Random

 

We had a very productive and fun weekend - nothing too eventful, but we kept busy! Lucy helped me with Sunday night dinner. She prepped the asparagus including cleaning, cutting, and seasoning. Then she also helped me prep the chicken. She is loving cooking more and more and getting better at helping too. 

Also please admire our lovely broken trashcan but don't worry a new one comes in Friday!

Remy being the bum he is. 

Lucy had a fun day as we dropped off Heidi to hang out with Noah, so Lucy got to shop by herself. She loved it. She brought her own money and ran around Target. 

Chris had to travel for work and visited a Bucees for the first time. He said he was in heaven...

Lucy finally cleaned her room enough to hang her new vine lights!

We tried to eat at this Thai place that was recommended, but the wait was WAY too long. We will try again another night but the place looked really cool!

We picked up some sweets from our favorite little bakery. Heidi was just annoyed we weren't heading to Noah's right away...

We FINALLY took down the Christmas tree! It is funny that it took so long. The weekend I planned to do it, way back when, I was sick and then we were just busy all other weekends or week nights. IF we had a day - that was the LAST thing we wanted to do. 

I have added a desk to the treadmill and the dogs have mixed emotions about hanging out in the basement. 

And Lucy finally received the second Christmas gift she ordered back in December. It came all the way from China! Better late than never!

Chris is traveling a little bit again this week but besides that we have just a normal week! 

Val Pal

 

We had a wonderful weekend with Val! She came up - we played games, went to hockey, shopped, and had a great time!

Jenn drove us all to the hockey game where you could bring our dogs too! The dogs did great but they were tired afterwards!

The weekend started off with a nap session :) 5am flights out of Omaha are rough!

The weekend went fast but it was lots of fun! Thank you Val for coming out!!!

Volleyball of Course

 

Another volleyball weekend is in the bag! We tried to live stream but the wifi in the facility was awful. We were in Cincinnati and trying out a new facility - I give the place a C+. The courts were on actual gym flooring instead of those stupid squares - which is a big win and we could bring our own chairs, which is always more comfortable - even though we didn't have much space. The parking situation was a joke. They wanted you to pay for parking not when you pulled in and NOT where you pay to get in, but another whole other place. THEN when everyone is trying to leave and switch out (224 teams either leaving or coming since some play in the morning and some in the afternoon - LOTS of people), they want you to show your parking pass to a teenager in a folding chair at the exit, but people are also trying to get in and it is seriously a cluster. It took us 20 minutes to LEAVE the parking lot. If you didn't have it, they made you turn around, park, and go in and pay. It wasn't a huge parking lot, more like a high school size. So stupid. Also, they didn't have good food choices for the athletes and there wasn't a water refill station. Of course, we will be there again in May and I hope they have improved.

The team did okay, but Heidi really played well. I wish I had it on video to share. After a teammate went down with the flu, Heidi was switched from Setting and Right Side hitter to Left Side Defense (which is her bread and butter) and Outside hitter and she OWNED it! It was fun to see the fellow parents watch Heidi in her normal position. We got a lot of "Wows" and "How does she do that?". Heidi is really enjoying being this utility player that she has become. Plus, she stays in the whole time and really gets a ton of playing time. Her team has about half that have the passion she has and they really try, but then we have some that just need to step it up! Either way, Heidi is truly enjoying herself. She has quite a few blocks which makes our crowd go wild! She has many hits and kills and her serving was on fire this weekend. Very fun to watch for sure. The other parents have been so complimentary towards Heidi and really admire her skill. Also, Heidi is nice to everyone on the team and doesn't walk around with an ego, but instead cheers and laughs and supports her team. We are very proud of her!

Lucy assumed her position and was content. She is happy we don't have another tournament until April. 

Morning rush - con of morning wave - need to get up at 5:30 am to leave by 6:15 am, but at least you can go home by 2!

I convinced the parents to have a team dinner at the hotel lobby instead of trying to get 35 people into a restaurant! I brought games (who doesn't love hot dog vs chicken???), we brought nice pizza, salad, fruit etc. It was honestly a really fun time. The girls ran around and this was the first time, Heidi didn't ask to leave. She has really made some friends on the team!

Cincinnati also has this giant grocery store called Jungle Jims - it's crazy and hard to explain. We went as a team, but quickly got what we needed to get and got out of there! Once again, I was expecting Heidi to bail out, but she wanted to go and ran around with her teammates!

More action shots...

We get a break from traveling for a few weeks.  We have some local scrimmages and we don't head out again until early April. More importantly - VAL IS COMING!!! She arrives Friday!!! Now I need to clean and prepare for her to come - we CAN'T Wait!!!