Swimming for the Reunion

We spent a couple days down in Richfield playing around for our reunion.  On one of the days we went swimming with everyone.  All the kids loved it and it was nice to take a dip in the pool with all the hot weather we were having.

Here's Kenna going down the slide.

Railey was a little nervous at first to go by herself.  But after about 3 times she was a pro and doing it all by herself with out anyone catching her.

All the big boys went down to the other end and practiced their diving and flips and belly flops and such.  This one is Seth

Here's Damen.  He has always hated jumping off the diving boards he doesn't like the water getting in his ears.  But he perfected the dive on this trip and isn't quite as scared to dive off anymore.  Good Job bud!

Day Camp

We had Day camp earlier in June.  The Second week of school being out.  It was fun to just go and spend the day with Seth and his age group.  We have some great boys in there right now.  Not that all the boys haven't been great.  It's just that this group are a little more obedient than past groups.  Here's a few of the pictures of all the fun we had. 

The boys in the paddle raft

Mining for gold

"Look Mom, I found one, well at least a painted rock."

Shooting arrows

Pulling the handcart.

It was great to spend the day with Seth, I wasn't feeling too yucky as long as I kept eating granola bars.  It's amazing how you don't feel quite as yucky when you don't have time to think about it. (I'm not saying you don't feel it at all, just not quite as bad).  Hopefully this will be my last day camp!  If so it was a great one!

Seth earned his wolf!

Seth has now earned his wolf.  He is such a go getter.  From day one he was trying to pass everything he could off.  He wanted to do every project and just get-er-done.  I love that about Seth.  I've sturggled with helping him though.  With having to get things done for Bears I haven't helped my boys like I should be.  It's a good thing they are pretty responsible!  Good Job Seth.  We are so proud of you now lets earn as many arrow points as you can before you get to come and be with me in Bears!

 

 

Basketball

Basketball has come and gone and I was an awful mother and never posted about it. I did, however, take lots of pictures and videos this year. Maybe that's what has been intimidating me and causing me not to blog because I really hate uploading things pictures and especially videos to the blog.

We had a great year though with Basketball. The kids learned lots and grew a bunch in their skill levels. We had decided that Steve wouldn't coach this year because all the games were going to be on Saturday and last year they all interferred with the temple. But they called last minute and asked him to coach Damen's team. Luckily all the games were in the morning. But he ended up missing a bunch of Seth's because his were in the afternoon.

Damen got really good at doing layups and everyone on his team really looked up to him and thought he was all that which he was of course! Half the team was good, half weren't and struggled to even bounce the ball on the floor and not their foot, but there was a vast improvement over the season with all the kids.

Seth is just a go getter. He goes a hundred miles down the court at full speed and throws the ball up to do a layup at the same speed but gets frustrated that it would bounce back at him. Our theme for him throughout the year was "light fluffy pillows." By the end of the year he was doing much better and gently putting the ball up. But he was a great defender. He must get that from me. That was about the only good thing that was ever said about me playing ball is "she's good at defense." The people he would defend would just get so frustrated. It always made me laugh, even if sometimes he was so focused on defense that he was still playing it when he should have been playing offense.

Why not start with the last picture of the season. Here Damen is with his medal and his coach.

Damen had a boy on his team named Tyler. Tyler was a high functioning autistic boy. He was a year older than the rest of the boys but his mom had got permission to play him with the 4th graders. He loves basketball but things are starting to get competitive and they are starting to call traveling and double dribbling and all that jazz so who knows how much longer he'll be able to play, if at all. Steve really struggled at first knowing how to play Tyler, because as many know Steve has an extremely competitive side to him, but also a very sensetive side to him. Well he must have been inspired the first game because he started having the kids throw the ball in to Tyler because no one can defend anyone until the ball has crossed half court. So Tyler would dribble it down and then hand it off to someone else. He really never shot, maybe a couple of times but never scored. But he loved just being out there and feeling important.

The second to last game Steve held out all the good players on the team and put them in the 4th quarter with Tyler. They were all instructed that they could not shoot until Tyler had scored. They boys had many fast breaks, many rebounds and even stole the ball a few times but they had to wait for great big Tyler to make it down and then they would pass the ball to him and he would shoot. (By this time in the season we had played all the teams once before, so they knew about Tyler and they would not defend him but allow him to shoot if ever he got the ball.) There was one time that we rebounded and handed the ball back to Tyler 4-5 times and he missed everyone. This happened several times up and down the court and then finally he shot and scored. The entire gym, both teams, parents and players all cheered for Tyler. By this time the tears were already streaming down my face as I watched the unselfishness of our players as well as the other team. All competitiveness was gone. All just wanted to give Tyler a chance. He not only got that chance but went and scored again two posessions later. He was so excited and everyone was so excited for him. The next game, Tyler scored 10 points. Our team had learned that no one would defend him so they started passing the ball to him to shoot and it worked!

