This last weekend was the first College Ministry Trip that Jachin went on with me. We loaded up the charter bus on Friday and headed up to Ames, IA. So, how did Jachin do on a bus full of college students for Twenty+ hours over 48 hours and attending his second college football game?
First I need to give some background information, Cody is a college student at OU from Tulsa, OK. He is a great guy. He just got into Med School (congratulations, Cody) and he is a leader in our college ministry. None of this matters.... to Jachin. Jachin likes Cody because Cody came over and played Star Wars Lego II with him. This gesture has created my son’s first man-crush. He thinks Cody is the coolest. Jachin asked if Cody was going on the trip, and became giddy when I said yes.
On the way to the church to load up for the trip on Friday, Jachin asked if he could sit with Cody on the bus. I told him that he could play with Cody every ‘once in a while’, but that he couldn’t be with him the whole time. We got on the road to Ames around 1pm and about 1:20 (we had made it from Norman to Edmond) Jachin turned and asked, “Is it every ‘once in a while’ yet?” Jachin wanted to play with Cody!
The bus trips were full of Jachin asking to play with Cody, Cody graciously hanging out with a five year old, and Jachin playing SuperMario cart on Cody’s Nintendo DS (guess what is on the Christmas/Birthday list now!) and Jachin sprawling out to sleep over our two seats leaving his dad standing in the aisle.
My favorite part of the trip happened about an hour before kick-off. We were at the stadium early and watched the teams warm-up. We took some pics with OU’s pig-horse and then the place-kickers started to kick FGs into the stands. Jachin and I started to shag some of the kicks and then he would throw them down to the trainers on the field. We had a blast.
OU on the other hand, did not have a blast once the game started. This was supposed to be a rout and we were down 0-7 at half. Jachin watched the game, cheered for OU (He loves kick-offs “OOOOOOOOOOOOOO U!”) and of course, made a friend with the drunk ISU fan sitting across the aisle!
‘Chris’ had obviously started ‘enjoying’ the game a while before kick-off. I was leary, but Jachin was as friendly as ever. Chris ended up being really nice (whether that was artificially induced or natural, we may never know) and when asked by his Papa what happened on the trip, Jachin’s reply was, “I met a new friend (Chris). He was from Iowa State.”
Choose what you may from RoadTrip 2007. Cody is much cooler and more fun than dad -or- There are some really nice people who are Iowa State fans. I will personally remember shagging FGs with my son and praying that he will stop catching the ball like his mom.
Andy
