One Season Left of High School Soccer

This season of high school soccer for Nikki flew by!  With 12 graduating seniors last year, nobody expected they'd do very well this year.  They ended up not making into CIF playoffs, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well they played.  And I think next year they should be fine as well.  It's hard to believe next year will be her final year playing high school soccer.  I am so proud of her for playing all four years.  It's been a struggle trying to balance club and high school.  And unfortunately her coaches didn't make it easy on her.  Then you throw in the fact that she's also got to find time to be a student, and well let's just say I'm very proud of her for sticking it out.  Their last game of the season will be tomorrow.  I hope they end it on a high note.  But they're playing the first place team, and their coach can't be on the bench for receiving a red card in the last game.  Hmm, oh well hopefully it'll be good memories anyway.

Another volleyball weekend

So excited to get back to watching Ali play volleyball.  She's playing on the 13's team for a second season.  Last year she could've played on the 12's team, but they decided to play her up.  It was a tough beginning being that she was the only one that had never played before.  But as the season wore on, she gained some ground.  At this year's tryouts, she was hoping to stay with her former teammates and play on the 14's team.  Turns out the coaches thought it would be better for her (or them) to keep her on the 13's team for another year.  I think overall it was a good call since they'd switched her to be a setter. She is the only setter on the team and will get a lot of play time to develop.  And her team is having a great time together.

This group has about 5-6 girls that have never played club volleyball, and yet they are doing great as a team.  They are all supportive of each other and are learning so quickly.  Plus I know how quickly these days are going to go.

Nikki made Captain!

Today was Nikki's first day of tryouts for high school soccer.  They planned to have the girls tryout Monday through Thursday and announce the teams on Friday.  Last night Nikki sent the coach an email letting him know that she'd have to leave early since her club practices conflict and right now club has priority.  He said that was fine and that he needed her to stay after practice today.  We joked and said he wants to make her captain.  She laughed and said that maybe it was captain of the JV team. Which wouldn't be so bad, except she was pulled up to Varsity mid way through the season last year so she was really hoping to play Varsity this year.

She called me after tryouts today to let me know she had to make a stop before heading home.  I asked her what the coach had talked to her about.  She said he'd pulled four girls and asked them if they wanted to be captains.  Weird that he asked, right?  Well the reason being is that two are sophomores, Nikki is a junior and the last girl is a senior.  He told them he understood if it put them in an awkward position and if they didn't want to do it to let him know.  Otherwise he was going to make the announcement tomorrow.   Nikki had second thoughts for all of the reasons the coach had articulated.  But after talking to her, she decided that other people's opinion of her shouldn't stop her from doing something that will be good for her for many reasons.  Many of those reasons, I don't even think she's aware of.  But I can say that I am so excited for her and proud of her!  I can't wait to see what the season has in store!

This is a photo from her club season at a tournament over the summer.

This rather blurry shot was from last year's high school season after she'd gotten pulled up.

Fun Stuff at Polo Practice

Last night was the night we were set to host dinner for Stephen's water polo team up in Santa Clara.  When I got a text from him around 5:30, I thought it was going to be a question about the dinner.  Turns out he was texting to let me know his front tooth had been knocked out at practice.  No it's not the first time and no it probably won't be the last time.  My initial reaction was frustration that he probably wasn't wearing his mouthguard.  I finally got him to call me and he said he was wearing his mouthguard, but that his teammate had elbowed him just right.  He said his reaction was to spit his mouthguard out when it happened.  Which then caused his tooth to sink to the bottom of the pool.  I asked him what his coach said.  He said he told him to put some goggles on and find the tooth.  Here's an old photo of Stephen without his tooth when he was still wearing a flipper retainer instead of the bridge.

He said the real bummer is that the dentist up there can't see him until Tuesday.  So he gets to go the whole weekend looking like the photo above.  I told him to get a flipper retainer made for these kind of emergencies but he hated the flipper so much that he says he'd rather deal with the toothless smile.  My only concern is that his teeth will shift.  But what am I to do at this point, he's a man now and has to make these decisions.  Oh the joys.

Nikki's Soccer Summer

Nikki has had a summer FULL of soccer.  Thankfully her coach allowed us to still enjoy our trips we had planned and let us work around tournaments.  Her team has picked up a few girls and is coming along nicely.  We played in some higher level tournaments at the top levels and did very well.  Unfortunately I've really stopped taking my camera to games. Being the manager of the team, I have enough stuff I have to tote to each game.  Between my binder to check the girls in before games, the canopy and water bottles, the last thing I want to carry is my heavy camera.  Plus we have another dad on the team that takes great photos of the girls.

