Super Bowl XLIX

January ended up being a really interesting month in our house. Just before Christmas, Bruce was approached at work and asked to accept a special assignment as one of the heads of planning for the upcoming Super Bowl. It would mean leaving his squad and graveyard shift and taking on a temporary day shift schedule. He asked me what I thought and I was all for it. I thought that having him home in the evenings would be really nice as I was still very sick. Neither of us quite knew what we were in for!

Bruce ended up working an insane amount of hours during January. In theory, he was on day shift, but in reality, he just worked. All hours. All the time. In the ten days leading up to the Superbowl, he worked his regular hours plus 65 extra. SIXTY FIVE EXTRA HOURS! It was absolute chaos at our house. At one point while we watched the Super Bowl, Beebs asked me where at Big Red's house Daddy had been sleeping. I told her he slept at our house and she said "But I never see him in his bed!" He had been leaving well before the rest of the house was awake and coming home well after all the wee ones were asleep.

But what an experience. It ended up being quite the opportunity for Bruce. He had meetings with people from the NFL and gave tours of the stadium to visiting public safety officials- chiefs and higher ups from other agencies as well as people from the FBI and CIA. And his seats for the actual game? Well, they don't actually sell tickets for where he sat, but we often joke that he had a $20,000 spot. He was right down on the field for the entire thing. The only sad part is that he never managed to cross paths with any of the celebrities that showed up for the game. I even sent him on a hunt for Jimmy Fallon, but no luck.

Bruce's view at the beginning of the game and the end

Beebs pulled in a chair at the end of the game, so she could get as close to the TV as possible and watch for Bruce in the crowd of people. We never did spot him on TV, but he was there somewhere!

The kiddos definitely struggled with him being gone so much, especially since they had a mom who was useless as well. We instituted a "Dollar Jar" for our March Hawaii trip... basically, the girls had the opportunity to earn a dollar a day if they would just cooperate and not make life anymore difficult than it already was. This little thing made all the difference during the month of January. If the girls didn't want to clean their rooms or made a fuss over having to go to bed, all I had to say was "would you like to earn your dollar?" and their attitudes changed. Bruce's dad offered to match each dollar they earned, so by the time we left for Hawaii, they had each earned a good amount of spending money to take with them and the stress of Bruce being gone so much was greatly relieved.

Overall, I am so glad that Bruce had this opportunity, but I am really happy to have him back to his normal schedule. Finally. Even once the Super Bowl stuff ended, they kept him in an administrative position to work on a few different projects, so he just went back to graves at the beginning of this month. It was a long four months of day shift and we are so glad to be back to a night shift family.