Life in Pocatello wasn’t easy. First, I talked Aunt Rosie into coming with us. I am so lucky that Aunt Rosie supports my children in all their endeavors. She knows what to say when any of my children are upset. She knows how to make light of a difficult situation. She knows how to keep my kids in adventure mode. She knows how to make them sing when they are upset. I am sooooo blessed to have her for my sister.
When I asked her to come, she paused and said, “I can’t think of any reason I can’t go.” So six of us packed tight in a car made for 5 and six of us slept in a room made for four. We were close but that part was easy. Love grows in small places.
The hard part was the games. Oh my gosh! The first game we started out six to nothing. I like games like that. Reanna has had that hurt tendon in her knee and wasn’t able to play as much as she normally does. When she was pulled out partly to rest her knee and partly because they combined the 3rd grade and 4th grade team so they had to let everyone play the other team took the lead. They were up by 1 point with about 30 seconds left in the game. We did score but I’m pretty sure that kind of game ages my 30 years. The second game was much better. The kind I really like. It was 34 to 6 I think, something right around there. Then we learned the second team had played the first team and when the person we talked to who had watched the game, had left the night before, the second team was winning. For some reason we could handle that second team better then the first team.
The next game, just because of how the wins losses went, was against that first team again but the outcome wasn’t as pretty. It was basically the same story but in the last 30 seconds they scored again and we didn’t so we lost to them by three.
The fourth game we played the second team again and the score was about 24 or 26 to 1. Then those two teams played each other to see who would play us in the finals. Of course we were all cheering for the second team. However, the first team won. The championship game against the second team was following the same routine as the first two games against them. We ended up down by 2 with just seconds to go and we scored to send the game into overtime. Now if the regular game aged me 30 years an overtime game aged me 100. After that weekend I’m officially 200 years old. Overtime was 3 minutes and after about the first minutes and our little player who is no bigger then a bug made a bucket. For 3rd and 4th graders it’s not unusual to go 3 minutes or 6 minutes or even an entire quarter with just a single bucket. That one bucket allowed me to breath. The same little bug got fouled and made a single free throw and then the other team scored. We were up by 1 point and time was running out. We tossed the ball in from the other end and Randy said he hates this kind of thing. This is the kind of play where the other team can steal the ball in the inbound and because our team is on the other side of the court, when they steal the ball there’s no one to stop them.
That’s exactly what happened. The ball was thrown in and the other team stole it and headed to their basket for a free lay up while all of our girls were down on the other end. Remember we are up by 1 point so this basket will put them ahead. Every now and then God just smiles on you for no apparent reason and the lay up was missed. We got the rebound and at our end another bucket and the buzzer sounded. We won by three points. Our girls are all champions! It was sooooooooo worth it.
Before we left to go to Pocatello, we made a poster to support our team. The one game we lost, we didn’t have the poster with us. We made sure it went with us to every other game and it became the good luck poster. Now I think we’ll be keeping that poster with us for every game forever.
Pocatello wasn’t easy on us. We didn’t win without working for it. But we won and we have another basketball champion among us.
We also have some fantastic basketball supporters including Aunt Rosie who is always there for my kids. Another big surprise was Squishy who has never liked attending sporting events. She really is coming a long way into being a fun, happy kid. I think she even had a good time. I think everyone had a good time.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
pocatello
Life in Pocatello seems to be going great. The first game was so close; nail biter doesn’t do it justice. With less than a minute we were down by one. Our littlest, youngest player dribbled the ball and went straight to the hoop and we were up by one. However, there was still plenty of time and all they needed was one basket. We did end up winning but holy mackerel. Could it have been closer?
