The Bennison Family: AU Homecoming 2009

So I had to start out this post with a couple of pictures of the beautiful fall leaves.
(I'm a big nerd...I know :)

This tree is in our neighbor's front yard:

In downtown Anderson:

God's creation is SO amazing!!

Anyway...onto AU Homecoming!

The weekend of October 9-10 was Anderson's homecoming. This year marks the 20th anniversary for the AU soccer program, so Friday night we went to an anniversary banquet. Here's where I brag about my husband for a minute: :) The head coach (who has been around since 1989 when the program began) honored two all-decade teams--one with players from 1989-1998 and the second from 1999-2008. There were 12 or so men on each team representing the best players from that decade...Benny is on the all-decade team for 1999-2008!! Benny's really humble about this sort of thing, and didn't even tell his parents he'd won the award, so I've decided it's my job to let people know about it! Here's Benny accepting his award:

Here's the current team, watching the ceremony from upstairs on the jogging track:

The whole group of alumni players that returned for the banquet. It was great for Benny to catch up with these guys, and fun for me to meet them!

Saturday was the homecoming game against Transylvania University. I got to watch Jared climb up and slide off of this rock several times during the first half. The first couple of times he climbed up the rock, he kept saying, "I know I can do it...I know I can do it...I'm almost there." Precious, absolutely precious.

Alison (one of the college students I mentor) and me during the game.

Benny and Jared after the game:

Adam and Jared Galema, Benny and Travis Taflinger. Travis was at AU with Adam and Benny, and lives in Kokomo, IN. He works for a ministry called "Bridges" that comes alongside urban kids in Kokomo. He just happened to be at KAA with a group of kids in 2008 when we brought kids from Ruston. It was great to reconnect with him, and I can't wait to meet his wife and kiddos some day!