CHAMPIONS!

You are on the official site of Charlestown Winter Carnival 2010's Broom Hockey Tournament Winners!

Yes, The Zambonies, after 8 years of playing have finally taken the coveted trophy home, and we all have our fingers, bones, joints, and ligaments intact!

We started off lucky having our 9 am game pushed back to a more Zambonie-friendly 11am time slot, which allowed us all to walk up at a leisurely pace before heading to the ice.

Did that make my friends from college on time?

Absolutely not, and I should have known. It has always been my responsibility to get them up and out the door. We may never have made it anywhere if I wasn't tapping my shoe, checking the clock, reminding everybody that we would have to PAY if we showed up after midnight or 1am, whenever ladies stopped getting in free.

Now it was me, hollering that we have to leave in 15 minutes, that no one will be able to see their hair underneath the cute hats of mine their going to wear, shoving kids in snow suits and boots, and trying desperately to squash the urge to leave them all because they don't know where they're going.

It would just be mean of me to have them try to get around the country by themselves. Take a left at the one yield sign where Charlestown ends doesn't work.

They can't even tell where Charlestown begins.

When Daisy and Co. came up for my wedding, I told her there would be an abandoned building on the left and to take the right onto Rte 12.

I received a very scared phone call saying they they had passed the barn that had been blown over. They thought they had gone to far, and EVERY BUILDING was abandoned here.

We showed up 15 minutes late, halfway through the first game, despite my best efforts.

Didn't matter anyway because we were up 3 to nothing.

I brought the sleds, and the conditions were icy, which means fast and furious. There were horse rides and a bonfire. It was smaller than in years past, but just the perfect size where you could socialize happily with everybody.

I didn't play. Not only did I not play, I stayed off the ice. The first time I stepped on the ice it was before our second game and I was determined to get a team picture. I was waving and yelling and nobody was paying attention.

Nobody was paying attention until I got on the good ice, took one step and fell flat.

Then everybody paid attention. The whole ice fell silent. People rushed to me like I may have shattered.

I didn't realize exactly how loved I was until I took that fall, and then I thought, "HA! Now, next time you'll pay attention so I can get my picture. Hehe."

I have such a great group of friends. I did end up getting a group shot after the game.

That first dinger didn't stop me from a celebration hop onto the ice during the championship game though when Jon got the winning goal with 2 minutes left off an assist fr

om Brynn. I was leaping, hollering, and feeling good from some mango margaritas when I decided to launch out and hug my husband the broom hockey hero.

To bad I missed and ended up falling on my knees again. Oopsy.

After that it was back to the house to the best group of house guests EVER. I wouldn't have even known they were there if I didn't keep tracking them down and forcing them to hang out with me. The numbers worked out perfect. Each family was able to get a room to themselves and share the second floor bathroom.

One family wasn't able to make it at the last minute due to car trouble, but another couple came up, claiming their spot.

It was so much fun having all of us together with out families after all these years as friends.

We met in 2001 at The College of New rochelle less than a month before

the towers got hit. We bonded all through college, through clubbing, dating, marriages, babies, failures, successes, near fatal

diseases, divorces, baptisms, major world disasters. You name it, we've done it, and we've been through it together.

I started to say I was so lucky to have them as my "framily" (friends that are family), but these girls can be even better than family.

I had the whole group here all weekend and not one entered passed the entrance hall in their muddy boots. One family member came later Sunday and trekked more mud through the whole house in two minutes than the whole group did through their stay.

How could I not love them?!

I'm a very lucky girl.

To celebrate the success we took a trip to Claremont's Super Walmart, which NH has but NYC does not, and spent a serious two hours checking out the goods.

Lexi got spoiled by her adoptive big sister Laurette with hair supplies and a long lesson on how to straighten and care for her beautiful hair. We all just want her to know she is beautiful inside and out.

We made it through the weekend alive and intact. The house guests had all left, and I was dreaming about Jon coming home from his basketball game to take over the kids we had here playing (5 of them including X) so I could nap when the door opens and in walks my father, sports training bag and crutches in hand.

The sports training bag was our go-to athletic emergency bag. It contains wraps, air casts, and a cryo-cuff, a special contraption that wraps an ankle or knee and then fills with ice to properly ice it.

Behind him is Jon, manuevering very slowly.

"What is this?" I stammered, confused. "Did you two plan to show up together? What's going on?" I asked.

"Well," my dad said, making that face, the face that says something has happened I don't know about, "It was kind of planned."

UGH.

"I tore my achilles playing basketball." Jon said, sheepishly.

"AAUGHGHGHGAAUUGHGHGHGH!!! M****F******, D*****, ****, ***

**!We just had to go back to being the family that just can't get a break!" my mind screamed. I took a breath. I tried to hide how pissed I was.

I'm finally healthy. I finally have the capacity to do things we enjoy together as a family. My lungs are already decreasing in function, and J gets hurt.

I'm having visions of our beautiful family weekend in NYC go up in flames in my head. Cancel the carriage ride through central park that I've been wanting to take since I was a little girl. Cancel the globetrotters game. Cancel the central park zoo. Cancel

the Waldorf where we can stay because my mom is a rock star big wig that gets swank hotels.

Jon needs surgery.

Oh how quickly things change, but we are still champions!

Luckily, I have a great friend who also happens to be an orthopedic surgeon.