This week

Elder Hackleman,

Good morning sunshine:) How are you doing today? I know my words are redundant from your dads sometimes, but I like to tell things my way so here goes. This will be all about Seth's football game on Friday. So he played at Omaha Central. They are the team that hosted the football camp that we went to last summer in downtown Omaha.

We won the coin toss, which means Seth had a while longer to wait before he would see the field. I had texted him earlier in the day to see how he was feeling, and he was not feeling very good and was extremely nervous for some reason. Again, probably because he wasn't feeling very good. Knowing my Sethybear and seeing him on the sidelines, waiting for the offense to take the field, I knew that the sooner he got in the sooner he could get over the butterflies. Well the entire first quarter was basically Omaha on the field. The defense held them from scoring all but one touchdown, but the offense hardly even stepped on the field. The one time they did, they went 3 and out. Our really good play maker, was having a sore shoulder and since this game is not in our conference, they weren't sending the plays his way very often.

Seth told us later that night that Omaha was very prepared for them. They seemed to be able to read every play. This is the point when the quarterback should have called an audible and changed the plays at the line, but he never did. Seth said he could tell that they needed to change the plays, but he couldn't do anything about it.

Anyway, by the time we were going into the half, it was tied, 7 to 7. In my opinion our team basically has 3 things that makes us above and beyond.

1. A real good kicker, who always kicks into the end zone and punts all the way down the field.

2. A great punt returner, who turns punt returns into touchdowns a lot.

3. Run up the middle, created by a whole Seth makes for them. 5 to 7 yards at a time, but they usually do it all night long.

As long as these three things are working, then every once in a while they can thrown in a pass play and we are money, money, money. Since our buddy Drew Cline was not playing much, again do to shoulder issue, it knocked out 2 of the 3 major play makers. Then to add insult to injury, our long snapper, for punt snaps, missed 2 major snaps. And when I say missed, I mean threw the ball completely over the punters head by a long shot causing severe loss of yardage. Since our teams were so equally matched, this was devastating.

After the 2nd major miss, that resulted in a touchdown for Omaha, the coaches grabbed Seth on the sidelines and told him to start warming up for long snaps.

They already had him long snap the point after since the snapper had missed the first punt snap. Realizing that Seth didn't get to warm up that snap at all. His long snap has taken a toll because of the brace he is wearing. He told us he wasn't going to be long snapping at all this year so it didn't matter. Little did he know. Luckily for him, it was like riding a bike and went off without a hitch.

Tim didn't even have the camera ready to film his long snap because we didn't realize he was going to be put in that position.

In the end, we lost by 6. It was so close though. Went down to the very last 2 minutes of the game, we kept thinking we were going to make one last push for a touchdown and win the game with a point after, that as long as we get the snap off, our kicker never misses. It wasn't to be.

So after Seth got home, we found out what it was like for him on the field. Early on in the game he got his pinkeye caught in someone’s helmet and torqued the wrong way so that was hurting, on his right hand. Then he ended up in the bottom of a pile and someone came down real hard on his left hand and wrist. When he came home Friday night, his left wrist was totally swollen and in a lot of pain. Then, he pulled a groin muscle. Not severely, but enough to make matters very uncomfortable all evening. And, by Saturday evening we took his temperature and realized he was running a fever. He is home from school right now. I am just getting ready to take him in to the doctor to run a strep test. Apparently one of his teammates had strep throat.

As far as Seth's playing, you would have never known any of it. He had a better game this week then the previous last two. He tore it up. He ended up going to the team meeting last night where they watched film, and after seeing it all over again, he realized, he really had a great game. At one point he got into a bit of a fight with the nose guard. Who by the way was a beast. They were talking all kinds of smack and started going at each other after a play. A ref pushed them apart.

During film, they watched his "fight" over and over and the coach used him as an example of what you "should do". He said, if you don't get angry out there, then you aren't playing hard enough. He said, take Seth for instance, this guy is talking bad about his mother right now and Seth is telling him what for. Seth said it was really funny because his head was bobbing up and down as he was yelling at the guy and the coaches were putting words in his mouth that went right along with the video they were watching. Too funny. After all was said and done, everyone on the team made mistakes and it essentially cost them the game. Although the only criticism Seth got was after a great chop block that Seth put on a guy, the coach told him, I have some advice for you, and this is just being really picky, but after you chop block a guy, and you are both laying on the ground, roll around a bit to make it harder for him to get back up. After the entire game, that was the only place the coaches could find any improvement for Seth.

Now we just have to make sure he doesn't have strep and keep him as healthy as we can. This week is homecoming week. Thursday we are having the team dinner at our house. It's going to be a fun ride. It's ironic that they kept his buddy out because of a sore shoulder, yet Seth plays with a sore shoulder every play. Seth never complains, and even though he popped it out doing a trick with the dance team, it is fairing pretty well during the football games, thanks to the brace. Oh, ya, and did I mention Seth is joining the other senior football players for a dance team special during the pep assembly this Friday. At some point he throws his partner up in the air for some sort of a twist, that really does a number on his shoulder. Darn kid!

Grant had a bye week, and Nathan's game got called at half time because of lightning. Nathan was doing good, although he didn't play as much as he would have liked to. His team was ahead, so we are calling it a win.

Love mom

You made it sound better than dad did! Haha I´m so proud of my brothers mom. Seth has grown up so much and as much as I would like to go the rest of my life saying I was the best football player in our family, I will still be proud to say that Seth trumped me, and then a couple years later, nathan ruined me, and then a few after that, grant crushed me. Haha but oh well.

Our stake conference this last week was a transmission from salt lake. Elder Bednar and Elder Richard G Scott spoke. Elder bednar had a translator speaking over him but Elder Scott spoke spanish and his spanish is amazing. It was awesome. Elder Scott´s entire talk was about women. That every man on earth who has ever caused a woman to cry, should repent. Women are chosen beings from God. It was very cool but very strong and blunt as well. The sister´s sure liked it =) hehe but it was all so true as well. I love you mom!!!!!!!

Elder Hackleman