State Champs!

O and the Bear traveled up to Orlando on March 17th to compete in the Knights of Columbus state free throw championship.

At the regional level, Bear went first in her age group, missed two of the first three, then made 21 of the last 22. She won comfortably, and moved onto the state level.

O went last in her age group, and one of the girls before her hit 15 of her first 16. O was getting nervous and so I told her to look away and talk to someone. The girl only made 3 of her last nine, but still posted an 18, which is pretty solid. O didn't know the number to beat, but she knew she had to make quite a few. She started off a little shaky, missing all three of her warmups. Then she got hot - and ended up making 22.

We got to Orlando, and Bear went first again, and her group went first. She made 21 of the first 22, and basically put the rest of the kids out of the competition. She made 22 in the end, and became the state champ!

O went first in her group too, and made 18. Not her best, but a solid number. She was still in the lead until the final girl went. The girl was 13 for 15, and looked like she was going to win. She missed one, then another, and you could see the frustration building. She ended up making only 17, and O was a champ too!

The two girls had shot over 10,000 free throws in the 3 months leading up to the competition. They had worked very hard, and I was very proud of how they made the effort to put their best foot forward. And they were rewarded - way to go girls!

Spring Break 2012

The kids spring break just wrapped up, and what a great break it was! I'm not sure why, maybe it was just the weather being a little hotter than normal, but it felt like summer vacation.

They had 7 days off from school, plus the 4 weekend days mixed in there, so they were home for 11 days in a row. It was really nice having them at home for the extended period of time.

We did lots of things during the break. We went to the beach several times, sometimes with just the family, sometimes with friends, sometimes with Grandma and Grandpa. More than once we saw dolphins, we even saw a manatee swimming right up close to the shore! We collected lots of shells, played football, threw the woboba, built castles, you name it. The Tornado was playing with J, the son of one of my closest friends, they interacted by saying "How old are you? What's your name? Let's build a sand castle".

We went to a Miracle game with some friends, and had a lot of fun on a beautiful night. The Tornado and his best buddy each got to play a contest on the field where they roll hula hoops around the field. They both got a baseball for their efforts! O and one of her friends played Name That Tune in front of the whole stadium and each won a restaurant gift card. The Bear had a player toss her a ball, so everyone went home happy.

We rode bikes, took some walks, ate together a lot, played some board games and went to the Tornado's game together. All in all, we got to spend a lot of time together as a family, and that's what makes it a great vacation!

But how long??

On O's birthday we were talking about her going to college in just a few short years. Well, yesterday I was hugging the Tornado and asked him if he was going to live at home forever.

He responded in starts and stops, trying to explain that he was going to leave the house at the same age the Big O was going to leave the house for college. He wasn't able to get that point out clearly, so finally he just smiled, hugged me back and said "I'm gonna be here a long time!"

And really, that's all I wanted to hear :)

Future

The Bear joined a travel team this spring, after she played very well on her school team and in the rec league. The team is a group of outstanding young players, at least 10 really solid kids.

As I write this, the season has been a little up and down. The team is doing well, playing in 3 tournaments so far, winning one and coming in 2nd the other two. We've lost 4 times to the same team, and will need to get past them to win the state title.

As for Bear, she started about half the games, but her playing time has diminished in the more competitive games as the season as gone on. There are two other point guards on the team, so competition for time is pretty intense. We still have 5 tournaments, so there is time for her to earn more if she plays well. Either way, it's been a good experience for her. She knows she has to play hard all the time, she knows there are other good players out there. She's met some nice kids, and played against some really difficult teams/players from all over the southeast.

She's a driven and determined kid, and if she keeps working she'll reach the goals she has set for herself and this will be a good stepping stone for getting there.

Time is Flying

My mother emailed the other day and asked why I hadn't written since the beginning of the school year.

The short answer - I don't know why. I kept a list of things I wanted to write about, but never put them down here on the blog.

