Family Time

Our second day at "home" was designated a family day. We began on the flight pad at the hospital visiting Uncle Kevin. We left the hospital and fifteen minutes later he got his first call of the day. 

 

Then we headed to Mineola to sit on the back porch drinking Big Red, play a backyard baseball game, and shoot hoops with the cousins. And no trip is complete without a round of Hunger Games. 

 

 

We finished our day with dinner in Fort Worth at the stockyards. We are falling asleep listening to the sound of drag races with pick up trucks and loud mufflers. 

 

I think I prefer falling asleep to the East Texas coyotes. 

Texas Time

It's June. It can only mean one thing. It's time to make the treck to Texas. No trip home is complete without cousins, baseball, and swimming. The first 24 hours were spent teaching Evan the game of softball, watching World Series baseball, and endless games of sharks and minnows in the pool. 

 

 

 

Love/Hate Relationship

Keagan ran his last 5K of the summer this week, and through this race series, he had developed a love and a hate for running. He dreads race day but feels so accomplished when he finishes a race. He hates standing on the starting line knowing what lies ahead but loves getting to run the last lap on the track. I've told him running just might not be his "thing" because there is so much prayer and wishes for extreme weather on race day and so much disappointment when the races are never cancelled. However, he's told me over and over he wants to run track next spring and wants to run the 4x100 or the 200. When I explain that includes conditioning and, believe it, or not, running long distances, he acts like that's no big deal. 

I.Dont.Get.Him.

Last night, he had the worst race time. On the starting line, he told me he already felt stomach cramps. After the race, he told me he thought he would throw up at the first mile. He was heaving at the end of the race even though he trotted most of the circuit. He kicked hard the last 200 meters, but the last 25 meters he just couldn't do it any more. To add insult to injury, he got beaten by his middle-aged, middle school principal. 

 

Today he wants to make sure I don't miss the track team parent meeting next spring. 

Oh.Lord.Help.Me.

Family Fun Day

Because we don't have enough soccer in our lives already, we spent our one free Saturday night watching soccer. We watched the Nashville Soccer U23 team play Memphis City at Vandy. 

 

It was the perfect night to be outside and even better to see people we have met in various circles play professionally.

 

 The couple sitting in front of us was there to watch their son play. He looked to be 17 and an absolute nervous wreck. His team lost, but the parents took hundreds of pics and cheered like they were winning the whole game. Nashville won by a huge margin and must have played their entire roster that game. The last games in the season all take place when we are busy, so we were all a bit disappointed that we must wait until next year to see them play again. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this fall MLS chooses Nashville as their next expansion city!

Dad's Day

 

When General Mattis made this famous quote a few months ago, Wes made the comment it would be the best quote to put on a t-shirt. A few weeks ago I actually found it on Amazon and knew it would make the perfect Father's Day gift. When it arrived in the mail, though, Keagan refused to have anything to do with it. He thought the phrase "keep others awake at night" was in reference to Wes's snoring. It took a lot of convincement on my part to have him believe otherwise. 

Family Fun Day

Thursday was my first official day of summer; Wes had the day off. We decided late last night we would hit the road and find something to do in the great outdoors. This morning the boys were outraged that we woke them up at 0900. They were even madder to read the GPS and find our destination was 90 minutes away. Then they saw this.

 

The boys outlook quickly changed and they even had smiles. They were off running the wooded trail in no time looking for the first waterfall. 

 

They found it but not before they heard it.

 

At this point, I thought we had seen the best part. I was content with what we had seen and we took the obligatory selfie.

 

But little did we know. The best waterfall was just ahead of us. 

 

Beautiful cannot even begin to describe the view.

We hiked down to the base of the fall and splashed in the shallow creek beds. 

What a great day trip and great way to kick off summer! One more local state park remains on my bucket list. 

Time to Say Good-bye

I've never been happier to say good-bye to any sport season or team. I think we won only one game all season and that was to a team of fifth graders. I also think we accumulated more techs from the coaches than should be allowed. I'm still not quite sure who was rostered on our team because so many quit, returned, and then didn't show at games. I'm certain we went the entire season without one viable play. For many reasons it was rough.

 

 

My boy is still number one in my book, but he is closing his chapter in travel basketball with this organization.