Hockey: The Next Generation

Glen and I came from fairly different family backgrounds, but one thing that was similar in both of our families was our Dads' extreme love of sports.   I grew up with the tv on a good portion of the day, mostly  tuned either to the news or to sports.  You knew how my Dad's teams were doing from across the house, based on the type of utterances being yelled out.   My brothers are also big sports' fans who can quote stats, tell you how all their teams are doing, and tell you all about the collectible baseball/basketball cards that they have or once had and how much they might be worth, etc.   Us sisters in the family can hold our own in conversations about sports, generally knowing the rules and how they work, but none of us are quite as avidly interested as my brothers.  

Glen, however, is one of five boys, with just one sister, so the sports' obsession in their house was next-level.  One of his brothers is a PE teacher and HS football & lacrosse coach, another played college lacrosse and coached lacrosse for his boys, Glen played college lacrosse, another brother is a sportswriter for a local newspaper, and his sister was a collegiate gymnast and is now married to a PE teacher and coach.   All are avid sports' fans.  And if you want to talk to his Dad, be prepared for the conversation to turn to sports within a couple minutes, no matter the starting topic.   It was definitely  an important part of both of our upbringings.  
 
The next generation (our kids at least) have a somewhat low interest in sports compared to the families we both grew up in.  They all played sports as kids/teens, but none of them really took them super seriously.   Cami did play a year of lacrosse at BYU and Adam likely would have tried for the BYU rugby team if his junior and senior high school seasons hadn't been decimated by COVID cancellations, but mostly our kids'  involvement in sports was just a fun way to interact with friends, be part of a team, and push themselves physically.  Neither Glen or I are the type to push and they didn't push it on their own, so it was what it was.   Our boys do have their sports' teams they follow and cheer for, and all of us (including the girls) can appreciate a good BYU game here and there, but it's not a huge part of any of our  lives.  

The one professional sport that is the exception, however, is hockey and Glen was as excited as can be when Utah announced that a professional hockey team was coming to Salt Lake City!      Glen had 1/2 season tickets to the Caps back when we lived in Northern Virginia, so was enthusiastic when his brother, Alex, offered to go in halfsies with him on 1/2 season tickets for the inaugural season of the Utah Hockey Club! For only having tickets for 1/4 of the home games, it's shocking how frequently the games pop up and it's become quite a fun way to have some one-on-one time with each of the kids. 

He took Ellie before she left on her mission:

He took Emma one time...

 

He's taken Adam and Spence separately a few times,

and bought an extra ticket for the game against the Caps, so they could all cheer on their Caps together! 

He's bonded with a family in the ward over their shared love of hockey.  Connor (one of the boys we taught in Sunday School a couple years ago) even brought him a Utah Hockey Club sweatshirt his Mom had made for him! 

 
This picture was taken in Colorado, but I thought it was awesome that Glen took his brother to an Avalanche vs. Caps game for his birthday! 

I smile that they always end up stopping for somewhere fun for dinner on the way to the game and always end up coming home with some new Utah Hockey Club gear....which will be dated as soon as they decide on a real name for the team!  😂

 

 

Next game it's my turn!   

Have a lovely week and may all your teams win big! 

Stealing Flags

April 29: 

Meet Adam-- the newest (and cutest) flag stealing football player this side of the Mississippi.   

He had never played flag football (or even regular football) before this, but after the two practices/games he's played in so far, he is really, really enjoying the experience.  

The practices are a little further away than I would prefer, but I am such a fan of the practices and games being on the same night, I don't care much about the distance at all.  

He's a little bummed that his season will be cut short because of our trip, but I'm excited that he's excited, and I'm thinking we may have to try this again in the fall! 

A Clean Sweep for Cami

   You'd think that things would start winding down stress-wise by last week or two of school, but, as it somehow always happens,  things are crazier than ever.   And that's with only one of my children in public school this year!    

These are the things which are overtaking our lives right now:      

1.   end-of-year concerts, recitals, etc.   2.  end-of-year banquets, award ceremonies, etc.

3.  we're inundated with getting ready  (filling out forms, writing checks, volunteering, etc) for all the summer activities (and with my calling, this takes up A LOT of time)   4.  it's time to plan for the fall (when lessons are going to be, what sports will the kids do, which classes to take, etc)

With Cami being a graduating senior, her stress levels are high too.  Here's what's consuming her time:   

1.  teachers are jamming in all of the projects they can before the end of the year  2.  Normal end-of-year finals and stress  3.  signing up for classes at BYU--the stress of actually choosing a schedule, and then having to stay up past 2am on a school night to do the actual registering   4.  Still trying to work and save money for college--this past weekend she had an overnight babysitting job, a cupcake order, and a tutoring job.     5.  WRITING A GRADUATION SPEECH--The mentor/teacher that's helping with the speech is a hard-driver who has a very particular idea of what kind of speech she wants and she keeps Cami after school working on it for hours and hours per day....sometimes well into the evening hours.      

So earlier this week, on a normal busy day, I had an alert pop up on my cell phone that Cami had her sports award ceremony that night.    I was pleased that there were no other conflicts and I made plans to go.   Several hours later, when it was time to leave, Cami seemed surprised that I was attending and tried to talk me out of it.  She claimed that it would be long, boring, and definitely not worth my time.   Sadly, this is true about a lot of sports award ceremonies that I've attended over the years, but I figured that since it was her senior year, I would go despite her protestations.   

