Basketball Camp

At the end of school year, Will's Comet folder was bombarded with papers about all the various summer and fall sports/clubs/camps available to elementary school aged children.  It's amazing how much a little person can be involved in this day in age.  Overwhelming to say the least. 

Craig and I always look at those decisions from the prospective of how much of a toll those commitments will have on our family - our evenings, our relax time together, our meals.  At this age (and for much longer!) those are the priorities we uphold.  The busy stuff will come.  The kids will choose to be involved in what interests them given the time and financial constraints we set.  But for now, we prefer to toss most of those extracurricular flyers.

 

There was one, however, that we hung on to.  A basketball camp given by the high school varsity basketball coach.  A Thursday and Friday morning from 9:00-noon in early June and then a Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week from 9:00-noon and 8:00-10:00 respectively.  The morning time and the fact that it was only a five-day camp were the selling points for us.  That, and the fact that basketball is about the only sport that Will talks about wanting to play when he's older.  Occasionally, he'll mention soccer when he knows his friends are playing, but not often.  For the first two days, they wanted strong parental involvement.  As in:  hands-on training for parent and child.  So Craig took off those mornings and joined Will for the camp (another reason this camp appealed to us).

 

A couple of funny stories:

 

1) At the end of one of the first mornings, Coach Diebler was answering questions for all the kids in attendance.  Basketball related questions.  So finally there was time for one more and Will raised his hand.  Coach called on him and their back and forth went something like this:

 

Will:  Do you get Gatorade?

Coach:  Well, yes, I've had it before.

Will:  No, I mean like during a game... when they call a time out... does someone hand you the Gatorade?

 

A couple of coaches helpers lost it with laughter, while coach tried to answer his question seriously.  So funny!  Clearly, our kids don't get the luxury of sweetened beverages on the regular.  Such a novelty!  The gist of Will's most important question at that moment was basically:  Just tell me what I gotta do to get some Gatorade.  LOL

 

2) And then driving home with Craig from camp one morning, Will asked Craig who the division 1 player of the year was (because the division 2 or 3 (?) player was one of the helpers during the camp).  Craig said it was Trey Burke who was from Columbus and played for Michigan.  Well, that's just a huge slap in the face for my Buckeye fans.  Will said "Aw, man!...(pause)... Well... at least he can pick berries."  A couple of the berry farms we patronize each summer are in Michigan so Will associates the state of Michigan with berry picking apparently.  Haha!!

 

For this week, we had to get a little creative with helpers to take Will to camp on Thursday & Friday.  Uncle Taylor & Uncle Wes each took a morning to take him and we really appreciated their help!  It was really nice for Will to have that special time with each of them too.  And then this morning, Craig, Sophie & I all came along to watch for the 8-10 a.m. final day.

 

You can see Will's basketball sitting beside him in the picture below.  Part of our attendance fee included a basketball, water bottle and t-shirt for each participant.  Will was to bring his ball each day to camp with him.

 

They also had a bunch of these Comet bags to give as rewards to the kids.  Will actually earned TWO of them!  The first one was for being nominated best shooting stance/form on one of the first two days.  And I can't remember why he got the second one.

 

Basketball skills were completely foreign to Will aside from a little bit of playing around here and there with Craig, but he got some great advice and practice these five days.  We've had a goal of getting a nice basketball hoop up on our driveway.  Hopefully we get to that yet this year.

Little sister required some entertaining after awhile...

They had the Kindergarten and 1st grade kids separate from the 2nd-5th graders, so it was nice for the younger/lesser skill levels.  This was like basketball Duck, Duck, Goose.  They had to dribble around the outside of the circle.  :)

It was a nice little camp that they put on and Will enjoyed it.  He's young yet for three whole hours of practice at a time (the K-1 group usually wrapped it up a little earlier than the older kids for this reason) but it was good exercise and great practice.

Sophie Has Started Karate!

Sophie's first karate class was last Monday (the10th) and she is doing so well so far!!!  I think it's safe to say she loves it!

We had been waiting until she turned four... and then waiting until after swim lessons finished.  But the swim lesson schedule has been complicated so far and seems to be dragging on with large gaps unexpectedly between them.  So last Monday when our usual instructor was on vacation and our good friend, Mike, who owns the karate school, was filling in for the Little Dragons class, we decided to let Sophie join in for the very first time.

After all the sideline viewing over the past almost two years, she finally gets to be out there with her big brother and join in on the fun.  Coincidentally, the kids' cousin Tabor started his first lesson this day too!  Tabor and Sophie are the ones without proper uniforms yet in these pictures and Tabor is not quite four months older than Sophie.

