Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Press Box VIPs

Reed has moved up in baseball from the PeeWees to the Minors (kid pitch).  
Kyle isn't playing baseball this year because it's so time consuming he'd have to give up too many diving practices.

The minors teams are all named after real minors teams, so I was so excited for Reed to have a silly name like the Yard Goats or the Iron Pigs.  

Wouldn't you know it, Reed gets the most boring team name ever.  The Bulls.  
(At least Bull Durham is a movie, but still, such a let down.)


Reed's team name may be lame, but he's got the best announcer in the league.


After their championship basketball game, but before the team party, JR and I took our spots in the press box. 

 JR does a great job announcing, but my ability to keep up with the balls and strikes is definitely lacking.  

JR gets aggravated with my lack of baseball knowledge, but at least I'm good at suggesting which songs he should play next during the inning breaks.

I'm not sure we could look more alike if we tried. 

And as for Reed's game, they lost, but Reed had an unassisted double play on 3rd base. 

Monday, February 26, 2018

Diving in Dallas

So while we were basketballing Granny Sherry and Kyle were in Dallas diving.

They left after lunch on Friday, drove up and got there in time for some dinner and some warm up dives.

It was an early 6:30 am warm up start for them on Saturday. 

Granny was sending me updates on Kyle's scores while Reed was playing.

In turn, I would scream up the scores to my parents and Gary (and call Jason who was running the clock/scoreboard) during time-outs.

And for a visual, I was sitting pretty much where I'm standing (I made those posters, of course) and you can see my parents in black and Gary walking up to them on the right hand side.  

By the time the game started all those seats had filled up...so the whole section knew Kyle was diving and doing a good job.


Kyle is now diving in the 10-12 age group and got 4th place (out of 8 kids).  

He said he was 3rd going in to his last dive and he thinks one of the judges scored him low so the kid he was coaching could pass him up.  Looking at the score sheets, he might be right.  
He got 5.5 and 6's from the other judges and that one gave him a 4.  Hummmm....

He did amazing on his back dive tuck and inward dives (I so wish I could have seen him!) scoring between 6.0-7.0 from every judge on those! 

Kyle was so happy with his diving and we were so proud of him.

I'm so thankful I had Sherry to take him this weekend so all the kids in the family were able to do the things they wanted too.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

A Game and a Party

I feel like we haven't stopped to sit down since Friday.

We'll start with the big championship basketball game.

It was at our school district's colosseum, which made it really special for the boys.  They played at 8:15 Saturday morning which was good since all the boys had baseball games in the afternoon, but a very early start.


Reed's team played a good defensive game, but bless their hearts, not one basket went in for the entire first half!


They had 5 points of freethrows and that was it.  Everything our kids shot bounced off the rim and every wild toss the other team threw would go in.  The score was 17-5 at half.



They came back after the half like a different team, going in to the 4th quarter they had cut their lead by 7 and it was  21-14. 

 
In the 4th quarter Reed and the other four boys tied up the game.
It was so exciting and fun to watch!


Our guys wound up loosing by 1 point. 30-29,  It came down to the wire, and I thought for a second that they might even win.  


I think it was the easiest loss ever.  The comeback from being 14 points down made them feel like they won anyway.  Plus they got a runner up trophy, and trophys always help. 



Reed had a big fan club to cheer him on.



Granny Sherry was beside herself that she had to miss the game, but she was in Dallas with Kyle for his diving meet (another post). She was sending me Kyle's diving scores while I was sending her basketball scores. Talk about both of us wanting to be in two places at once! 


Reed's coaches also hired a "real" basketball coach to help them out.  Coach G was able to come to the game too (he's not allowed to coach them at the games since he's not a dad) and you can see Reed was so happy he was there.


We went from basketball to baseball (another post) and then had the basketball team party at our house.  People started showing up at 3:30 and the last guests left at 11:00, so I'd say it was successful.


Here's 7 of the 10 that we could round up for a picture.


There was street football, basketball, Youtube video making starring the hamsters, and of course, swimming in February for the die hard crazies. 



Thursday, February 22, 2018

5 is the Magic Number

I haven't written much this week because I've been going to basketball games.
  
Reed's team won tonight (36-22) which means they are going to the championship game (silver bracket) on Saturday.



These poor kids have played every night this week.  5 games in playoffs, 4 this week! 



The way the league plays is that each kid plays for a set amount of time for the first 3 quarters. In the 4th quarter you can play whoever you want.  (So in theory you'd play your best 5 players).

Their little group of 5 starters went out and prayed together right before the 4th quarter started tonight.  So sweet.

Aunt Traci came to the game on Monday night and took some great pictures, the ones that aren't so great are the ones I tried to take Tuesday.

You can see how hard he plays.  It's just so fun to watch. 


Looking for the ball


Trying to grab the ball away



He lands on the floor a lot when those big kids sling him down.  


One of his famous steals.


Going for a loose ball


Ready for the throw in

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

The Face

The face you get when you ask "is this better than eating lunch at school?" when you pick the kids up and take them to lunch before the orthodontist.



The faces you get when they beg to have their picture made with their froyo so they can "send it to JR".

FYI, I wouldn't let them send it to JR, nor will JR see this since he doesn't read my blog. 

Monday, February 19, 2018

Much Smaller than a Basketball

Reed played in 2 different tennis tournaments this weekend.

The first tournament he won two matches and lost one.
And he sure did look fancy.  (We finally got him some "proper shoes".)














 Then he played with his junior tennis team on Sunday.
Reed won both his singles and his doubles matches against the first team they played.


He forgot his sunglasses so he wound up wearing Jason's. 





He had never played a doubles match in a tournament (and rarely at practice), but he and his partner, Jimmy, did great.







 Then Reed played doubles with Charlie against a different team.
They lost the match, but won some games.


 Switching sides after a win





 Reed talking strategy. 

 He was happy with how he played on Sunday, and Granny Sherry and I are very proud of our personal growth by not screaming and cheering like we do at baseball and basketball.  

Although Jason still has to shush us every now and again. 

Sunday, February 18, 2018

One Less Ball

Kyle's basketball team wrapped up their season on Saturday.
They were a good little team...actually too good for their own good.

They wound up as the last seed in the  "gold bracket" for playoffs.

It's really hard to beat a team when they've got kids taller than JR.

Kyle was drafted on to a team where the coach didn't know him.  He had to prove himself the entire time, and by the middle of the season they had him guarding the point guard.


I was able to get some good video on Saturday of just what a defensive guy he is.

Kyle was proud of his basketball season, and was happy to celebrate it at Fudruckers.


Big Gary and Little Gary

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Valentine Winners

For the 2nd year in a row I was in charge of the Valentine parties for the entire grade.  
(Which made it super easy since I already knew how to do it.) 

I made each class (6 classes) an "estimation vase".  There were 57 butter-mints, and coincidentally, Kyle and Reed both guessed 56.  Hummmm...the vases had sat in our house for about a week.  


So Kyle and Reed did not come home with the vase, as I made them both give them to the person who had the next best guess.


They were able to legitimately win one of the hats and Mr. T necklaces I made in super exciting games of Valentine Bingo and speed heart puzzle putting together. 






The kids got candy for Valentines.


I got 2 dozen roses...oh yeah, and a new car (a suburban). 


And Jason got salt.  (Yes, he was happy to get salt.)