Sunday

We all got to sleep in a little today. It felt good. We all needed it. We went to church (and made it early since I had to play the organ). (For some reason if I'm not playing the organ we are always either right on time or a minute or two late). After Sacrament meeting, my Dad, Sally and Tyler started the drive back to Houston. It was fun having them visit!!! We will see them in 2 weeks at the wedding.

We came home and grilled and had a nice lunch / dinner. Then we all went to Adam's last baseball game together. He had team pictures, the trophy handing out ceremony and the cutest baseball game. There were also 2 of the funniest moments. One of the players at bat connected with the ball but it only went about 2 feet, he promptly ran the 2 feet up to the ball and swung again -- this time golfing the ball towards the short stop. His dad hollered, "I knew he was meant for golf!!!".

The second thing was one of the players was on second base -- as a base runner. The ball was hit right to second base and our player, the base runner, fielded the ball, threw it to first and ran into the dugout. It was a hoot. I figure he thought, the ball rarely gets hit right to you, so I'll just show them what I can do!!!

Just another crazy Saturday - and one giant spontaneous party

7:15 -- Get Madelyn and Catherine to Bob Jones field to warm up for their games which start at 8:00 (I coach Catherine's team)

8:00 -- 2 games on neighboring fields. Catherine lost, Madelyn won.

9:15 -- Madelyn's second game begins. Her team wins again. Madelyn is awarded the game ball for her great hit. I also got this nice note from her coach.

"Jamie,
I am not sure if you were out there today. Maddy played unbelievably well. She hit the ball hard, she stayed focused, she ran hard and kept her head in the game. I was very, very proud of her."

My dad came up and took a few pictures at their games.



At 10:30, the 2 girls and I returned home. I then got back into the car with Julianne and headed to her swim meet at the Keller ISD natatorium. She swam in the medley relay (50 fly) and the 50 free. By that time it was 1:20, and the meet was on event #13. Her next event wasn't until event #31 and we realized that the meet was moving too slow for her to do her last events so we packed up and were able to catch the last part of Adam's game (which started at 1:00).



After Adam's game, we all came home (for a second). Julianne, Madelyn, and I then headed to Julianne's softball game. She needed to be there at 2:30 for a start time of 3:00 and Trent took all the other kids up to Tyler's last water polo game which started at 2:35. Madelyn had the camera, and there were 7 nice photos of Julianne's team (and 117 not so great photos). I'll only show one taken while Julianne was at bat.



Julianne's game finished right at 4:15 and I was helping everyone get packed up and turning in the score book when I felt my phone vibrating. I glanced down and saw that it was Trent calling. I could also see that my Dad had called twice and left me a voicemail. I answered and Trent said, "are you done? hurry home?" Your Dad invited everyone to the house for burgers and hot dogs. I hope you're ready for this."

We raced to the car. Raced home. And we beat the bus there by 5 minutes.

A little background -- I did tell my Dad that if anyone wanted to come over and hang out that I had a lot of hamburgers and hot dogs in the freezer and that he was welcome to invite people over-- so this was not entirely "sprung" on me, but after our busy morning clearly that had been no other thought of that offer since it had been given.

But I do love chaos and I do love having parties so we just got busy. We got Volleyball set up and tables and chairs set up and meat thrown on the grill and soccer goals put out and drinks, and chips, and flying turtles and somehow or another and thanks to everyone for just pitching in we threw the best, most awesome, spontaneous celebration for the boys and girls varsity and junior varsity water polo teams and their parents and chaperones and of course . . . the bus driver.

Here are some photos from the party. We were fortunate to have beautiful weather!



When it was all over my kids swam in the hot tub and pool.

Water Polo - the Texas State Championship Tournament day 1

Last night my dad and Sally (his fiancee) arrived late to stay with us for the weekend to go to Tyler's water polo games. Tyler came with his team on a big bus and stayed in town at the Hilton. His first game today was at 11 am. They played great and won the game easily. Tyler played great and scored 4 goals. We had a good time watching him and took lots (and lots) of pictures.

Following his game, Owen, my Dad, Sally, 2 other couples (with son's on the team) and I went for bar-b-q at the Feedstore (a local and delicious restaurant). Then I came home, collected all my other kid's from school and we headed back for Tyler's 2nd game at 5:00. They played a really tough team and lost. Owen apparantly was pretty tired, He fell asleep on the bleachers!

The craisen is out

Owen always falls asleep on his own bed and then sometime in the middle of the night wakes up and he ends up in our bed. I have naturally still been worried about that stupid craisen. As he was sleeping, I couldn't help noticing that he was exclusively breathing through his mouth. We got up and got the kids all on their way to school when I finally had a minute to look again up Owen's nose. And I could see the craisen. It was still way back there, but it was definately bigger now (as it has had 36 hours to absorb moisture). Trent was still home so I had two additional hands to help me. First, Trent tried with tweezers while I held Owen. That didn't work. Kids can still move a little when you are holding them immobile and trying to put tweezers up their nose is trickier than you'd think. Then we tried the bulb aspirator again. But nothing. Finally, I decided to try blowing through his mouth one more time while closing his other nostril. This is not the easiest thing to do. He was squirmy and screaming, but armed with the knowledge from the ER nurse that I couldn't blow too hard. I positioned myself and blew HARD. That craisen flew out of his nose.

I was so relieved. He kept squishing his nose up and smiling at me. I think he was so relieved too.

Continuing the yard work

We have done a lot to the yard since we moved in, but hands down our favorite thing has been the masonry / stone edging around the flower beds. We finally got the front yard flower beds done and I LOVE it.



The best was getting this text from our neighbor.