Oh, you didn’t know that Thorin Oakenshield cares about football? Well, obviously, he does! My team won Superbowl 50!!! Still riding such a high!

Thorin and I are definitely celebrating. Yeah, so I may have alluded once or twice to the fact that I am a loyal Denver Broncos fan… both my parents were born and raised in Colorado, and one of my earliest memories of spending time with my Dad involves us sitting on the couch together, watching the Broncos during the Elway era, and me finally asking Dad, after years of vague confusion, what they always meant by first down, second down, third down, and so on. Dad looked baffled that his little football buddy, despite enthusiastic yelling and cheering, had evidently been watching football with him all her life, yet never really grasped the basic rules of the game!

Well, that was a long time ago, and now I’m at least decently familiar with the various rules and strategies involved, and I never miss a Broncos game if I can help it. When they recruited Peyton Manning four years ago, I was overjoyed. I’d always respected Manning as an amazing athlete and strategist, and feared him whenever the Broncos had to face the Colts. I was astonished when the Colts let him go, but never imagined that he’d sign with Denver and suddenly be MY quarterback. It’s pretty likely that he’ll retire now, and take his place in the NFL Hall of Fame, and as much as I’ll miss seeing him every Sunday during football season, I think it’s the right course of action… go out riding a crest of glory! (Or don’t… I’ll be cheering either way!)

It’s always been a bit of a rollercoaster, being a Denver fan. Denver has been to the Super Bowl 8 times, and they generally love to get there, then go down in flames. Losing scores with margins as high as 55-10 is the general rule, and even with Peyton Manning at the helm, our last Super Bowl outing ended with a score of 43-8. This season, we had an absolutely amazing defense, but our offense struggled all season, only managing to eek out wins because the defense simultaneously held off the other team and made a lot of scores of their own. As we entered the AFC championship game against the Patriots, I told Dad that really, our only hope of winning was that it was probably about time for us to make another devastating Super Bowl appearance…. LOL!

And of course, it didn’t look like ANYBODY was going to be able to stop the Panthers this season, so as our family gathered yesterday afternoon with our chile con queso and plenty of alcohol on hand to drown our sorrows, we all agreed that if the predictions were true (almost everyone who was anyone heavily favored the Panthers and the official prediction was a Panthers win by a margin of 10), we’d actually count that as a victory! Any scenario where the Broncos at least showed up and stayed within 10 points would be a suitable outcome for us! LOL

OK, so I’ll stop boring everyone with my football rejoicing now. I’ll just say that I was as astonished as everyone else when we led the game the entire time, and won with a final score of 24-10! It’s a wonderful day!