting because she lost in musical chairs. :)

Fun times!