Volleyball wrap up

Norah had her volleyball end of year banquet last night! Nice to see the girls off the court and a nice time was had by all. Pics below of the team, Norah and her good friend Katlyn - who is in her grade and a lot of her classes, Norah (looking short!), Katelyn and Jocelyn (a senior) who all played middle, and her varsity certificate and letter - an achievement to receive as a sophomore/10th grader

High Honors!

Guess who finished the school year with high honors? This kid! With his busy sports and social calendar he made good use of his time at school. After letting a personal math goal slip away in a class with some distracting buddies, he seems to have figured out how to manage that. Through this situation and a couple of others we are really seeing an increase in personal accountability from him that I am really proud about. Summer for Roddie includes camps (band and hockey), trips (Toronto with me, Old Orchard beach, and our delayed trip to the Grand Canyon) and his travel baseball season continues for another month, wrapping up with a tournament in Maine. But first, he will rest :) Roddie will enter his last year of middle school in September. Keep reading…

This is 90

In case you were wondering here is what 90 looks like :)

Cheers with Matt & Mike, Andy in the background

How bad did she want to go?

I was in Atlanta this week, again, for work.  Before I left, I noticed something in email about a trip to Italy, run by some history teachers at Norah's school.  Nothing about dates, details, cost etc. but there was a parents meeting, on the night I was away.  Matt was busy carting Roddie around, plus he was not feeling well, so Norah decided to log in, as me (she told me she was going it at least)

Poor Matt got home, Norah drops the news on him that she wanted to go to Italy, it would be $4,000 and she needed to know by 7a the next day!  (it was 7p, but that detail was lost in the noise....)    As you can probably guess, Matt did not take this news (nor its delivery and urgency) very well, and some chaos ensued.  By which I mean they both started texting me from different rooms in the house.  

So, after ignoring them both for a while, I agreed with Matt that it needed to be a discussion, and that it wasn't going to happen until I got home, and she'd just have to wait.  We later agreed that while we'd love for her to go, it was a lot of money for a whim, and we would have to see just how bad she wanted to go.

I picked her up from her job at the ball fields, and broached the subject by asking how badly she wanted to go - as in $$$!  She offered up right away that she'd cover her spending money and the meals that were not included in the trip (good for her!)  I countered with, "Dad and I were thinking more like half"  (she has plenty of time to earn/save $2K)  Anyway, she thought about it for about 30 seconds before deciding she did not want to go bad enough to spend the next 8 months working towards that particular goal.   She agreed she could if she made that choice, but that's not what she wants to do.

Glad we didn't just agree outright!  Lesson learned on all sides!

S

The good kind of busy

Crazy week here, but so many blessings!
Volleyball and baseball of course! Roddie tried his hand (arm?) at pitching this week, he has previously refused not sure what changed but should be interesting. Norah's doubling down on volleyball and working out her plan for next year, summer etc.
Evolving job situation for me, have a bigger team and a new boss but all seem to be good. A couple of trips to Atlanta coming up.
Matt's boss picked her date to retire - will be a big relief I think for him.
Kids both working at the fields again today, such a perfect way to make a little pocket change and have some responsibility.
End of year hockey banquet last night - Dad coaches and kids in the pic below, so lucky to have so many!
Norah back up to high honors this quarter despite her hectic schedule, so proud of her!
New furniture for the basement arrived, Matt fell asleep on it and gives it a thumbs up - now to start putting the house back together
Final volleyball tourney today and tomorrow for Norah! Looks like Roddie might be rained out tomorrow, we'll see.

School Ball!

Roddie has his first away game today for his school team - taking the bus to a neighboring town. The team is all wearing their uniforms to school. He seems pretty unhappy about it LOL!

Thursday they play the other middle school from our town, some kids on the other team are or have been on his travel team. Should be fun!

S

Our boy is growing up!

This morning Roddie had his first paid gig umpiring baseball- that's his umpire shirt he's wearing. He made $25, and apparently spent 10% of it already at the snack shack - including a tip for his sister :)

The responsibility must agree with him, I pulled in with the groceries and didn't even have to ask before he showed up and started unloading :)

Change of Seasons

The last couple of weeks of March get pretty hectic around here, our own personal March Madness, as hockey and baseball season start to overlap for Roddie, with the hockey team usually hitting their stride and the baseball team getting pumped up for the start of the season (heaven help us once these boys hit puberty!)  

The way things worked out this year, the hockey team did not progress in the playoffs, and therefore wrapped up last weekend, and the travel baseball team has their first games this upcoming Sunday - perfect!  (Well, except Norah has a touney all weekend also, but that's not what this story is about)  

In addition to the travel baseball team, Roddie had the option to play for his middle school team, which he first declined, stating "I really could use the break".  Cool I say, good for him for knowing what is too much.  Until ONE DAY before the end of hockey season, when he changed his mind.  We scramble around, get him registered etc.  all is good. Practices every day after school with his friends, representing his school, not in his default position holding down the sofa with a device in hand - all good.  In addition he's pretty much talking about baseball non stop, this team, that team, the Red Sox - seems he turned the page completely for the season.

Yesterday, the schedule was school practice from 2-4, and then travel practice from 4-6, same location so he'd just stay.  There was also an optional scrimmage for hockey at 5:30, which we obviously declined.  Some time during the first practice, the second got cancelled (it was COLD and windy out) so he didn't know until Matt turned up to pick him up.  Apparently the first words out of his mouth when he got in the car were "cool, can we go to hockey then?"

In case you needed confirmation, his first love will always be hockey.

Life Lessons, Quality time with Roddie

Thought you might be amused to hear about some time I spent with Roddie over the weekend.  We had a rare Saturday with no practices or games, Matt was working hard in the basement, and Norah was studying for mid terms and I had a laundry list of errands to run.  Early in the day, Roddie proclaimed that he was going to relax for the day (!!)   

After I pointed out that he had to change his sheets and do his laundry, as well as the fact that I could use a little help tidying up the kitchen he was a bit deflated, but went about his chores before settling in for a movie.

As the movie was wrapping up, I told him to put on his shoes, he was coming with me.  Mostly I just wanted an excuse to have some time with him, but it turned out he learned a bunch of life skills.  As we were eating dinner, we started listing them out:

1. How to mail a package at the post office
2. How to mail a letter from INSIDE the post office
3. How to ship something via UPS
4. How to make a return at Walmart
5. That you can get cheap stuff at Walmart (hello, $20 sneakers!)
6. How to clean ice off the car
7. How to buy yourself clothes (you need to 'check in" to the change rooms)

... you get the idea.   So, as we were running through this list with Matt and Norah, I asked if there were any more.  

His response: "Don't tell your Mom you have nothing to do on a Saturday morning"