It's a WIN!
We had a pretty neat opportunity to go to the WIN (Women's Intersport Network) for Columbia Luncheon on April 12, 2022. The Daniel Boone Little League Team was nominated for the WINner's Choice award this year and I was nominated for Mentor of the Year (I didn't win) for my dual roles in helping the little league team and working with female student-athletes at Mizzou. It was so fun to have all of the girls and families together again. We also got to listen to a great speaker, Katie Sowers, who both Owen and Gracie knew of in the NFL world. My parents came up to watch and it was pretty cool to see and hear about amazing women in the Columbia community.
All of the team was able to attend.
They wanted a pick with Katie Sowers.
Nova and Gracie with Katie
Owen and Kegan wanted their pic with her too.
Gracie and Nova with the award
The tables seated 8, but the girls were pretty sure they could fit all 13 at one table.
Here is the program for the luncheon.
I also had a birthday. We had a great day with our neighbors. Gracie and I went to church for Palm Sunday and then Talley's came over to celebrate both Holland and me. We are birthday buddies!
Holland and me on our birthday!
There were so many of my tennis players who had birthdays in the past month, as well. Lots of treats for March and April!
This is Romary. She plays tennis for Mizzou and wanted her pic taken with me on her birthday. I have the best student-athletes to work with! I have learned so much from all of them this year. Half of the team is international, representing Mexico (Ro), Chile, Portugal, Great Britain, Germany, New Zealand, Spain, and of course, various states (Florida, Georgia, Missouri,) within the US.
Here are a couple more tennis players. Most of them were traveling with the team for the conference tournament, but I found these two at ROARS!
And, here was my date for Roars this year.
This event hadn't happened since 2019, and it was great to see all of the student-athletes get dressed up and win awards for the amazing things they do in their respective sports, academics, and community service. What a fun night and I got to share it with Gracie!
Gracie on the gold carpet outside of the Missouri Theatre, where Roars is held.
Mom/Daughter pic.
I think Gracie was a little overwhelmed by all of it, but she got to see everyone in a different light.
It was a fun night!
Sunday Funday at the softball stadium...Actually, I think it was a Saturday.
Homerun hat day with her friend Brook.
Owen and I got our hats, too.
More fun at the ballpark.
Easter Sunday!
We made it to church for a second week in a row! We went to the early service at 8am, and thanks to wonderful planning of the SEC, a tennis match was held at 9am. Gracie was kind enough to join me for that. Nick and Owen went home.
I guess the Easter bunny still loves our kids.
The 6th graders had their first official dance of middle school. It was themed neon, so all kids were supposed to be dressed in bright clothes and I think glow sticks were provided.
Gracie had a softball game the same night, so Owen joined the Talley gang, plus quite a few more to go to the dance. April sent a pic with all of the boys. It was a really nice night and I think they had fun.
Another sports weekend for Gracie...
We didn't think that Gracie would be able to play in both basketball and softball tournaments this past weekend, but the schedules aligned so that she only missed one basketball game of the four that were played. It also helped that basketball was in Jeff City and softball was in Columbia... (and softball was rained out Sunday after the first game.)
First, basketball. There were two games on Saturday. We were able to make it to the morning game because softball was not scheduled until 1pm Saturday afternoon. They won the first game pretty decidedly (33-11 I think, or something like that.) Gracie had a couple points and contributed. The team also won the second game without her that afternoon. I want to note that these 8th grade girls played up in the high school bracket against JV teams. Not too bad.
Jump forward to bracket play on Sunday. The only way Gracie was able to play basketball was because it started raining in Columbia about 3/4 through the first softball game, which started at 8am and didn't stop until noon. They canceled the tournament by about 10:20am and we headed south to the basketball tournament. Nick went with her to watch and Owen and I went home. They won the first game and lost in the championship game against her softball teammate, Sadie S. It was a pretty good day and I can't believe how much we were able to do in one weekend.
Gracie shooting a free throw in the first game.
Timeout
Playing her friend Sadie in the championship game.
Another timeout
After their first win on Saturday morning
Sadie A and Gracie
Sadie S and Gracie after the championship game.
The girls on Gracie's bball team.
We are surrounded by a bunch of great families and girls.
And... Back to softball.
We had our first game on Friday night. It was a loss, but the other team had only 2 hits, both being homeruns with a runner on each time. The same girl hit the homeruns and she was their pitcher. We were able to score on a couple of errors, but came up short 4-1.
The next game on Saturday afternoon was not a lot better. Gracie had the only hit during that game. We finally came alive in the next game and won 13-6. Gracie was 3-3 and they all had a lot better game hitting.
Gracie at bat during the 2nd game on Saturday.
Friday night game
We also won the first game in bracket play on Sunday morning at 8am, but the rest of the day was canceled due to rain. We would have played Iowa Premier for the next game. One of my previous coworkers from Ballard has a daughter on that team. That would have been pretty fun to watch them play against each other. I don't think they know each other, though. She is quite a bit older than Gracie.
Here are a few more pics from softball this weekend. I don't take enough, I guess, for the amount of time that I sit in a chair at the field. I was lucky that another parent took some pictures for basketball; I also did not take any there.
Gracie watched some of her friends play while when she was done on Saturday afternoon.
Here she is with Brook.
She found Brynn, too, and recreated a picture from2 years ago when they were on the same team.
Little League reunion again, and one of these things is not like the other.
The girls who are on Galaxy Elite and Nova are missing from this pic.
They sent a message to the Mizzou softball team to wish them good luck. :)
I have to take a minute when I see all these pictures of the people who are part of our lives because of the activities our kids are in. Gracie and Owen both have made so many friends all over mid Missouri because they want to do things outside of regular school activities, and we make it happen for them. Of course, Owen is not good at remembering names of anyone, but he loves his wrestling family, just the same. We are so blessed to have these opportunities. Whenever we go places, Gracie and Nick probably know someone or we run into people that have at some time, been part of a team that Gracie has been on. So many great experiences with so many different people. I feel like there is so much more to come, too.
Driving to games. At least it wasn't a long ride this weekend.
Owen. Love you and your patience with Gracie's things.
We gave him the choice on Sunday to stay home or come to the softball games. He chose to come watch. It has been tougher in the past 6 months without the softball brothers being there anymore. It's been a new group of girls without younger brothers, or their brothers are in other things, or not the same age. I will have to get more creative in keeping him entertained during games.
Earlier this month I received an email from LLWS and Easton asking us to renew our waiver form for Gracie. They want to use her picture in one of the Easton adds for the 2023 catalogue. Nick wanted to know how much we should charge them. 😂
This is the photo that was taken at the world series. They sent me the proof and it's a pretty good picture.
This is the ad that will be published in the catalogue.
Gracie is in there with a bunch of pretty high profile athletes.
So, that kind of brings us up to date with activities for the last two weeks. We are starting off the spring/summer season for softball much better than we ended fall. So far we are 7-5 after 3 tournaments. Gracie is hitting better and was .600 over the weekend. She is catching and playing shortstop for the most part and has already thrown out a few runners at either 2nd or 3rd. When she is focused, it is amazing to watch. There are times when she reverts back to her 13 year old brain, though. Understandable. Our schedule is about to get crazy busy with end of the year things for school and picking up more sports activities for both kids.
I can't believe it will be May 1 on Sunday. We will be in the last month of school and Gracie has already picked out her classes for her first year of high school. They start summer workouts as high schoolers for both basketball and softball in June. Owen will continue workout with the middle school students and baseball will also start next week. I predict that June and July will be even crazier. We are trying to figure out how we're going to do it all.
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