We worried about having him on the team at first but in the end it was a blessing to learn about what it's like to really work as a team. It was also worth it to see just how unselfish these 10 year old boys were and to see how they wanted Tyler to succeed just as much as their parents wanted to see them succeed. It was a great year with lots of lessons learned.

Here's one of Seth being the defender that he is.

Picture day for both boys

Seth with his medal and certificate.

Good job boys now we are on to soccer! No break, E.V.E.R

Who stole the camera from the counter?

Any guesses who stole the camera from it's spot on the counter? Oh well, he did pretty good snapping away and sometimes after I find him with it he convinces me to snap a few of him. He is a pretty good looking kid so I guess it's worth it. And isn't that the reason we went cheep with the camera we got, so that if he does break it again we aren't out quite so much money. Great pictures Seth!

Seth loves doing these hand stand flip things.

See Kenna's many personalities even between two pictures taken back to back

Skiing

As everyone in Utah and now around the country knows we have no snow. Steve has been wanting to take the kids skiing but when there is no snow it makes it a little rocky. But the resorts are doing their best and keep making it so over the break Steve took the kids up for half the day and let them ride the free lifts. He got a few photos and a few videos of them. I don't think this free thing is going to last past this year if that. Damen already went with the school and tried out other runs and loved it. Steve says they are ready to move on but are we ready for the bill that comes with that? I'm not sure!

Practicing Punting

Again during conference the kids were out playing. This time they were practicing their punting skills. Steve would hike them the ball they would catch it and the kick. Here's my camera doing the fast picture taking capturing the moments. Enjoy your kicks boys!

Flag Football

We are so busy this year coaching sports. Well maybe I should rephrase that. Steve is busy coaching I just send all the emails out to parents. But either way it has definitely taken up some time. We have soccer on Thursdays and football on Tuesdays and both on Saturdays. So far we've only had one rotten Saturday--granted it was the first.

So I've said it before and I will continue to say it I'm afraid. Damen has a passion for football, he gets it from his Dad (well maybe not, Steve loves football and loves to play it but doesn't care to watch it every second of every day like Damen). Anyway Damen plays quarterback or receiver. He's learned a lot about trying to be a leader of the team and encourage everyone to do their best but so far he's also scored in 2/3 of the games a couple touch downs each game. I love how excited he is for every second of the game as well as how excited he is for his team mates. Often I will look over and when kids are out on the sideline they are picking the dandelions or are off messing around or wrestling the other kids that are out. Not Damen he is running up and down the field with the team yelling and cheering as loud as he can. He's so fun to watch.

Seth plays both defense and offense and does so well at blocking. One time he blocked so well that the kid just gave up and went down another time he had his arms a little high and actually got the kids neck (we had a little talk on that one). He continues to get more and more excited about the game as the weeks go on.

On our first game everyone was extremely confident that we were going to will, that we were going to score on the first drive of the game and be super amazing. Well we were all humbled that week. So much so that Steve was upset and stayed awake all night coming up with new plays and reevaluating the game plan. Damen came home saying "why doesn't my team trust me I kept telling them what was going to happen and they just didn't trust me." Then as he got in the shower the tears started to flow and though the water was loud and he thought we couldn't hear him, he was just a sobbing, (I told you he was passionate). Seth walked around for a minute with his head down because he thought he was supposed to and then gave up on that and went out to play.

I guess the game plan worked because they have just dominated the other teams since then. Their plays work their defense has been amazing and it has just been fun to watch and pleasant to live with. I was wondering after that first game why I had signed Steve up to be their coach, but ya know he gets frustrated if they aren't coached right so I would rather have him coach and be in control of that than get mad at the other parents, but now he feels so much pressure to perform. He does well though and the kids love all the high fives they get!

Here's Damen in the middle passing off to Seth whose behind him

Here's Damen trying to make some forward progress. Looks like I need to get some pictures of Seth. I know I have some from this last week. We'll get more up soon or at least of soccer