The longer answer probably lies somewhere in the answer I gave my mother - that every time I write about things happening, it kind of bums me out. It gets me a little down to think about how quickly the kids are growing, how soon they will be on their own. And really, are they going to be interested in reading this stuff? Maybe they will, maybe they won't - so that kind of bums me out as well.

Having said that, I'm going to effort, again, to document more of their and our history as it happens. I'll begin with this entry.

The Big O turned 13 last week, a real live teenager living in my house. She's a wonderful young lady, and I wrote her a little letter telling all the things that make her wonderful. She's recently been inducted to the National Junior Honor Society, Florida Young Scholars, took the ACT, won the Florida Free Throw state championship, and on a daily basis does things to serve and help others. She has typical 13 year old troubles, such as issues with friends, or forgetfulness at home, but she almost always handles those issues with toughness and grace. She is an optimist that believes she can do anything, and I believe she's right!

WOW - WHAT A WEEK!!

We are wrapping up the first week of school, and wow, what a whirlwind!

The week began with O starting school on Monday, while the rest of us took Bear up to Tampa for an appointment with the pediatric cardiologist. That was a stressful trip for us, but ended wonderfully as we got news that Bear is just fine.

We headed back home, to find the painters had begun working on the house, and the house looked like a wreck. Scraped paint, busted soffits, the outside just looked terrible. We picked up O, she told us she had a wonderful day, we grabbed a quick dinner and headed to the gym for basketball practice for Bear and the Tornado.

Tornado had his meeting with his teacher early Tuesday morning, and seemed very excited. He's got a good class of kids, and we like the teacher, so we are optimistic for the upcoming year for him. Bear had her first day of school as well, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a physical therapy appointment before school ended, then took the kids up to the gym for their fitness class.

Wednesday the Tornado was still at home, so we walked the dog, played some games and watched a movie. We spent the afternoon driving carpool around town, getting haircuts, and catching up with each other. Wednesday night the CEO went to school for elementary school orientation.

Thursday began with the Tornado starting his first day of kindergarten, and boy was he excited. he couldn't wait to get there. After dropping the kids off, I headed to PT again, thinking of the wonderful summer we had and how I'm going to miss having them around the house. I got home in time to meet with three separate roofers to discuss repairing the house. When I was done meeting with them, I went and ran at the Y, then headed to school to pick up the Tornado and watch the girls tryout for volleyball. They both did well, we will know next week if they made the team, but they both said they had fun. We ran home, grabbed a quick dinner, and I went back to school for an amazingly long 3 hour middle school orientation.

Today, after school, the gang is headed up to Tampa to watch the Rays take on King Felix, and do the tornado's favorite thing...the centerfield shuffle and dance party! Tomorrow will take Bear to the Y for what will hopefully be a more pleasant basketball game than last week, while the Tornado will possibly try to dribble between his legs again in his game. Afterwards, the Bear is going to a sleepover while a friend is coming over to help finish putting up the new basketball hoop.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by how must faster the pace picks up when everyone is in school compared to the summer. Is this a typical week? Is this what it's going to be every week of the year? If so, it's interesting to say the least!!

Goodbye Agent F

Agent F (for fish) passed away while we were on vacation. He was with us for I'm guessing about 9 months. He was the Tornado's fish, and he took care of him by feeding him every day. When we told him that Agent F had died, he just kind of took it in. A little later that day, he went over to the empty bowl, and took out the plastic coral that had been in the bowl. He took it over and laid down on the couch. He rolled to coral around in his fingers a little, staring at it. The CEO went over to him and asked him how he was feeling. His lip quivered a little bit, but he never cried. He said he missed Agent F. It was very touching, as you could tell he was just envisioning Agent F swimming in his bowl.

Later that night, at dinner, as we said grace, it came to the Tornado's turn for special intentions. He said his usual "everybody in the world" then paused a little, and looked up. Then he added, "and Agent F". It was a sweet and fitting remembrance for Agent F.