It was so great to see the girls come together a little bit more at each tournament. They made it to quarter finals, then semi finals, then lost in the final game at the last tournament.  They have another one this weekend.  Hopefully they will take it!  But either way, I'm proud of the hard work they are putting in and glad to see it's paying off.

Junior Olympics 2013

This was Stephen's last year to play in JO's.  Their club always has a hard time retaining an 18's team.  I think mainly because some quit playing after their last high school season, especially if they aren't going to play in college.  This year we had a good group of boys.  We had several that committed to play division 1 in college, so they all wanted to finish out their last year.  The training was tough because some had college practices to go to, others had jobs.  In our case, it was the first summer we were able to take family vacations because Stephen didn't have the high school practices.  So he didn't miss too much, but  he did get to go fishing in Mammoth with Bill and to Havasu for Nikki's birthday.

I think when JO's rolled around at the end of July, none of us were too sure how the team would come together.  They'd not done very well in the earlier tournaments.  But just like last year, they stepped it up and came together right when they needed to.  We've had such a great run with Foothill Club, meeting some great families, great boys and great coaches.  I hope Stephen has as good of a time in college as he's had in high school.

Fifth place overall finish!  Last year they took 4th and this year 5th, that's higher than any other 18's team has ever gotten.  And they did it two years in a row.  Great job boys!!

More July Fun!

So we had 4th of July festivities here on Thursday.  Sunday we were packed up and left for Nikki's Lake Havasu celebration.  For her 16th birthday, she wanted to invite a group of friends and head out to the river.  Bill and I ended up entertaining 12 kids for five days!  We had a great time and I think they did too.  And the best part is that we really got it all in:

Group photo

I just liked this shot of Stephen

Ali & Grace cliff jumping

Birthday girl, Cassie & Jenny

Nikki playing Charlie's Angels before rope swinging

Stephen on the rope swing

Bill getting some knee boarding in

Dinner at Golden Horseshoe

Got her!

Final day

Yes most of the last day was spent with the kids flying through the air and the raft flipping over.  They wanted to be sure they didn't miss out on anything.  So Bill obliged them and made sure they all got the ride they desired.  It made for some great pictures!  In the five days we were here, I took just over 1000 photos!  I guess we can't say her birthday wasn't well documented.  So we got home late Wednesday. Thursday morning, Nikki went and took her driver's license test:

She got the scary redhead that has failed several of her friends.  But thankfully, she charmed her and drove safely and got licensed!!  That afternoon, we hoped on a plane and headed up to Davis, CA for a soccer tournament. Yep that how our summer has gone.  

We caught a flight out Sunday evening after they didn't move on to the finals since I had another flight right back up there on Wednesday for Stephen's orientation.  He and I were up there until Friday.  It was a ton of information for parents and a chance to socialize for students.  He had a great time, stayed up late, and met lots of  new people.  I didn't see him much, but I enjoyed myself and met a lot of parents.  Friday evening, he flew home while I flew to San Diego for another soccer tournament for Nikki.  Bill had driven down that afternoon to check the team in for me, and picked me up at the airport.  I was especially thankful since my flight was delayed an hour.  And with that being the second flight that was delayed an hour, I was kind of done with flying.  Thankfully I don't have to fly again until August  20th when Stephen will move up to Santa Clara.  Plus that about winds down the part of our summer that had my head spinning.

Catching Up

Summer has been a whirlwind.  I've been gone for most of it.  Luckily the kids events all alternated so I was able to get to everything even if it meant not being home much of the summer.  In fact, I just realized I haven't gone in our pool once all summer.  That will have to be remedied soon.

But I should go back to the beginning of the summer...

Our summer started off with a trip to Scottsdale.  It was two days after Ali got out of school.  Just the girls and I went.  Bill and Stephen were going to use that week to go to Alaska, but it didn't work out for them to go.  It was a trip we'd won at St. Lucy's BASH with the intention of it being a "girls" trip.  I had told the girls they could bring friends and we'd hang at the pool.  Or we could go alone and have a spa day and shopping.  They both opted to go with just us.  We had a great time!

Two weeks later,  Ali had her last volleyball tournament in Phoenix.  It's called the Festival and it's meant to celebrate girls in sports.  So they had a big opening ceremony and all of the girls stayed in rooms together.  I took Ali by myself so I had a room by myself all week.  Kinda weird, but it was a fun week.  I got to know a lot of the parents better and Ali had a great time.

That was June.  I'll start on July soon.  First I've got to run outside and check on our puppies that we're fostering.  They are adorable and love running in the grass.

