This is officially being dubbed the 'family weekend.' Andrea's mom, Nancy, is here visiting. Her brother Jeff & family flew in from New York last night. Today we'll meet up with her dad, Gary, and other brother Greg & family in Kentucky. Her niece, Casey, is starting in the play "42nd Street" which we are all going to see tonight in Owensboro. Should be a lot of fun.

Josiah is supposed to have his first soccer game this morning, but I'm afraid it's going to rain out. We're getting ready to head out to Opryland Hotel to have breakfast with Jeff, Jean & Brooke. After that we'll check the soccer fields before having to take Nana (Nancy) to the airport to catch her flight back to Dallas.

Then we'll head to Kentucky later in the day & come back home late tonight. Not sure what is on the agenda (if anything) for tomorrow. Thought about trying to get some tickets to the 2nd round NCAA games being played downtown, but I'm afraid they may be too expensive. We'll see.

I had trouble going to sleep last night. I laid in bed trying to get my mind off of the fact that my Jayhawks had suffered their only first-round loss in the tournament since 1978 - long before I was old enough to know who they were (I was 5 at the time). The loss has to rank up there to KU losing in the late 90s to Rhode Island in Oklahoma City as a No. 1 seed. Of course, that was in the 2nd round. KU has skirted around opening round losses many times since they last won it all in 1988. A few years back they got a scare by holding off a Holy Cross team a few years ago. But now I'm left with the same feeling I had the morning after the Sooners got embarrased in the national title game in January. Confused & disappointed.

I thought for about half a minute about swearing off the entire thing - just boycotting the rest of the tournament. But, I just can't bring myself to do it. I'll still be cheering on the Big 12, & cheering against North Carolina, Duke & the like. I'll even be cheering on Bucknell to make it into the Sweet 16.

Well, I finally got around to making my picks. I started the same way I always start - by marking KU across the board to win it all. Then I went back & picked game-by-game. When I finished, though, I didn't have any #1 seeds in the Final Four and three of the teams that made it to this round were Big 12 teams! Okay, maybe I'm draming. I went back & made a concession (one that I am not proud of) and re-marked the outcome of the Duke-OU match-up to allow Duke to win. I'm still going to be cheering for the Sooners, though! All said and done, the Final Four is going to be: Kansas, Duke, Wake Forest, and Oklahoma State, with OSU & KU meeting up in the championship game and KU winning the tie-breaker between the two (after the teams split games this season).

Remember - it's not too late to join in the fun! Everyone is invited to join in the March Madness Mania challenge by clicking on the graphic in the right column. Right now we have about 10 people in the pool - I'd love to see us double that number! The entry sheet will stay up until shortly before tip-off tomorrow morning. Happy picking!

It's finally here! March Madness has struck in all its glory & the Ediger household is already in the "basketball on TV all the time" mode which began this past weekend with the conference tournaments. I'd have to say that if the NCAA Tourney is anything like the conference tournaments have been then we are in for a treat! I couldn't believe how many close/down-to-the-wire finishes there were. Of course, my team, Kansas, got the short end of the stick on one of those finishes. But, knowing there is basketball heaven beginning in just a few short days takes the sting out of that loss a little (just a little, though).

Once again this year, as we have for the past several years, we will be hosting online pools for the tournament! Click on the graphic in the right column to go to our March Madness Mania site. Click the appropriate pool in the "Join the Madness" graphic & make your picks! Entry deadline is Thursday morning tipoff of the first game (around 11am, I think), so get your picks in early! Then bookmark the site & check back throughout the tournament to see how you are doing against the competition!

Josiah has now lost both of his front teeth! He lost the first one about a month ago and the second one has been getting close to coming out for a couple of weeks now. We were at our friend Craig & Barbara's house for our TouchPoint group (more on that later) on Sunday night. One of the guys is a dentist & he offered to pull it for Si. He looks pretty cute (as you can tell - click the image for a larger version)!

Things heard at the dinner table: Si: "When are we going to start flossing?" (Apparently they had a lesson on dental care at school the other day)

Things heard in the van: Micah: "When are we going to get a 'For Rent' sign in our yard?" (Hopefully never...)

Things heard in her brothers' room: Emerie: "Okay, Mom. See ya. Bye." (While trying to get Andrea to leave the room so she could get into the LiteBrite...)

Things heard over the phone: Andrea: "So when I took the cowboy hat Micah forgot to preschool he was so excited. He put his hands on either side of my face and kissed me right on the mouth. I got to be the big hero." Chris: "Yeah, and I got to be the Dad who forgot the cowboy hat..."

Andrea was reading a book to Emerie the other day - "The 10 Ladybugs." As she is reading Emerie begins counting her. Andrea couldn't believe it! She said, "Emerie, do you want to count? 1.." and she began counting on her own! We were lucky enough to get her to perform on camera today & thought we'd post a clip here. I've got so much space on this web server that I figured I would try to post a few more movies from time to time. I've put up high & low bandwidth versions...

Emerie Counts! - Broadband Version (2.16Mb WMV)
Emerie Counts! - Dial-Up Version (413 Kb WMV)