Gary Family Top 10 Stories for 2011 (Part 1)

Hello everyone

Tonight, the four of us went to dinner. It’s our annual tradition to go to dinner on or around the end of the year to celebrate all of the accomplishments of the year and to reflect on all we’ve done during the previous 12 months.

As I wrote earlier this week, 2011 has been a challenging year…in a lot of ways. But, on the plus side, there have been many memorable events, activities and memories from 2011 to celebrate. As is my annual tradition, I will post OUR Top 10 stories from the year.

I’ll do half tonight/half tomorrow night.

So…#10s through 6…here goes:

Gary Family Top 10 Stories for 2011 (Part 1)
10. Our Year in Sports - Our Favorite Teams…Average…just not good enough

Each year, we try to go to a number of sporting events. We try to support our favorite teams. The year tipped off for us with the Memphis at Tennessee Vols basketball game in January and concluded with me and Paul going to see the Titans play Cincy in November.

In between, we saw three MLB games - Cardinals at Braves, Braves at Mets, Marlins at Braves. The trip to Citi Field was amazing. Wonderful view, great fans and an awesome view of the city. Oh, and the Braves won that night, too.

 

Alas, there weren’t enough wins for the Braves. Even though we saw them win three times this year, they needed about two more in order to hold on to their playoff spot. We watched, in horror, as the Braves let a 10 ½ game lead slip away.

That pretty much summed up the year for all our favorite teams…

Check out the Titans. 8 wins. 7 losses. Middle of the Road. Average. Memphis Tigers. One and done in the NC2A tourney. Vols. Don’t ask.

That’s about how the year went for our teams in 2011.

9. (Auto)Tuning into the Mash-ups  - For some reason, we really get a kick out of autotunes, mashups and (some) raps.

Back in the summer, for the first time, we heard the DJ Steve Porter LeBron Mash-up (“Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day”). We couldn’t get enough of that. We still can’t! Holly says she pretty much knows it line-by-line now (Next, she’ll be taking her talent to South Beach). I’ll paste the link, here, for your enjoyment!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_LUnTQHV4c

Another Steve Porter creation that we really enjoyed this year was the one about the NFL offseason:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBmHSKKHSsM

And Fox did a great MLB baseball promo, with Tim McCarter’s voice autotuned. The others don’t like it as much as I do but I find it hilarious:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlx258D7OJY

I could go on and on. But, you get the idea. We spent so much time talking about them and laughing at them in 2011, the mashups HAD to make our Top 10 list for 2011.

8. April Storms Bring Autumn Roofs - In my blog earlier this week, I talked about how the spring storms ravaged the Southeast in general (and East Tennessee in particular). We know the storms inflicted tremendous pain - with numerous injuries and several fatalities throughout the region.

There was also tremendous property damage caused by tornadoes, straight line wind and horrific hail. Our house took a pretty strong pounding and after the insurance experts inspected our place, they concluded our roof was greatly damaged and it needed to be replaced.

Starting with the storms in late April, this story extended across three seasons. We weren’t fully done with the renovations until late September.

So, for us, there really was a silver lining in all the dark storm clouds.

7. Tennessee Volunteers - Earlier in the fall, I wrote about our various community service activities. This year, as in past years, we were very active with our volunteer work - at church, in the local school, at Lisa’s work and in our community. It’s an important part of our lives and definitely needs to be included in our 2011 Top 10.

6. Lisa’s Work Accomplishments - Lisa had a great year at work. I’m so proud of all she accomplished in 2011. She has had some wonderful opportunities to serve on committees, to teach an online course, to propose a new course she’d like to teach and to touch literally hundreds of students. She really puts a great emphasis on helping her students and being there for them. I think she really serves as a mentor and role model - especially to the young ladies in her classes.

I’m very proud of all she does.

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So…that’s the first half of our top ten. Tomorrow night, I’ll post the other half as 2011 winds down and we continue to celebrate the high points of this year. Enjoy!

JG

Originally posted 12/29/2011