June Chaos

On Sunday evening, almost a week ago, as Gracie and I were walking out of the softball complex in  Shawnee, KS, she made the comment, "It's done.  We made it."  She was referring to the first two weeks of June that she had been away from home, playing/practicing softball every day.  Owen had also been grinding and gone for a week, returning from Pennsylvania earlier that morning.  Here is my account of the past few weeks.  

wrestling: Mulvane, KS  → softball: KC/DeSoto, KS  →  softball: Allen, TX  →  softball:  KC, KS  → wrestling: Philadelphia/Oak, PA → softball:  Shawnee, KS → home.

This was Mulvane, KS June 1-2

Nick and Owen traveled here, and I covered this tournament in the previous post.

Owen is with his bestie, Bryce. :)

Pic of the arena...18 mats, lots of wrestlers

Gracie with all of her teammates - 8 of them stayed with Kali

Lucy and Gracie

Pool time at Ella's

Gracie had a full four days of practices, conditioning, skill development before leaving for Texas on Thursday June 6 in the afternoon.  She and the pitchers/catchers were doing a lot of work every day.  I believe the vans left KC by 2pm and then Nick left home around 9pm, I think.  He drove down to watch the games, but decided that a hotel was much better in the scorching heat down there this time.

Team bonding in Texas

More fun in Texas

Looks like a good hit

This is how I watched the Texas Tournament

I'm so glad that we are able to watch, even when we can't go.

1st place in the silver bracket at 

Texas State Championships.

Aces 16 u with their coach

Owen and I were able to go to church and then watch Gracie's games from home, while she played in Texas.  Then later that night, as Nick and Gracie were on their way back home and to KC (respectively), I drove Owen up to Columbia to drop him off on the bus that would take him to Oak, PA for 14u Freestyle National Duals.  So strange for all of us to be going to completely different areas of the country within the same week.

His bus left at 10pm...Goodbye Owen. See you in a week.

Gracie arrived back in KC around 3:30am Monday morning, Nick returned home around 8am, and then Owen reached his location around 3pm Monday afternoon.  I went to work per usual at about 7:15am.

I think it was a pretty uneventful evening for Owen when they arrived at their hotel.  But the next morning they got to go downtown to the well-known attraction of the Rocky movies.  This may have been Owen's favorite part of the trip.  He even took pictures of things and responded to my questions via text message with more than one word answers.

Rocky Statue!!

Owen took this pic.

I'm not sure exactly what it is.

Running the iconic stairs at the museum!

Their first workout in PA was here.

Another monument that Owen took a picture of

All of the 14u wrestlers with Rocky Balboa

Playing flash football in the park

I think it was a good day and a fun workout.

Now the real workouts begin... later in the afternoon

All of the wrestlers in their gear

Greco-Roman wrestling, which Owen did not compete in, was first and they wrestled Wednesday and Thursday.  Nick flew out to watch Owen on Thursday and Owen also weighed in that day for freestyle.  He was well under 149, so no problems there.  Up to that day, I think he had been able to workout a couple times each day and was either at the arena where they competed or at his hotel.  They did not do much extra stuff except for the first day when they took them downtown Philadelphia.  From what I could tell be reading the group chats, the rules were pretty strict about not leaving the hotel and bedtime/lights out.  They also left the hotel by 6:45am each morning to go to the arena to either workout or compete.

Nick took a few pictures

Looks like Owen is getting ready to go.

Owen in his corner with coaches

This is Ethan Barr with Owen

Ethan is wrestling at Kent State now, and his brother, Fisher, is a year older than Owen.  Nick has helped coach both Fisher and Ethan in the past at CWC.  It's great that Owen knew at least a few people going on this trip.  Owen had 3 matches on Friday and 3 more on Saturday.  Luckily I was able to watch them because they did not conflict with Gracie's games for the most part on Friday and Saturday.  He ended up 4-3 for the weekend.  1-2 the first day and 3-1 the second day I think.  He had one forfeit and won another match because the kid other kid couldn't continue due to injury.  I think it was a good experience and Owen definitely had some good competition, hopefully learning a lot.

Owen with Ethan again.

So, back up a few days, and Gracie was able to come home for about 16 hours.  She had Team 1 camp on Wednesday in Shawnee, KS, then I went to get her so she could come back and play for SBC that evening in Jeff City.  It was a quick trip, and then we headed right back over to Shawnee, KS for her 2pm game on Thursday.  Nick was on his way to the airport in St. Louis while we were driving the opposite way across the state again.  Also, on Wednesday, I saw my parents briefly as they drove through on their way back from Iowa.  They picked up Ruby and took care of her for a week while we were all gone.

Gracie with some SBC teammates at youth camp; Nova and Brooklyn

I think Ruby enjoys staying at the Lake

She is a pretty spoiled puppy down there.

I sent this to Gracie while she was in TX and reminded her that home is waiting for her to get back.

Team 1 Camp

Gracie wasn't even going to do the camp this year, but signed up at the last minute and I think she is glad that she did.  She seemed to think it was better than the past couple of years and she got to talk to a lot of college coaches.  

