March MAD-ness

Josh thought the boys would be old enough to make brackets for the NCAA college basketball tournament this year.  When he suggested it to them, they were all interested, so we decided to make it a family activity on Monday night March 16, since March Madness games began the very next day. I've never been interested in participating it myself, so I think the prospect of having all of his boys be just as interested and invested in it as him was exciting. That evening, I told Josh that while I worked on making dessert for Family Home Evening, he could work on finding and printing brackets for everyone. Josh tried and tried to get a bracket to print from the computer, but it just wouldn't work, and it was starting to make him irritated; he was literally feeling "March MADness"!! So....after I was done making dessert (strawberry banana milkshakes), I went over to the computer and got it to print after one minute (Josh and computers don't really get along, but I have a gentle way with them). 

I didn't know any of the college teams in the tournament this year except BYU and Boise State, and they both played in the first four (and both subsequently lost their first game), so I didn't bother making a bracket. Frankly, I get annoyed with all the college basketball games that are on T.V. It seems like every night there's a game on, and if there's a game on, then it's being watched in our home. I spend a lot of time alone in my bedroom during those games since everyone else actually likes watching them. I'm sure if I hogged the family room T.V. every night for months at a time watching 3-hour musicals, then everyone else in my family would understand my grief during basketball season (and NFL season too, for that matter!). Anyway, I literally feel a little "March MADness" too during the tournament!

Josh offered the boys an incentive to the bracket competition: the person with the most correct guesses of winners would win a treat of their choosing. Micah started off as a strong contender, picking the correct outcome in every in the Midwest division in the first 2 rounds (he was on a roll: he was also the winner in our family's grammy winner contest the month before). By the end of the second round, everyone was looking equally strong, but Jonah came out ahead at the end by guessing 2 of the top 4 teams (he originally guessed the overall winner Duke, too, but then he crossed it out and replaced it with Kentucky)! The final score (out of 65 possible was): Jonah-44, Josh-40, Ammon-37, Micah-36, and Kanyon-12 (he had a very interesting bracket--it would've looked like mine I'm sure, since he's not really into it and just made random guesses because he didn't know any of the teams, either). 

The contenders' tallied sheets up to the Final Four round.

It was fun for the boys, and produced male bonding time between Josh and his sons, so I guess it has its benefits, but I was so happy when March Madness finally came to an end with the last game on April 6!!!