Mackey Madness

I survived my first madness event! Purdue has not had a madness event in several years, so it took a lot of work to even get our coaches to agree to hosting a big event to kick off the season. Actually, two out of the three were very excited it was just one coach that took a lot of work..... Because of the NCAA rules about when the first day and time an entire team can practice have changed, there is no longer a need to have this event at midnight. We didn't have a home football game to partner with so we combined volleyball and the madness event into one big event in Mackey. We have been busy making plans for a while but it seemed like nothing came together until the very end. I'm not exactly sure why things took so long to come together but with no budget and minimal help from our sponsors and media, we did the best job that we could. I am pretty pleased with how things turned out considering all of the negative publicity the event was getting. There is a definite excitement on campus and in the community for the basketball seasons to get started and with the football team a complete mess we were hoping a lot of people would stay here rather than make the trip to Northwestern to see us lose again. All in all, we had close to 10,000 fans see an awesome volleyball match followed by some fun basketball stuff. I had been working with the teams on a dance routine and we filmed some really good videos to go along with our Mission: Possible them. I was less than happy with the Big Ten Network since they didn't decide until two days before what they were covering so when we found out our time slot was late, we had to drag things out a bit to cover the time. The teams were very cooperative and I think our fans had a good time. I learned a lot and think it went well for my first try. You know me... I'm my toughest critic and I like everything to be perfect every time. Its been a long two weeks with lots and lots of late nights at the office but it was worth it. I am ready for basketball season to start and hope the teams can live up to the high expectations we all have for them! I have been ignoring phone calls, emails, and other work for the last few weeks so now its time to reorganize and get back on track. If you would like to see some of the happenings from madness, visit the Big Ten Network website and view the footage they aired during their Madness special on Friday night. Thanks to everyone that came to support our event!

West Side Flag Football

Karl and his kids....This was Karl's second season as a flag football coach. He coached 3rd-5th graders in the West Side flag football league and on Friday they were recognized at the West Side High School football game. They were very cute, all dressed in their red and white shirts running all over the place at the game. They got to make a tunnel for the high school players to run through before the game and on their way into the locker room, and were introduced by team at the end of the 1st quarter. I didn't have my real camera so these are the best I could do with the Blackberry camera/phone. Karl is behind the band, wearing the red and white hat with his team lined up. The kids were really excited to slap the players hands! Karl was a bit nostalgic making the trip back to his old field and this game was 10 years exactly since his "senior day" and last game for West Side. Its fun to watch him with the kids because he is a great coach- very patient and really likes to make sure the kids learn and understand what they are doing. I am positive that if Karl didn't have an 8-5 job he would be an amazing high school coach. Despite not winning a game all season, they had fun and hopefully they will have better luck next year.

I Won the Battle

We have the first EK vs. KK match up of the fantasy football season! It usually makes for a rough weekend in the Kraebber house filled with lots of trash talk and wagering about who will beat who. Neither one of us were too confident with our teams this weekend so there wasn't much of a build up leading into the games yesterday. With the Cowboys non-existent passing game, I thought for sure I was done since I have both TO and Romo. Eli Manning and Reggie Wayne had Karl off to a solid start and I was down by 14 points with only Hines Ward left to go. Karl had pretty much already celebrated his victory when Big Ben launched an 8 yard TD pass to who else- Ward in the end zone with less than two minutes left in the game. I was so surprised that it happened I really didn't even celebrate. (I had really given up after the cowboys had let me down) Karl hates losing to me so he was not a happy camper and since neither of us have any players going tonight, its already in the books. EK is still tied for the lead at 5-0 and KK is holding on to 3rd place with a 3-2 record. Charlie is killing us all and Karl still has more points than me but I'm holding strong. I can celebrate this victory but we meet again in week 12 and probably again in the playoffs.... the war is still left to be won!

This weekend was full of so many let-downs: Purdue football vs Penn State, Purdue volleyball vs Minnesota, Brewers, Badgers and Packers..... at least fantasy sports give us a chance to celebrate!

St. Louis

With Purdue football on the road at Notre Dame and Purdue Volleyball still on the road, I had a weekend off! It was a pretty slow week in the office so we had made plans to get out of town on Friday afternoon and head to St. Louis for the weekend. I have only been there once and it was just for a day and Karl had never been so it seemed like a good place to visit when you only have a few days. I was able to leave work around noon after we wrapped up the commercial shoot for women's basketball so we got there around 5pm. The downtown area was nice with lots of big buildings and sports venues to check out and our list of things to do included visiting the arch, going to a Cardinals game and learning about the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. It was a successful trip and we checked everything off of our list. Friday we ate at the rotating restaurant at the top of the Millennium Hilton so we were able to see a lot of the downtown and watch the baseball game going on down below. Saturday we checked out the arch, watched Purdue lose and saw the Cardinals win their second to last game of the season. Busch Stadium was really nice, its no Miller Park but no complaints about the game or our awesome seats. Sunday we made a trip to the brewery for the tour which was informative and educational. I'm not a beer fan but Karl certainly is so this was something he really enjoyed. We got to see a lot of steps in the process and take some pictures. My favorite part was seeing the Budweiser Clydesdales and Karl's was the beer tasting at the end! It was a fun weekend and we were both happy to get a chance to get out of town. Its very rare for me to have a weekend with absolutely no events during the school year (especially during the fall) so I never take those for granted.... you just don't know when your next day off will be!

Aside from our weekend trip, nothing really new to report. With football season comes visitors so my grandparents came for the Central Michigan game and my mom and step-dad are coming this weekend for Penn State. I love when family comes!

Ella was not interested in eating last week and was having trouble keeping anything down so we had to make a trip to the vet with her on Thursday. I washed every set of sheets we had in the house and our carpets are in need of some serious cleaning, but I think she is doing better. Seems that she has some acid reflux that causes her to throw up when her stomach gets too empty. You would think that she eats a lot by looking at her but she really doesn't so we have modified her diet by feeding her less more often and giving her over the counter pepcid daily. She is just like a person but so far, so good. She spent the weekend playing with Bob, grandma and grandpa while we were gone.

We are looking forward to having more friends and family visiting this week, celebrating Karl's moms birthday today and my big volleyball breast cancer benefit on Saturday. Happy Birthday Sharon :)

September Happenings

Not much new at the Kraebber house to report. Football is in full swing with two out of our first three home games down. Things went well on the job end, not so well on the team spirit end.... tough loss on Saturday to a highly ranked Oregon team. Volleyball is one of my primary responsibilities and they have been on the road since playing the home opener at the end of August. We will be celebrating the start of basketball season with the return of madness in Mackey Arena on October 17 so there is lots to do before then. Karl started coaching his 3rd -5th grade flag football team but they haven't been able to win a game yet, he hopes that will come soon! One exciting thing is that our landscaping is done and looks great. This has been on our list of things to get done all summer and we were finally able to get it done just in time for all of the rain. We are very happy we didn't get it done during the crazy dry spell so we hope this rain will prevent us from killing it all right away. No more crazy weeds and ugly bushes in front! We have been receiving many compliments from neighbors so we have moved up from being the trashy house in the neighborhood, which is always nice. With football season comes visitors and our house tends to be crowded on home football weekends so its awesome to have a deck to hang out on. Its been too hot to use the fire pit but one of these days we will get it going and finally use the s'more ingredients I bought a few weeks ago. Other than some friends and family coming in and out and football, its business as usual for us. In case you were wondering, after tonight's game KK will be 1-1 in fantasy and EK will be 2-0. Stay tuned to see who comes out on top!