Craig and I were highly impressed with Sophie's natural skill and interest right off the bat!  She followed directions well, stayed quiet and respectful/attentive (which isn't always easy for Sophie) and seemed to really enjoy the exercises.  Her push-up form is awesome!

Sophie's good friend Reese, who is one year younger than her, seemed a little confused at Sophie's suddenly being ON the mats rather than on the sidelines with her, and both Reese's mother and I were worried that one of the girls would constantly be trying to join the other one, either on or off the mats.  But both girls did very well with the transition and that was a relief.  We had thought Reese was going to join Sophie in karate class one day soon (they can start at age three) but alas, Reese will be doing dance classes instead and her mom didn't want to do both.  Reese's brother, Patrick, however will continue to be in class so maybe Reese will change her mind when she sees Sophie out there every week.  As it stands now, Sophie is the only girl in the class.  That's not always the case, but for now it is.

Class #2!  Tonight!  Classes are just half an hour, once a week.  And the fact that the kids are in class together is a HUGE bonus!  Will can stay in this class until age seven and then switch to the older class that meets twice weekly on Tuesday & Thursday.  We'll have to juggle a bit and rethink our game plan at that time, because three nights a week may be more than we want to interfere with dinner and family time... especially during the school year.  But for now, we're sooooo grateful!  This is such great practice and training for good behavior and exercise for both of them and we love our usual instructor!

Look!  Sophie has a uniform now!  Actually, Will just got a new one because his first one was getting small and Sophie got his hand-me-down.  At home, we'd played wheel barrow with the kids before, so Soph was a natural at this.  :)

Waiting her turn for the next drill.

Spotting daddy and me.

Love this response to seeing us.

And earning her second stripe (colored sticky tape on the ends of their belts) for good behavior in class and a good report card from mommy and daddy (a biweekly ritual at class).  After so many stripes, the kids get to get into the treasure chest and eventually test for a new belt.  She's already counting down to both of those things.

And, oh my goodness!  I caught this cute moment during the preparation for bowing out at the end of class.  Soph threw her arm around Will for just a minute and I managed to capture it!

So far so good for our little gal!  This is fun to have two little karate students practicing each week!

Field Day!

Will's first Field Day was today!  He's been pretty excited about it and this morning he pulled on some gym shorts and Buckeyes jersey and put on his tennis shoes and got psyched up for the fun.  There were a bunch of events planned, but he was looking most forward to the sack races.  Craig took the morning off and went to cheer Will on and take pictures for me.  Love that man!

Will's class was behind on most every event and none of it was individual, so every student took turns in long relay-type races and competed as a whole class against the other classes in their grade.  Will was the last in line for his class on nearly all the events and so, on several occasions, by the time it was his turn to go, many of the other classes were all completely finished and he wasn't really racing anyone.  Craig could tell Will was discouraged by this and didn't really give much effort to the events.  Poor guy.

Giving daddy a thumbs up between events/turns.

Mrs. Mullen giving Will some finish line praise/encouragement.

Hurdles!

It was still a very fun day and Will talked happily about it over dinner tonight.  I remember really loving field day when I was in elementary school.

Soccer & Swim Lessons

This spring, a bunch of our closest little pals & cousins are playing on a soccer league, but not all on the same team.  And tonight was the first game that they faced off against each other.  So the kids and I ate dinner ASAP this evening and then scooted over to the soccer fields to cheer on our friends.  The weather wasn't the best but we brought along umbrellas to ward off the drizzle.

Soph & Stel had a little mid-game chat.  It's hilarious how casual these games are.  The kids run on and off the field whenever they want.  If they want to play or chat on the sidelines, it's all good.

My dad and brothers came to watch too.

Hey, Jax!

What up, Cora?

Cora's got the ball with Charli close behind.

Go, Jax, Go!

Coach Jason, Cora, Lyla and Stella.

Cora's made the shot!

And she scored!!

She ran straight off the field to hug her mom.  :)

So cute.

Cousins don't let cousins get rained on.  :)  Sophie shared her umbrella with Stel.

Also this spring, we've started swim lessons!  Nana & Papa set these up for the kids as a Christmas present.  We meet at the Oak Harbor High School pool once a week in the evening and they take a half hour private class with a girl my mom knows who gives lessons.  The kids love her.

My favorite picture.  I LOVE Sophie's sweet face.

At the end of their lessons at this pool, the instructor, Jenna, is going to come out to my parents pool for a couple of follow up lessons once it's open.  Can't wait for summer swimmimg!