Are you ready for some football?

With the end of summer comes a new season full of potential. No, I'm not talking about Autumn. I'm talking about football season—but you knew that, right?

Growing up, college football season was surpassed only by Christmas in terms of importance within our family. It was a time to pull out the team shirts and flags for the house, and support our teams through thick and thin. Now you might be thinking that these items were purple and gold, but I wasn't raised in Louisiana. I grew up in Arkansas. But don't think for a minute that “Woo Pig Sooie” was yelled in our house. My mother was a proud graduate of the University of Alamaba—the reigning National Champions. I grew up cheering Roll Tide and at a young age knew who Bear Bryant was.

If you notice, I used the word ‘teams’ with an 's' at the end. My younger sister, being a defiant child, gravitated toward Arkansas and the Hogs. All of her friends were Razorback fans so she was, too. But it gets even better. My grandmother and grandfather, who lived in the house behind us, were graduates of Georgia and Vanderbilt respectively. Our house was booming with SEC Pride. This did cause a few Saturday night dinners to be a little on the quiet side. But silent treatment or not, I loved the atmosphere that was college football season in our house. There is nothing like a little rivalry to bring a family together.

As I grew older and began to visit colleges and consider which one I would eventually enroll in for school, I began cheering for a new team—the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs. Though they aren't an SEC school and, well, they don't even belong to a major conference—I was going to support my Dawgs through it all. I mean, if my grandfather who says his team can't beat the girls' school for the blind can still be a proud Commodore then I, too, can do the same for the Bulldogs.

Speaking of cheering for a team that has a tradition of losing, my husband is a die-hard Saints fan and has been all 26 years of his life. I didn't even like professional football when we met 7 years ago—I was one of those people who watched the Super Bowl for the commercials. He soon converted me. Mind you, this was still the 2003 and 2004 seasons when I first started liking the Saints. I'm not a bandwagon fan.

This season I will attend my first-ever Saints game. Not only will I get to experience the Super Dome on a Sunday afternoon, but as our anniversary present to ourselves, Husband and I have bought our tickets to spend Thanksgiving day in Dallas cheering on New Orleans. I have been so excited about this trip that I have already planned our tailgate menu. It's going to be a great season for the Cobbs.

This past Thursday marked the official beginning of autumn and, yes, that is supposed to mean cooler weather; but for me it means Saturdays and Sundays—with the occasional Thursday night, Friday night, or Monday night—watching football, watching my favorite pregame show on Sundays, helping Husband with his fantasy football teams, and making tailgating plans. It means calling my mom on Saturday night to congratulate her and her Tide on a victory and ask how my grandfather is taking yet another Vandy loss (though they did win their last game). It means wearing Blue on Saturdays and Black and Gold on Sundays. It means friendly trash talk with friends from all over and a little bit of gloating after a successful weekend. From the first kickoff at the beginning of September—or end of August, depending on the year—to just after the last second has ticked off the game clock on Super Bowl Sunday in February, it's all about football.

~Rachel

Firecracker Fun

Fourth of July was another fun-filled holiday weekend that many of us enjoyed as three days off. This year I participated for the first time in the Firecracker 5K. Although I in no way consider myself a runner, I did enjoy the goings on surrounding it. Before the firecracker goes off signaling the start of the race, it is apparently tradition for everyone gathered at the starting line to bounce around an assortment of beach balls and smaller plastic balls. Though I realized that this was going on, I was still humored by the fact some people were oblivious to it and managed to inadvertently get their heads in the way. Many would get a “what was that” look on their faces afterward.

It was also fun encountering the varying array of costumes—or race attire—worn by many of the racers. Some very serious runners looked the part; those who were less serious looked their part as well. And then there were some...well, I’m just not sure what they were doing. As I traversed the course with my race partner there were several people standing along the sides cheering you on and even some offering frozen pop-ice or water. A few had their sprinklers set up for the racers to run through to cool off a bit. I gladly took advantage of these benefits. Tents were set up post race with refreshment and food choices to help the runners recover. This, too, I took gladly took advantage of. Overall I enjoyed the morning and look forward to doing it again next year. The t-shirt designed for the event was nice, too.

Sunday, July 4, I had planned a trip to Natchitoches with my parents. After church we drove down to check out the activities, only to find out that most of the Front Street businesses were closed. We ate at the one restaurant that was open and looked through the available stores, then drove down to see a few of the plantation homes. My parents had never been to Natchitoches so all the closures were a bit disappointing. There was a fireworks show to begin at 9:30 on the river, but after driving to the plantations we still had three hours to kill and decided just to head back to Shreveport. I was disappointed not to be able to photograph some of the fireworks along the river but was met with one of the best sunsets I have seen in a while. It turned out to be an even better show than the fireworks. Overall my holiday was fun; I hope the same was true for you!

~Jerry