Proud Parent Day

Yesterday was the Sierra League Swim Championships at Mt. Sac.  Stephen had qualified for both the 200 free and the 500 free.  He already had pretty good CIF consideration times and was confident he'd make it there for both events.  So he wasn't that worried about his times, but of course wanted to do well.

His first event was the 200 free.  He came into the event seeded 4th with a time of 1:49.62.  He finished   in 4th with a time of 1:47.91.  So he was happy with his improvement.

Then later came the 500 free.  He went into this one seeded 2nd with a time of 4:55.19.  That was his best time ever with a 2.34 second improvement at prelims.  So he went into this one just hoping to be able to repeat this time.  He started out the first few laps out in front.  With 5 laps to go the 1st seed made a push and started to catch him.  With 3 laps to go, they were neck and neck.  At that point, the entire crowd was on their feet screaming.  Now let me tell you, the 500 free is a long event that most people use as a break time and don't pay much attention to.  It's 20 laps and usually there is a few body lengths between swimmers.  So the fact that this was such a close race for so many laps, made for a really exciting race.  Stephen said he saw Dylan pull ahead after the final turn and just said, "No way, this is not gonna happen".  He swam like he's never swam before and came in 1st place!  His time was 4:47.21, which was a full 2 seconds under the automatic CIF time.  It was such a crazy excitement.  Bill and I both teared up.  The emotions ranged from pride, to just sheer happiness for Stephen.  He's worked so hard these four years of high school.  So it was just awesome to see him do so well.  Their coach was amazed too.  Stephen is not a swimmer, he's a water polo player that swims because it was mandatory his freshman & sophomore year for water polo players.  In fact at premlims I was running late and had to watch his race from outside the gates.  I stood next to some students from the college.  They were talking to each other commenting on what a horrible stroke the kid in lane four had.  Then one of the girls said, "Yeah it's bad, but he won".  Well that was Stephen.  As his coach and my dad both said after that race, it was won with all heart.

He said he's never had so many people come up and congratulate him afterward.  When he passed by the stands afterward to go cool down, everyone applauded and cheered for him.  It was the perfect way to end his swimming career!

This is Stephen on the left and Corey on the right.  They are two of the three seniors on the swim team and are the two captains this year.  They have had a great time, leading the boys to a first place finish with a team they weren't sure was going to win league this year.  Turns out they had some amazing freshman and a great group of boys.  I think these memories will be with them for the rest of their lives, I know I won't ever forget that last race!

Senior day for swim

Last week marked the last home meet for swim.  The last home meet/game of the year always is "senior day".  The coaches announce each of the seniors and say where they are going to go for college.  The parents are also announced and generally the boys give the moms a bouquet of flowers.

Of course the main question everyone wants to know is if you are sad.  I am sad to see high school coming to an end and I'm going to miss the crazy schedule, but I am so excited for Stephen.  How can I not be excited for him?  He's worked so hard these past four years and it has payed off exactly as we'd hoped.  He got into the program he wanted and gets to continue to play water polo at the highest level.

That's not to say I don't have momentary times of "freak out".  It usually happens when I see him hanging out with his sisters or we're out having a great meal.  I will definitely miss him like crazy and be so excited for him to come home.  I also am holding out hope that he'll call often.  But my overall emotion is excitement for him.

Crazy Weekend

I'm writing this post at 1AM after having gotten up at 5AM the past two mornings, and not sure what time I'm going to be able to go to sleep tonight (tomorrow, today...you know what I mean).  It all started Friday morning.  Ali had the Junior National Qualifier Weekend for volleyball this weekend.  Her first game was Friday at 8AM, on the courts at the Anaheim Convention Center at 7AM.  It was an early morning, but luckily all of their games were quick and we were done by 12:30. Then Stephen had an 8PM water polo game, but thankfully that was in Upland so it wasn't bad.

This morning Nikki had an 8AM game in Apple Valley for State Cup and Ali had to be back in Anaheim at 7AM.  Since Nikki had to be there at 7AM too, we all left the house this morning at 6AM! Ugh!  Nikki's team was tied 1-1 at the end of regulation.  They had two 15 minutes overtimes and ended up going to PK's.   Nikki had the first shot and scored!  Unfortunately they lost by one shot with only one girl missing her shot.  So that means they're done for the season.  She was disappointed in being done, but knows she needs to look forward and just do better next time.

Ali's team did GREAT today!  They played four matches and won all four, with only one going to three sets.  It was like a completely different team.  They had a great time and beat some tough opponents.  Unfortunately it didn't go as quickly as yesterday's games.  We got home about 3:30.  I showered and cleaned up a bit and everyone started arriving here about 5:15 for Prom!  We had agreed to the before AND after party here this year.  Yes that was before we knew the game schedules but what could we do at that point?  So we moved forward.  The kids all looked great and after the party bus arrived, they left here to head to Anaheim's Phoenix Club for their last Prom!

