Basketball Tournament

Cooper's middle school basketball team decided to compete in a tournament in Beaumont this weekend. We were up and out early Saturday morning.

 They played their first game at 11:00 against Twenty Nine Palms. It was a close, exciting game, and we won by 4 points. The second game was against the Beaumont Select team at 3:00. They are huge, and very, very good. They took it to us, and we suffered a big loss. We had quite a wait until the next game at 9:00pm. The coaches had gotten a room at a nearby hotel room, so we headed there to hang out during some down time and order pizza. The parents gathered in the lobby and the kids spent time running around the hotel, swimming a bit, playing games, etc. One of the parents brought up the uniforms that had just been delivered so the coaches handed them all out. You would've thought it was Christmas morning for these boys, they were excited.

 They looked sharp in their new uniforms. They got a set for home games, a set for away games, shooting shirts, warm-up pants, and a bag. These boys have so much fun together, and it was great to be around them for the weekend. 12 & 13 year old boys are an interesting group! We were missing a few from our team, but these guys had a fun time.

 Our 9pm game against Big Bear turned out to be a huge win for us.

 We got home about 11:30pm and we were out the door at 7am to be back for a 9am game. We were up against Twenty Nine Palms again, and were down 2 players from yesterday. But the boys played hard, Coop had a great game, and we won by a much bigger margin.

 Somehow I missed pictures the rest of the day! We played the Beaumont All Star team at 11am, and won, which put us in the championship game at 1pm. It was us against the Beaumont Select team again, so we knew our chances were slim. Since they'd been in the winners bracket, this was only their 4th game of the weekend. We were on game 6 and our boys were exhausted! They fought hard, but couldn't get the win. It was a much closer game though, and our coach was so impressed with this group.

 Since it had been a really long weekend, we decided not to wait another 2 hours for the awards ceremony. We picked up our trophies and took some photos.

 James got our MVP award, he played some incredible ball this weekend!

 Zoe was able to join us on Sunday (she had rehearsals on Saturday) and cheered on the team. We stopped for some celebratory yogurt on the way home.

It's been a long, but fun weekend! Tomorrow is the first game of the official middle school season. Hope these boys can get some rest in the next 24 hours!

St. Patrick's Day!

We woke up to a beautiful, rainbow colored sky this morning...

 The kids got some breakfast and gold coins left by Lucky...

and we all went off for our day. Forgot to get pictures of anyone in green...and we had to eat our potato soup and soda bread dinner in shifts due to various activities.

Times sure are changing now that the kids are getting older, but it's still fun to hang onto a few little traditions!

Fun with the boys!

I love that Cooper has such a great group of boys to hang out with in our neighborhood. They are together almost every day after school, and do lots of sleepovers on the weekends. Some of them are on the same football team, but they are always busy playing soccer, basketball, football, using the air-soft guns, riding bikes, skateboarding, playing instruments, playing xbox...etc. They are a busy group!
Tonight was Jared's birthday, and it happens to be Pi Day. This year was a cool one, being that it was 3.1415. He had a party at his house with a Pie theme, and the boys had a great time. His mom sent us these pictures, and I just loved how it captured this group...and what is a party without some mustaches!?

(Coop, Miles, Jared, Carter)

(Cooper & Miles)

Jared is a great musician, so they've been playing a lot of music together...

Love the laughter!!

(Miles, Jared, Andy, Gabe, Cooper, Carter)

Love these boys!!

The Ballet...

We were so excited to see ABT's performance of Sleeping Beauty in Orange County today. Mimi bought us all tickets a few months ago.

Unfortunately, I came down with the flu earlier in the week, so I certainly wasn't feeling my best. But I wouldn't have wanted to miss this. The show was beautiful and the costumes were stunning! I'm so glad that ABT will be doing more performances in California.  

While we were at the show, Gramps spent the afternoon with Cooper and Jax at the beach. It was a great afternoon for everyone!

Goodbye Clippers...

Cooper's TYBL team had a great run as the Clippers. They made it to the semi-finals in playoffs. They fought hard, but just couldn't get the win. They ended up facing his Middle School Basketball coach, and some of his friends in that game.

He found out last week that he made the MSB team again this year, so he is anxious to get that season going. It's been a busy couple of weeks juggling rec basketball, middle school basketball, football, and drums. Time for this one to be off the schedule! Great job Clippers!