And thank goodness I did!  

Cami was the star of the night!  

She won every single award she was eligible to win and was definitely the most frequent visitor onto the stage...male or female.     

Here's a run-down of what she won:  

1.   $1500 scholarship (awarded to only one female and one male athlete at her school)

2.  a tri-athlete scholar award (for participating in three sports and maintaining an over 3.5 GPA)

3.  a four-year three sport award (for participating in three sports for all 4 years of HS--only a handful of other seniors received this)

4.  Coach's award for varsity lacrosse (only one awarded for each spring sport)

All four of these awards were a HUGE honor to receive and it was hard not to blush a little at all the really wonderful things they said about Cami during the night.    She is a hard-worker and that night was a little pay-back, for her and for me,  for some of that hard work from over the years.     We are so proud of our Cami Rose!  

Way to go, Cami!  

Time Still Flies...

I've always heard that time seems to stand still when you're in a crisis situation, but after almost a month in our own crisis,  I believe that that statement is only partially true.  Although nearly four weeks have passed since Spencer's diagnosis, I still find myself reliving some of those early moments (like hearing my pediatrician say the word, "leukemia" for the first time) over and over again.  It's not that I'm dwelling on the past, more than I still feel like I'm trying to wrap my brain around it all.  

For the most part though, other than those quiet reflective moments, I've discovered that time still flies!  The days blur together and I can hardly believe that we hit our month mark later this week.  Here are some of the things (in addition to taking care of Spencer) that are keeping us busy: 

Temples and Tombs:  Third Grade Musical--Glen attended this very cute performance of the third grade musical at the elementary school.  I had helped Adam put together his costume for it, but never actually got to see him wearing it, so I was grateful for a friend who thought to take a couple pictures of him, since I always have the camera with me (whether I be at home or the hospital). 

Can you name that costume? 

He's an Egyptian rapper of course! 

District Indoor Track Meet--As a fellow runner, I was so excited when Cami decided to join her high school cross country and indoor track teams this year.  It's her first year of running  (other than a year of Girls on the Run in elementary school), and I'm so proud of how hard she's worked through the season.  It seems that almost every race is a PR for her and I look forward to watching her continue to improve in future seasons.  

This was another event that happened on my night at the hospital, so Glen was there to cheer her on.  Thank you again to friends who took pictures for us. 

Pinewood Derby--I have a confession to make and I hope you don't think less of me for it....

For as much as Adam loves everything about making his own car and racing it against his friends in his scout troop's Pinewood Derby, I find everything to do with Pinewood Derbies to be insufferably painful.  Not only are the actual races somewhat anticlimatic in that it takes 2+ hours of sitting, while each car races for a total of 10.2 seconds over 4 or so races.  But I find the actual process of making the cars about as tortuous as cleaning my fridge and for anyone who's seen the inside of my fridges, knows that that's really saying something.  So although Spencer's diagnosis came a mere two weeks before the Pinewood Derby, we honestly hadn't even given making his car a second thought at that point. 

Thank goodness for awesome friends!  I'm fairly confident that without the help of Garrett and his dad, Scott, that there's no way Adam would have been able to participate this year.  They had him over for several hours over the course of two Saturdays and helped him to create this fine looking masterpiece (probably much finer than if we'd been leading the charge).   It finished very respectably in all the races and Adam was thrilled!  This was the only one of these events that I actually attended and I can say without a doubt that it was the least stressful Pinewood Derby I'd ever been to!  Thank you to the Woodhouse family!     

 

Winter Beginning Band Concert--This is Emma's first year of playing in the school band and I won't lie and say that I was not disappointed when she followed in her big brother, Spencer's footsteps by choosing the clarinet as her instrument of choice.  Not only do I love the music of the clarinet, but it also meant we didn't have to rent or buy a new instrument. 

By pure fluke of the calendar, once again this event fell on a night when Glen was home with the kids and once again I am grateful for a nice friend who snapped these shots for me.  I guess people know me well enough, to see if I'm not there that I'll always be grateful for a picture.  Someday I hope to think about our calendar well enough in advance to actually leave the camera at home for this kind of event, but then again, that would require brainpower and forethought, two things that happen to be in pretty short supply right now!

Now if I could just figure out how to fit a few more of these into our schedule....

Ellie snuggles make everything seem a little better!

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Today's Update:

Same old, same old.  Waiting for his blood counts to go up, so we can take him home.    He's still feeling pretty good comparatively speaking.  He's still on a gazillion medications.  He's still waiting for the county to send over some school work.  We're going to start some home study seminary pretty soon.  Watched the Super Bowl with Glen tonight.  They're both happy with the outcome!

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“God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future--to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities." 

Jeffrey R. Holland

Adam's Track Meet

As part of the elementary school's track program, they train to participate in the local Hershey track meet.  Adam barely qualified by age this year, but he thoroughly enjoyed being able to participate with the other kids.    (this is only about half the kids from his school, since the older kids' track meet was held a different day)

Adam was very serious about his track running and even practiced here at home.  He didn't even come close to placing in the large meet, but he worked hard and was thrilled with how he did. 

Ellie eagerly told me that she was excited for the day when she would be old enough to participate in the Flyer (track) program at school too! 

Here he is doing the long-jump.  He also participated in the softball throw, but unfortunately I was too far away to capture that on camera.  

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