They got back here and I had lot of sugary snacks ready as well as some pizzas on the way.  They all changed into their comfy clothes and headed out back to relax and enjoy their last night of Prom memories.  

And I will get to bed and be up in time to get to Stephen's water polo game in the morning.  Not as early as Bill but much earlier than I'd like!  But I wouldn't trade any of this for anything!

College Decisions!!

He has made a decision!  That was such a stressful process for us, and I'm sure it was even more stressful for him making the decision.  The original pool of serious consideration started with Redlands, Chapman and Santa Clara.  He really liked the guys at Redlands, and liked a lot about the location of the campus as well as the water polo coach.  The one drawback there was the 3/2 program for engineering.  They paired with only schools out of California, neither of which interested him.

At Santa Clara, he got into the engineering program but was not sure about his status on the water polo team.  Plus it was the only school he didn't get any scholarship money for.  We weren't really up for paying full price and not having him play polo.

Lastly was Chapman.  The location is great, and he had a spot on the team.  They pair with UC Irvine, which would be okay.  So the final decision really came down to a choice between Santa Clara and Chapman.  And he went with....

The coach offered him a spot on the team and that sealed it for him.  He's so excited to get a chance to play there as well as being admitted to the engineering program.  Of course it was the most expensive choice to make, but I think it will be the best place for him.  We're so happy for you Stephen and look forward to seeing your growth and progress through your college years.  Plus we're excited to get to watch you play water polo for a few more years!  We weren't ready to be done yet either :)

Sports weekends

It's the busiest time of year for Stephen with sports.  It's the high school swim season which means they'll swim 5 days a week after school for 2.5 hours plus 3 days a week in the mornings for an hour.  Add that to 3 nights a week of a 3 hour club practice and you end up with an exhausted boy.  But he made it through all four years of high school keeping this crazy schedule.  We are really proud of his commitment.  So many of the boys have either quit swim or not continued through club.  It hasn't been a picnic, but he did it!

Nikki is happy to be back to club soccer.  High school season ended up being an odd year for her.  She started on the JV team and was fine with it.  She got to start and play almost the entire games.  Mid-season they pulled her up to Varsity after having filled in a few games for some of the Varsity girls that had been in DC for the inauguration.  She was happy to get pulled up, but wasn't sure how the girls on Varsity felt about it and also felt badly for leaving her teammates on JV.  But in the end, she was happy with the training she got being on the Varsity squad and getting some playtime at the higher level.

Now though, she's happy to be back at club and ready to get that team up to a higher level.  They had their first tournament last weekend and though they missed getting to the finals by 2 points, it was good to see them play again.

This was a Varsity high school game.












And Ali has been busily growing in leaps and bounds in volleyball.  She started the team as the only girl that hadn't played club volleyball.  She couldn't get a serve over and didn't get very much play time.  She was frustrated but knew if she worked hard, she could catch up with the other girls.  So she has been going to practice 3 times a week for 2-3 hours each and doing a private lesson once a week.  And after only a few months, her serves are great!  Her hitting at the net, has been really good too.  So she was moved into center position and gets more play time.  I'm so happy that she's seeing her hard work pay off.

Ali going up for a block

So even though we've been really busy rushing from one sport to another, it's been great watching the growth and determination of all three of our great kids!

Random happenings

My boy, Tarzan (far right) and his date Jane and their friends ready to head out to the Sadie's Disney themed dance.  Such a great group of kids!

Nikki going up for a header.

Ali and her teammates getting ready to start their volleyball tournament.  Ali is the one braiding her friends hair.

Yep this was our front lawn.  I left it an entire afternoon so that Ali would have to come home and clean it all up herself.  She still says it's really fun to do it to her friends and worth having to clean it up herself.  Ugh!  I've never taken any kid TP'ing because I hate it being done to us.  She is my only one that feels the need to partake in the mess making with friends.  I know it's really harmless, but it's one of those things I just feel could be avoided forever.

This is what I do for fun...crossfit.  It was one of my better showings.  I finished the WOD (workout of the day) in 8 minutes, 17 seconds and did it rx'd (prescribed, which means I used all of the recommended weights).  I've been crossfitting for nearly three years now and can't imagine doing any other form of exercise.  I love it and am learning a lot about what I should be putting into my body and my family's bodies as well.

That's just a few of the happenings round here.  What's going on in your casa?