[ki6ds]

The dedication of the newest Electric Football Stadium was held tonight in Merced, California. Tyler Davis Stadium was dedicated at 5:00 this evening. You should have seen his face when he opened the box. There is still something special about a 13 year old and electric football. He really got excited when he found out that he was going to get to paint his own team. Ahh youth.

After he opened up his gift, I told him about the rest of it. Two plane tickets for the two of us to fly to Kansas and participate in the first Mid America Melee in Lyons on April 17 and 18. Tyler immediately called his mom, and told her that he was going to be able to play football this year after all!! (He has a bone disease that involves not getting enough blood to his femur just above the knee joint. It is treatable, he just can't have any strenuous physical activity for a year, i.e. no football!!)

I told him we had a lot of work to do to get ready. We had tryouts on the board tonight. We had a fastest man competition to see who the best running backs were. We rated them for speed and straightness. Then we split them up as even as we could. Tyler took the highest rated back, I took the second and so on. Then we had a best blocker contest. Man on man. He really loved that one. Again, we split the squads as evenly as possible. So now each of us has 22 man traveling roster.

We went to Michaels where I bought Tyler paint and brushes for his team. We went back to his house, and I gave him a brief painting plan. We then spent the next 3 hours painting our teams. When I left he had 11 men with the skin painted, and was working on the orange jerseys and socks. He will have the Merced Bears, which is his Pop Warner team. They will have Black helmets, Orange jerseys, black pants, Orange socks, and white shoes. They will have black numbers.

In the same time that Tyler took to paint 11 men, I got 5 done. He has much better eyesight and much steadier hands. When he gets his team painted, I will show him how to decal, and then clear coat them for him.

He asked me who we would play at the tournament. I told him there would be experienced guys there and also several first timers just like us. He asked how old, and I said from 6 to 62. He is excited and can't wait.

Guys, what a thrill I had today. This was the best time I have ever had with my grandson. We talked, made plans, he asked questions, and we had a great bonding. I asked him if this was better than video games, and he said way better grandpa, and when I asked why, he said, "Because we are doing it together. You don't play video games." He also plans on kicking my butt, grin. I took a couple of pics and when I figure out how to down load them from my new camera, I will post them. Doug