Hawk Stalk 2014

The boys are so excited that footy season is back.  It has been a big weekend of stalking seeing the Hawks as it's been their Community Camp weekend in Tasmania.  Last Thursday we headed to their training session, which was held the day before they played their NAB cup game against the Kangaroos.

The weather was terrible, which was great for us as it meant there was hardly anyone at the training session.  Harri was so excited to be able to buy the latest book about their Premiership last year, and got the captain Alistair Clarkson to sign it for him.  We were excited to see a photo of him signing it for him, on Hawthorn's Instagram feed later that night.

'Clarko' was so lovely to the boys and came out for a photo.  He asked Kobe what grade he was in at school and Kobe said 'I'm not in any grade! I'm in Prep!'.
 

Harri was so excited about getting the book signed, and couldn't wait for the players to finish training to see if he could get them to sign it too.

There was literally about thirty people at the training which was great, as it meant we got photos and autographs with all of the players.  Of course I was the most excited about Hodgey :)   Cyril Rioli cracked us up as he did a great photo bomb. 

The boys love Bradley Hill so it was exciting to get a photo with him.

Jarryd Roughead was friendly and asked how we were going, so I was smiling away as he signed Harri's book, while a photographer from The Examiner newspaper took a photo of us without me knowing.  Afterwards he came up to us and asked us for our names and I thought it may be a small photo in the back pages with the sport news. 

The next morning I was shocked to see this massive photo on the front page of the paper!  Lots of kids at school have been saying 'I saw you in the paper Mrs King!'.
Harri was so excited to get so many autographs in his new book. 

The next night we went to watch the NAB cup game against the Kangaroos with Mum. 

It's so fun listening to Kobe during the game.  He is so into it and knows all the players and if he isn't sure of one of them he yells out to Harri (who always has the footy record) 'who is number .....?'. 

Grandma and Jay were having a great laugh about the runners..

It was fun to to go a night game as we usually have day games at Aurora. 

 

The Hawks won easily.  We can't wait until the first game of the season back at Aurora.  

Over the weekend the boys loved to be able to hang out with the Hawks in town.  Harri said that Jack Gunston is his favourite player since Buddy left, so he was so excited to get his photo taken with him.  We told Jack that he was Harri's favourite player and then Kobe said 'and mine!' which cracked Jack up.  He told him that he calls him 'Jacko' :)

Jay has always loved Josh Gibson and he is always so great with the kids.  

Yesterday four of the players came to school as part of their Community Camp.  Hawthorn had arranged it with me a year ago through the lovely ladies who work as part of the community program.  The boys had been so excited about it and couldn't wait to see who turned up.  They were excited to see that Sam Mitchell was one of them.  Sam Grimley, Kurt Heathley and Angus Litherland also came. The boys met the at the office with me.  

The grade 3s and 4s got to have a short clinic with the players and Sam Mitchell kept cracking jokes and introduced himself as Buddy Franklin.  Most of the kids didn't know how to take it, as they knew that they had this famous football player in front of them, but those who were big Hawks fans would laugh and tell him he was Sam Mitchell.  He then introduced the other guys as different players and the kids would call them those names all the time and Sam would laugh. Sam was also being cheeky and kept pressing the announcement button at school and said 'thanks for having the Hawthorn football club in your school' over the speakers as they left.   The grade 5s and 6s were so excited when he put his face up to their classroom window.

Harri loved hanging out with the players again.  They have been very spoilt with seeing the Hawks so much over the past week.  We know how lucky we are in Tassie to be able to get up close and personal with our favourite footy players.

I have been feeling pretty good lately, but over the weekend it has hit me again how hard it is without Aaron here.  It's time like this when I really miss him, because he loved doing this kind of thing.  I'm sure Aaron would be proud of our first effort of Hawk Stalk 2014.  I just wish so much that he was here to do it with us.