Match it

Self-made long weekends are the best. Matt took Friday off so we could party down South all weekend and it was lovely. We kicked things off in Palm Springs on Thursday night at the BNP Paribas Open -- a real, live professional tennis tournament with all the big-name professional tennis players. You know, like Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. Of course, our wallets weren't willing to pay for tickets to see the later rounds with such people participating, so we went to the ten-times-cheaper first round instead. We ended up seeing a couple great matches and really enjoyed the professional tennis tournament atmosphere.

Did you know that tennis matches require library-style silence? Well, tell it to my very excited six-month-old. We tried our best to keep his jabbering down to between games, sets and matches only, but that was far easier said than done. Luckily, Jake was still a hit with all the people around us, who kept commenting on the "cutest little future tennis player." Matt and I didn't have the heart to tell them that Jakey is destined for football instead.

Both of our matches featured American players and we cheered for them for obvious reasons. Although, in the women's match, I was really tempted to cheer for the Russian because she had a better outfit. And what do you know? The better outfit won. Ryan Harrison, a Texan, played an Italian in our second match. We immediately liked Harrison because he has the same name as one of Matt's Air Force football buddies, plus he's American. Plus he's great at tennis. He creamed the Italian and also won his second-round match that Saturday. So if you find yourself on the Tennis Channel or ESPN2 this week, cheer for Ryan Harrison.

All the cool kids are doing it.