Summer Begins

May has wrapped up and now we're looking at a crazy month of June.  
Here are our most recent shenanigans.  

Basketball in Branson

Gracie played with her Cougars team a few weeks ago at a tournament in Branson.  It was pretty fun.  They ended up even in W-L so we'll call it a good weekend.  Probably could've done a little better, but they're learning.  

Audrey, Kenzi, Karagyn and Gracie waiting for the go-carts.

More messing around with teammates

Girls being silly.


OH... We came here to play!


Nick riding his go-cart.  

Owen driving his cart

We did a little shopping on the 2nd day.
Gracie and Owen found a Tesla charger and thought this was pretty funny.

That weekend was fun, but like I mentioned, they played ok.  We should have won the first game, but the second loss, was to a pretty good team.  Great experience with good families.  Gracie will only make it to one more tourney with this team this summer because of softball.  However, she will get to as many practices as she can.


Last freestyle practice ended with a big goose egg above Owen's eye.
I was really glad that didn't split open.

Then Owen had baseball camp at SBC the next two nights.  I also ended up getting sick for a few days, so not a lot to report.  

After being sick, I decided to go for a walk around dusk.
I got a couple of pretty shots at sunset.

Such a great perspective.  I'm so thankful for what we have.

We have had such beautiful weather for the past couple weeks.  I fear the heat will turn up soon though.  And we could also use some rain.

School is out!
Owen had a couple fun parties to attend.  The first was the night before the last day of school at Drummond's.  They had probably 30+ kids at their house for a fun night of eating and swimming.  The weather was perfect and I believe they all had fun.
Lots of boys and some girls.
Not a very good picture because it came from a parent who was there.

The last day after school was a smaller group who gathered at the Talley house.

Love these boys.

These boys are now 8th graders.
One year left in middle school and then freshmen.
How can that be???

7th and 9th grade complete.

So much has happened between September 6, 2022 and now.  We have had a pretty successful school year with both kids.  There are always ups and downs; highs and lows.  I believe we have to experience the adversity and mistakes to really appreciate the great things that happen in our lives.  True for both adolescents and their parents.  My motto for the past month or so has been win or learn.  We've been doing a lot of learning.  Gotta keep that perspective for the next three years and more probably... at least.  Just keep moving forward.  They really are great kids.

Peace out freshman year!
We have a sophomore now.

Owen is going to catch Gracie in height this summer.

Ruby loves the attention.

My heart...
Sometimes I want time to stand still.

Could be the last ride on the bus.
Gracie is already planning her rides from friends next year.  They will all turn 16, just not her yet.

Last day vibes.
Kate's mom and I took these two out for lunch on their last day.
Then they went swimming at Kate's.

These two have become pretty good friends.

Memorial Day weekend softball

We didn't waste time jumping into summer activities.  Gracie played in KC this past weekend, and we'll also call that a learning weekend.  They were entered in the 16A Gold bracket and had a lot of tough competition.  It was a rough start to summer ball, but we'll move on to the next one.

Doing her thing

It was a fun family weekend and we had some down time to eat out and work out.  We didn't play until 4:30pm on Sunday, so Gracie went for a run/walk in the morning before jumping in the pool at the hotel.  We tried a couple restaurants, as well.

Owen is a mess eating wings.
You can still see the leftover black eye, too.

Regardless of the outcome of tournaments/games I love #31 and love watching her play.


I had this crazy goal a little less than halfway through May when I realized that running was feeling pretty good right now.  I wanted to get to 100 miles in a month.  Despite being sick  during the last full week and not being able to run for 4 days straight, I was able to check it off.  I have not had a 100+ mile month since December 2021.  The 2-8mile runs and a very intentional Memorial Day weekend definitely helped achieve this.  I think it also helps that the weather has been fantastic and it is getting light out before 6am. I cannot explain how much I love summer. The sun and warm is good for my soul.


Moving on to the start of summer...  This week has been far from restful.  Deb joined us in KC on Sunday and then stayed with us until Thursday.  She is finally fully retired and can do whatever she pleases for the rest of her life!  It was great to have her with us for a few days and a welcome uber service for the kids.  No lack of activities for Gracie so far.  She jumped into a full day on Tuesday with softball youth camp all morning, then SBC basketball, a hitting lesson, and finally Cougars basketball scrimmage with Columbia College.  Wednesday was about the same amount of activities, but no basketball and 2 softball games for SBC. Thursday more of the same.  I'm sure she is exhausted.  She will be consumed with basketball and softball workouts/games for most of the summer.  The summer league for SBC softball has already started on Wednesdays and she will go to the first shootout for SBC basketball next week.  She also has weights starting next week when she is here and not traveling for softball. 

Owen is not quite as busy.  He will have weights twice weekly and football meetings every Wednesday to get a jumpstart on the upcoming fall season.  I hope I don't regret not putting him in summer school.  Again, we will be gone to Tennessee for almost a full week and he would've had to miss summer school, which is a quarter of the session.  I feel a little bad because there are some quality wrestling camps during June when we are in Chattanooga and we just can't make it work.  I wish they were in July.  
 

OH!!! One more thing... because he wasn't already doing enough, Nick has taken the head coaching position for Southern Boone High School Softball.  They have already had their summer youth camp and started open field workouts that will continue through June.  Practice officially starts August 7.  It should be an exciting fall!

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