3Bugeysandawagon

Friday, August 21, 2015

Dorney Park

Dorney Park
Allentown, PA

The Bugey Boys annual trip to Dorney Park. We got there as soon as the park opened. The park is always significantly less crowded during the week, so we took advantage of that. We started off in the waterpark, where we never waited in a line for more than 3 minutes.

After that, we made our way into the regular park. Since we were already wet, we hit up the rapids ride first, followed by the splash down, and finally the log flume. Next up, we hit the Demon Drop. Nathan was all about it, but Chris was a little nervous. He manned up though, and the 3 of us went on. The great thing about this ride is that once it starts, its over in about 2.5 seconds. The anticipation is by far the worst part.

Onto Steel Force.

This is by far the most massive roller coaster the boys have been on to date. If you look at the below picture, you will see a smaller roller coaster to the right called The ThunderHawk. Seriously, look at the size difference. We went on Steel Force several times, with Nathan going back to ride by himself to he could sit in the front seat.

After spending a few hours in the park, we went back over to the waterpark, had a bite to eat, and then hit more water rides. It started to rain, and the park cleared out (no thunder). We laughed at this, since we were getting wet.....in a water park. We had the whole park to ourselves (there was less than 50 people in the park). It was fantastic.

The water park closed at 7pm, so we headed out to the car to grab some dinner we had packed. It had been a 9 hour day spent so far, but I was willing to stay until 10pm to close it out. However, we had hit every ride there was to hit, it was still raining, and it was only going to get colder. The boys said "We're good, dad. Lets go home."

No whining, no crying, no fighting, no arguing. Best Bugey Boy day yet!!!

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Tebow Time in Philly

2015 Preseason Opener
Lincoln Financial Field
Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia Eagles vs. Indianapolis Colts

Today, I took Christopher to see his first Philadelphia Eagle’s game. The Eagles were hosting the Indianapolis Colts, which featured QB Andrew Luck at the helm. Luck is Chris’s favorite player and that is because I told Chris that Luck is his favorite player. That’s right, I am forcing my son to choose his favorite player, which of course means it is not really a choice. Now why would I do this one might ask? Its simple. Chris can have a bit of a temper. When he plays football, he gets really mad when he gets tackled. Its not that he is afraid of getting tackled, he just doesn’t like not scoring when he carries the ball. If somebody does tackle him, then he gets quite angry at the tackler. Now what does this have to do with Andrew Luck….well just see this clip here

That’s right, confusing defenders with kindness and praise. Take the psychological high road.

So while I have never really bought into the fact that athletes should be role models, Chris really needed a good role model. This has really helped with his temper. He has become a big fan of Luck (first non Philly favorite athlete). So when the Colts were coming to town, I knew I had to take him. The fact that it was a preseason game was all the better. I didn’t have to try to get tickets for a regular season game, and I didn’t have to expose my 7 year old son to the crazy Eagle fans that he would see during a regular season game.

So, we start to make the trek down to Lincoln Financial Field. Of course we had to stop and get soft pretzels on the way.

Kick off is in an hour, and sure enough Broad Street is closed for some unbeknownst reason. This means we had to go park far away, like really far. Probably a good mile. We started to walk towards the stadium with kickoff getting ready. We showed up at the gate and we could hear the opening kick. The Eagles were kicking to the Colts. That meant Andrew Luck was going to be playing on that drive. Because this was the first preseason game, I assumed he was only playing the first drive. We came in the main gate, and of course our seats were all the way on the other side of the field. Great. The Colts go 3 and out and punt. That means Chris may have missed Andrew (our whole reason for coming). We try to hurry and get to our seats. As this happens, the Eagles go 3 and out and punt. The Colts are getting the ball back. We can hear on the monitors that Luck was out for the second drive. We are trying to run up the steps to get to our seats. First play was an incomplete pass. Still have to go up more steps. Second play was a 3 year run. Almost at our seats. It was now 3^rd and 7 with 2 more flights of steps to go. If this is an incomplete pass, then the Colts punt, and that will be the end of Luck. We run up the last flight. The Colts are breaking huddle walking to the line of scrimmage. I point out Luck to Chris saying “There he is. He is about to hike the ball.” Luck drops back, fires a ten yard completion to Andrew Johnson for a first down, trots off the field, and on comes Matt Hasselback to replace him. That’s right, we just got to see one play (but a successful one) from Andrew. That was enough. Chris was exited. We then went to our seats and I just got to relax, feeling a moral victory for making sure Chris got to see at least one play for Andrew.

The cool thing was after he came out, Luck was still very visible on the sideline for the rest of the game, so Chris could always see him. (below standing in the middle of this pic with arms crossed)

We got to see Matt Hasselback, a former Super Bowl starting QB who at the time of this game was the oldest QB in the league

And future Hall of Fame kicker Adam Vinateari.

The game was fun. The Eagles were up at half time. They scored 3 first half touchdowns, including a punt return. Chris was having a blast. All I cared about was that he was having a blast. Anything happening on the field was irrelevant to me. As the 3rd quarter was about half way done, I was just lounging in the sun. Couldn’t care less about what was going on. Just wanted my son to have a good time. The Eagles had gotten possession of the ball on their 20. Then the crowd started to make some noise as #11 trotted onto the field. After a two year absence, he was back in the NFL….Chris asked what everyone was chanting. I told him it was the two greatest syllables ever spoken by any human

TE – BOW

Tebow's first snap

The man was back in the NFL, playing for the Eagles, and I got to witness his first completion for the team. It was fantastic. It was like watching “Rudy,” only this was real, and Chris was eating it all up. For all he knew, Tim Tebow was as good as Peyton Manning or Tom Brady.

Tebow Touchdown

So Timmy played the rest of the game, scored a TD at the end, and Philadelphia was treated by having the following 3 people all a one venue…..Tim Tebow, Andrew Luck, and Christopher Bugey.