When the game was over I told Reanna it was too close., I told her I wanted this morning’s game to be more like 20 to 2, or 40 to 4, I told her I don’t freak out as much when there is a bigger point spread. Reanna is a fabulous at doing things just the way she’s told. When her team had 16 points the other team got 1 point for a foul shot. It’s a funny rule in this league. Instead of shooting free throws when you’re fouled in the process of shooting, you get one point and the game goes on. When the other team got their second point, we had 18 points but Reanna knew that’s not what I wanted so she scored another bucket and came down the court gesturing that it was 20 to 2. She did a fabulous job keeping the score right where I wanted her to. The final score was 34 to 2. I was so excited because about 2 weeks ago she pulled a tendon in her knee and she hasn’t really been able to practice. She hustled and made shots and did a fabulous job. The girls are playing in a 4th grade tournament and half of our team is third graders so the fact that so far we are undefeated is pretty cool.
We drug Aunt Rosie with us and Squishy too and we only reserved one room so we’re back to 6 people, 1 room and 1 bathroom. We’re okay though. We’re doing well. We brought an air mattress and we blew it up right before bed. We let the air out first thing this morning so no one would know we’re
The bad part was I sent Randy to pick up the rental car and he decided to spend the extra $5 a day and get a fancy SUV. It’s a black Ford edge. Very nice ride but he missed the idea of good gas mileage. He told me never to send a man to pick up a rental car. He’ll always come home with the good looking one. The back windows in this car are very tinted and so when the girls took the window paint and painted the windows to say GO TIGERS! It really stands out and looks great.
We think there’s a spring fair down by the university so we’re going to head over there for awhile. Reanna’s next game is at 7pm and then another one at 9pm so it’ll be a late night. I’ll let you know how it ends up.
Xoxox
Karen
When the game was over I told Reanna it was too close., I told her I wanted this morning’s game to be more like 20 to 2, or 40 to 4, I told her I don’t freak out as much when there is a bigger point spread. Reanna is a fabulous at doing things just the way she’s told. When her team had 16 points the other team got 1 point for a foul shot. It’s a funny rule in this league. Instead of shooting free throws when you’re fouled in the process of shooting, you get one point and the game goes on. When the other team got their second point, we had 18 points but Reanna knew that’s not what I wanted so she scored another bucket and came down the court gesturing that it was 20 to 2. She did a fabulous job keeping the score right where I wanted her to. The final score was 34 to 2. I was so excited because about 2 weeks ago she pulled a tendon in her knee and she hasn’t really been able to practice. She hustled and made shots and did a fabulous job. The girls are playing in a 4th grade tournament and half of our team is third graders so the fact that so far we are undefeated is pretty cool.
We drug Aunt Rosie with us and Squishy too and we only reserved one room so we’re back to 6 people, 1 room and 1 bathroom. We’re okay though. We’re doing well. We brought an air mattress and we blew it up right before bed. We let the air out first thing this morning so no one would know we’re
The bad part was I sent Randy to pick up the rental car and he decided to spend the extra $5 a day and get a fancy SUV. It’s a black Ford edge. Very nice ride but he missed the idea of good gas mileage. He told me never to send a man to pick up a rental car. He’ll always come home with the good looking one. The back windows in this car are very tinted and so when the girls took the window paint and painted the windows to say GO TIGERS! It really stands out and looks great.
We think there’s a spring fair down by the university so we’re going to head over there for awhile. Reanna’s next game is at 7pm and then another one at 9pm so it’ll be a late night. I’ll let you know how it ends up.
Xoxox
Karen
Friday, March 28, 2008
pocatello
Pocatello, here we come.
Reanna has a basketball tournament in Pocatello starting today. So we’re off to Pocatello. About 5 minutes before we’re ready to leave, Reanna says she has a sore throat. We checked it and… yikes…. We ran her to the doctor and he said the rapid strep test was negative so we’re still off to Pocatello.
We’ll write when we get there.
Reanna has a basketball tournament in Pocatello starting today. So we’re off to Pocatello. About 5 minutes before we’re ready to leave, Reanna says she has a sore throat. We checked it and… yikes…. We ran her to the doctor and he said the rapid strep test was negative so we’re still off to Pocatello.
