Big Hockey Fans!

The local Russell Stovers hockey team played in town this weekend. As most of you know, we are housing for the team again this year. We've had many housing kids throught the last couple of years (some for a few nights, some a few weeks, and some for a year). I think we're up to about 10 or 11 that have stayed here at some point in time.

Ross Kovaks has been living with us since sometime in August. The boys just love him! The first couple of weeks with a new housing "kid" is always the most difficult. The boys get totally hyper and we spend a lot of time trying to make sure they aren't too annoying. For the player it's always a time of adjustment - getting used to us, our house, rules, etc. For most of the boys that have stayed with us, this is their first time away from home for any length of time as well.

We're now getting to that point in time with Ross where he is just one of the family. The boys are excited when he comes home at night from practice but they no longer feel like they have to be on top of him 24/7. Ross knows what the boys are and are not allowed to do so he's become a help to us too. It's always nice having an extra set of hands around dinner time or around the house that knows they have to eat what's on their plates first before they can have more chips, etc.

So, anyway, back to the point of the post.... The team played four games in town last weekend and we were able to take the boys over to watch a couple of them. We had some shirts made for the boys to wear that were quite a hit. Reid "designed" his himself. The back has Ross # (24) on it and says Go Ross above the number. On the front he wanted it to say "Russell Stovers Fan" so that's what we did. Ryan's says Kovacs' Fan on the front and has 24 on the back. We put Ryan's on for the 8:00 game Saturday night and he wore it through the game, through the night and all day on Sunday. We finally MADE him change and bathe Sunday night!

I wish I would have got a picture of Ross with the boys but we never got it done - we'll have to do that next time they play in town. Here are some pics of the boys showing off their shirts with dad.