I think this is the coach from Creighton talking with Gracie.

Gracie and Ella waiting to talk to the Arizona coach

Gracie met the Penn State Coach and had a more in-depth discussion about Cael and Nick being teammates in college.  The coach seemed very intrigued and wanted to know some details on what Cael was like in college.  Nick was able to meet this coach a few days later when he was back from Pennsylvania for wrestling.

Pool play begins... again they only went 2-2 in pool play, losing both games on the 1st day.  I worked in the concession stand, so didn't get to see a lot of the 1st game, but there were more errors than they have had in a long time.

First game vs Impact Gold Jazz.

This was the team that ended our run in bracket play, too.

Gracie made it to third.

I can't get this shirt clean.  I have tried three times with so much Shout.

Some down time in the hotel

I didn't take a lot of pictures over the weekend, but we ended up with a record of 6-3, placing in the top 4 out of over 90 teams.  We made it to semi-finals and one game away from the championship.  They played really well in bracket play and have nothing to be ashamed of.  Gracie hit a 3 run HR to put them ahead in one of the games on Sunday, and then a walk-off sac fly to continue to the quarters.  She had another good weekend. BA wasn't quite as high as the previous weekend, but not too shabby.  I believe she played in all but maybe 1 or 2 innings, either at 3rd base or catching.  Keep doing great things, Gracie!

Aces 16u after losing to Jazz again in the semis.

Coach selfie

So, rewind a little bit...  Nick flew back to Missouri on Saturday evening and Owen started his bus ride home at about the same time.  Nick was able to stay at home Saturday night and pick Owen up around 7am Sunday morning from Columbia, then brought him home and turned around to drive over to Kansas to watch Gracie play 4 games.  We all made it home by 11pm that night.  It was a pretty long 24 hours for all of us.  Everyone was so tired.

Then Monday...  work and more sports.  Owen had the day off from everything, though.

Gracie had shooting at 9am Monday morning and then 2 basketball games with SBC over in Fulton that evening.  We all went and had dinner together afterward for the first time in almost 3 weeks.  Gracie and Owen hadn't even seen each other for over 2.5 weeks.

Playing basketball with her team

More bball

She looked like she hadn't missed a beat even though she had not been to any practices.

AND... she is probably in better shape than any other June because of all the softball workouts.

Playing against Fulton

Playing against Fulton... Audrey has the ball.  Fun playing against friends/teammates.

krcg13 ended up coming to the games, covering the new SBC basketball coach and happened to catch one of Gracie's shots that sent them into OT.  We ended up winning on a shot made by Adisen.  It was a close game and fun to watch.

More football and wrestling.

After a day of rest for Owen, he started weights again on Tuesday at 6:30am.  Gracie had both weights and basketball practice on Tuesday, as well.  We found out Wednesday morning that he would be participating in the 7v7 games in Jeff City Wednesday evening.  That was unexpected.   I had planned to go to the softball games at Rock Bridge, but plans changed and I went to watch Owen at Helias.  It was interesting, as I had never seen 7v7 before.  Owen got to play with JV on one field and varsity played on a different field.  I spent about 3 hours there watching, and trying to make sense of what was going on for football.

I think he is still playing tight end

Defense

Running

Still not sure what the purpose was here.

Wednesday and Thursday evenings, Gracie had SBC softball games and practices.  They both had a whole day off on Friday, but were able to get chores done at home.  We are three weeks into June and I can't believe everything we have done so far.  I can't believe it was just last weekend that Owen was still in PA and Gracie was playing in KS. And Texas the weekend before that.  When we're gone, it is hard to keep track of what day it is. The next two weeks will be crazy, too.  

Date night!

It was very strange, but we had two nights in a row that neither of the kids were at home with us.  We went to the Canterbury Hill Winery in Holts Summit for the evening.  I had no idea this existed, but it was very nice to sit outside, have dinner and drinks, and not really worry about doing anything else.

Ahhh..  more pretty mornings.

Thursday, June 20 was the official start of summer and the longest day of the year.  I love this time of year and that I can get up at 5:15am, and by 5:45 the sun is up and I can walk out my front door to go for a walk or run instead of having to drive into town for streetlights.  I have been doing more elliptical and bike recently because of my foot, but I try to sneak in some slow runs when it doesn't hurt too bad.  I think I have plantar fasciitis again, but I don't really know.  It just hurts; some days more than others, and I'm not very good at doing complete rest.

The first three weeks have gone so fast, but at the same time, June 1 seems like such a long time ago.  I can't believe Gracie and I are leaving in 4 days to go to Colorado and we will be gone for almost 2 weeks.  I haven't missed this much work since 2021 when we went to the Little League World Series. My parents will meet us in Windsor, CO for the first 4 days, then continue south to Denver for the rest of the trip with us.  Owen and Nick will be home all week next week and Owen will continue with wrestling and football workouts before they go to Iowa on Friday.  We will reunite on Sunday, June 30 when I pick them up from the airport in Denver.  Praying for safe travels for everyone and successful experiences in all of the competitions!  There is so much going on this summer.