We’ll write when we get there.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
St. George
Oh boy, what a life we have. Could we be more blessed?
This weekend we went to St. George for a softball tournament that Raina’s high school team was playing in. Now we knew when the coach told us last year they had broken the curse and they actually won a game, that a game meant 1 game the whole season and since there were only 5 return players and a couple of them shouldn’t have returned, that our expectations shouldn’t be too high. It’s nice to have very low expectations so you can focus on fun. If you’re expecting me to say we won all our games, you weren’t listening. We lost the first four games by the mercy rule. Once a team gets way too far ahead, they call the game so it’s not too embarrassing for the loosing team. Then the team with the worst record played the team with the equally bad record. Both teams had lost 4 games by the mercy rule. It was a close game. Time ended up running out and… yes, it’s true. Raina’s team won their 2nd game in two years.
Raina played center field in the first game. First base in the second, third and forth game and third in the winning game. I think this means she’s going to letter in her freshman year in softball. I was amazed at how wonderful her team captain Alex is. She is so supportive and caring to the freshmen. She is a fabulous kid. There is one girl on the team who is a fabulous softball player. If all the girls were as good as she is, they’d never loose a game. But one girl doesn’t make a team. She’s a senior and I’m beginning to think that by the time Raina’s class are seniors East might really have a team. A lot of these girls are kids Raina had in her elementary school from kindergarten on up and kids I’ve known since then. They were at Raina’s birthday parties and I’ve watched them grow up. I feel like they are my girls.
We drove home with a van full of “my” girls in a blizzard. I’m not talking about a little snow. I’m talking about white out blizzard. Then to top it all off, I left my purse in Cedar City and didn’t realize it until we got home.
It could have been a ton worse.
Reanna had a good time. She spent a lot of quality time with her dad playing catch. We found a room when we were told there were no rooms. We didn’t break down on the way there or on the way back and since the van has close to 210,000 miles that’s saying something. Now tell me, isn’t that blessed. The kids were all great. Not a single outbreak from anyone and everyone behaved. It was a great weekend.
This weekend we went to St. George for a softball tournament that Raina’s high school team was playing in. Now we knew when the coach told us last year they had broken the curse and they actually won a game, that a game meant 1 game the whole season and since there were only 5 return players and a couple of them shouldn’t have returned, that our expectations shouldn’t be too high. It’s nice to have very low expectations so you can focus on fun. If you’re expecting me to say we won all our games, you weren’t listening. We lost the first four games by the mercy rule. Once a team gets way too far ahead, they call the game so it’s not too embarrassing for the loosing team. Then the team with the worst record played the team with the equally bad record. Both teams had lost 4 games by the mercy rule. It was a close game. Time ended up running out and… yes, it’s true. Raina’s team won their 2nd game in two years.
Raina played center field in the first game. First base in the second, third and forth game and third in the winning game. I think this means she’s going to letter in her freshman year in softball. I was amazed at how wonderful her team captain Alex is. She is so supportive and caring to the freshmen. She is a fabulous kid. There is one girl on the team who is a fabulous softball player. If all the girls were as good as she is, they’d never loose a game. But one girl doesn’t make a team. She’s a senior and I’m beginning to think that by the time Raina’s class are seniors East might really have a team. A lot of these girls are kids Raina had in her elementary school from kindergarten on up and kids I’ve known since then. They were at Raina’s birthday parties and I’ve watched them grow up. I feel like they are my girls.
We drove home with a van full of “my” girls in a blizzard. I’m not talking about a little snow. I’m talking about white out blizzard. Then to top it all off, I left my purse in Cedar City and didn’t realize it until we got home.
It could have been a ton worse.
Reanna had a good time. She spent a lot of quality time with her dad playing catch. We found a room when we were told there were no rooms. We didn’t break down on the way there or on the way back and since the van has close to 210,000 miles that’s saying something. Now tell me, isn’t that blessed. The kids were all great. Not a single outbreak from anyone and everyone behaved. It was a great weekend.
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