All Tournament Team

We lost the district championship by a bucket. Twenty-four hours later and I still can't talk about it. We led the entire second half, and they went up by two points with eight seconds left in the game. Heartbreaking! Totally heartbreaking!

 

 

 

 

 

 

But there is a silver lining. Evan made the AAA Area 1 All Tournament Team.

 

A second place finish in area/district advances us to Regionals. I still can't believe this is even our boy scoring in double digits and leading his team to victory. Six years ago I told Evan "we don't play basketball." Whatever that means! Boy, was I wrong!

Congratulations, Hawks! You have had an excellent season. Can't wait to see you play again tomorrow at Regionals!

 

Area playoffs

I can't believe it! We won the first round of the district playoffs against Dixon. Evan had 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 blocks.

 

Edit: I am without words. I. Can't. Even. We won round 2 of the playoffs against the number one team in our district. Evan had 24 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists.

 

We are headed to the championship game! Evan's post summarizes our season in one tweet: "You said we wouldn't make it, but look who did."

 

Headed to the Playoffs

Keagan's sixth grade basketball team ended their regular season games today. The team is comprised of only sixth graders, but they play in a middle school division that includes eighth graders. We had a rough start and I was hoping to maybe win one game, two if we were lucky, but the boys surprised me and turned things around in December. After today's win, we qualified for the playoffs.

 

Round one of the playoffs is next weekend. Best of luck, Hawks!

Twenty Plus Years

Overwhelmed with school loans and living pay check to pay check seemed like an unfair way to start adulthood after four plus year of college and two degrees. So twenty years ago, Wes joined the Army and we began a way of life so foreign to me, I wondered if the learning curve would ever end. We got stationed in Germany, though, and we were traveling the world. Life was great; the nations were at peace. At that time it seemed three more years with the Military wasn't so bad. We got to the ten year mark while living in DC and I thought, we are half way to retirement. Why get out now? Only one hundred twenty months later, and we have finally reached the magical twenty year mark, and yet, we said what's three more years?

Today this happened; Wes was promoted to Chief Warrant Officer 4.

 

We celebrated with the men and women who have made this possible.

 

Here's to our "three year" stint in the military!

Church of the Soccer

It's Sunday and we are worshiping at Church of  the Soccer. Keagan is playing 3v3 indoors with a few guys from his team. They played up an age bracket and still came home as champions.

 

Evan finished his last day at a college recruiting camp for high school boys. He came home yesterday and said, "Mom, I'm the youngest one at this camp." When I asked how he knew, he told me, "At break all the other guys took their cars to Chick Fil A and got lunch; I pulled out my lunchbox. These are all full grown men. In fact, I think a couple of them had to drop their kids off at daycare before stopping at the fields." He's playing right back and loving it!

 

 

Meanwhile, I toured 12 Ave South, an area of the city I had never seen until this weekend. It's a lovely place with shopping, history, and fun restaurants. 

 

Student of the Week

This quarter the middle school started an incentive program to encourage positive behavior. Evan won it this week; his math teacher chose him.  

 

I couldn't believe Evan had won before Keagan. Evan is sarcastic, the class clown, and pushes the limit, but his teachers love him. He has regular conversations with teachers that he doesn't even have. Keagan does his homework as soon as he gets home, panics if he doesn't have his homework in the right pocket of his binder, and tries his best to be everyone's friend. So I  asked Keagan why he hadn't won yet. He said, "I don't know ... They keep pickin' the kids who just sit in their desks and don't talk."

Two Years, or 24 Months, is a Long Time

 

This happened today. Nothing says teenager like a set of braces. Keagan was actually agreeable to getting them and said they didn't hurt a bit. He even went so far as to say he highly recommended the practice because the staff "made it too easy" to put the top six brackets on. Six hours later he doesn't quite have the same opinion. He's asking for ice cream and apple sauce and wants to know when it will be okay to chew gum. This will be a long 24 months!

But I must not forget how he thanked me for paying for the braces. He thanked me because he never fails to be grateful. On any given day he will thank me for fixing dinner, for helping him study, for washing his sheets, for driving him to soccer games, for new shoes, for paying for braces. He's genuinely thankful and it just might be his most endearing personality trait.

Double, Double

We didn't win tonight's game, but Evan achieved one of his season's goals. He earned his first double, double with 17 points and 12 rebounds.

And that spin move under the goal...it gets me every time!

Edit: Double, double #2 came Wednesday night with 20 points and 15 rebounds. When he's hot, he's hot!