With the new year, I've decided to update our blog a little differently. I'm going to post each month's events together and see if I can't keep on top of our year this way. It may not work if our months get really busy, but for the beginning of the year, it's what I'll try. So for January, we spent every weekend at a volleyball tournament. And two of them were out of town tournaments, so this blog is mainly about Abby's club volleyball team. But to start the year, I have a picture of Taryn and Aubrey who looked so cute together snuggling on the couch. They are my early risers, and they can usually be found like this on mornings when we don't have school and everyone else is sleeping in.
The first weekend in January, there was a volleyball tournament at Stars, which is Abby's home court. Abby's team played really well, but ended up losing to a Wildfire team and earning second place in the tournament. Cindy Renee, one of Abby's friends from Hornedo, was on the Wildfire team. I got a picture of the two girls together after the tournament was over and the medals had been awarded.
Abby likes to take selfies and she sometimes sends me the ones she really likes. She took this one while waiting for me and the other girls after school one day in my van using my phone. She turned it black and white and claimed it as a keeper.
During the long weekend over Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Abby's tournament was in Tucson, AZ. We drove out late Friday night. We met up with the team at IHOP for a late breakfast because their pool play didn't begin until 2pm on Saturday. Here's Abby ready for her first out of town tournament, and Abby with her team at IHOP. Eating out with the whole team is a little crazy, but we have it down to a science by ordering each family under each girl's number so that the waitresses can keep it all organized. I thought that was pretty clever.
After breakfast, we still had time to walk the mall to keep the girls moving and work off their large meal. We took some pictures outside the mall while we waited for everyone to show up. This was the first time that the girls had their warm up suits, so we took pictures in all of their different clothing options.
I'll include the girls' names with their numbers here since you can almost see everyone with their numbers on their jerseys, so from left to right it's Coach Dawson, Regina (7), Bella (1 - her jersey says 18 but it was incorrect), Sopie (4), Alex (12), Andrea (5), Emily (10), Abby (6), Allison (8), Memoree (9), and Coach Denise.
All the younger siblings of the players had fun hanging out too. I followed them around a little and grabbed some pictures as they played too.
I only got one good picture of their first pool play games. They played three different teams and ended up beating two of them. It was fun to play some teams from all over the place. This first pool had a team from AZ, a team from New Mexico, and a team that had come all the way from Mexico.
On Sunday, since we don't play volleyball on Sundays, we drove up to Phoenix to visit my Grandma Solheim for the day. My parents had come to Tucson to watch Abby play and we all drove up early Sunday morning to make it to church with Grandma. She was so excited to have us there and she loved introducing us to everyone in her ward. After church we went back to Grandma's house, ate food, and visited with family. My mom's brother, two of her sisters, plus some other more distant relatives were there to visit with us too. Before we left to make it back to Tucson, we took some family pictures. I love getting generation pictures, so we took one with all the girls, me, my mom, and my grandma. Aubrey loves to visit "Grandma Jeanne" because that's who she's named after. So I like to get the picture of Aubrey Jeanne with Grandma Jeanne. Aubrey wanted her grandma in the picture too because my mom's middle name is also Jeanne.
Here's a picture with my parents, grandma, and my Uncle Matt. Just outside of the picture is the grapefruit tree where they had picked a ton of grapefruits and sent them home with us. They were super yummy. We ended with a picture of everyone - my whole family, my parents, Grandma, and Matt. I love my family and that we were able to see each other, visit, and share stories.
We drove back to Tucson so that Abby could be with her team for the evening. They had played that morning, so we got to hear about all their games while we ate at the Angry Crab which was right outside the hotel that most of the team was staying in. One of the other parents took a picture of Abby and her team. I took the picture of all the siblings outside the restaurant with the big blow up crab. It was a fun evening.
Monday was the final day of the tournament. This was the day for the bracket play and based on the team's record after the two pool play days, Abby's team was in the top bracket playing for 1st place. I didn't get many pictures because we were so focused on watching them play. Here are a couple pictures, one when they did their pep chant before a game, and one of Abby before she served during one of the games.
They played really well. They lost one but won a couple before losing again to end their tournament, but they played so hard and beat some really good teams. I think we figured out that they ended up in 6th place out of 40 teams in their division. It was a really fun experience. They still got a little trophy and we took pictures at their photo spot. We were so proud of these girls.
The next weekend was another tournament at home. Here are a couple pictures from one of those games. As you can tell, they have three different color jerseys - red, white, and blue - that they trade off each day they play. I really love watching Abby play volleyball.
During January, the elementary school had a STEAM night which was an evening of activities at the school that fall under the categories of science, technology, math etc. The girls made circuits using tiny light bulbs and playdoh. They got to stack cups. This was a huge tower that other people made, but the girls thought it was so cool until it got knocked down. They made light sabers and paper airplanes and even got to meet Darth Vader. (Star Wars is the theme at school this year.)
Besides the STEAM event, most grades and classes had projects that the kids had completed on display. We went and saw Tessa's marble maze that she and teammate, Bella, had created out of paper towel rolls and duct tape. Aubrey and her team had made a candy cane tower, trying to build it as high as they could without it tipping over. They used candy canes and pipe cleaners. I love seeing how proud the girls are of their work. They really love school and learning. And their teachers are awesome!
The final weekend in January, we were in Midland. The three younger girls were all traveled out, so they convinced us to see if Grandma and Grandpa wanted to keep them for the weekend. Luckily, my parents were happy to have them; so Abby, Tyler and I traveled to Midland by ourselves for the two day tournament. We played Saturday morning at an elementary school and these are the only two pictures I took. They played well, but the competition at this tournament was not very hard. I think they even won one of their sets 25-1. One of the teams they played was mostly 11 and 12 year olds and they looked really young. You could see them shake their arms after our girls served or spiked the ball because it was so hard and painful to them. Abby plays middle hitter and is really blossoming in all positions of volleyball. It'll be interesting to see where she plays on her school team next year. I love that she's learning all positions and improving in all her skills and abilities.
Because the pool play was in the morning for this tournament, we ended up eating together as a team for dinner. We left to drive home after that dinner since we weren't staying for the Sunday games. They keep us updated as they play, and sadly they lost their second game which took them out of the tournament. And they lost to Wildfire, the El Paso team that had beat them at the beginning of the month too. The sad thing is their ability is on level with that Wildfire team, so they always get to a third set where the game could go either way, and we just end up losing in the end. And always very closely. One day we'll hopefully get another chance to play them and win. But before we left to drive home, we enjoyed the bonding time over BBQ. Abby loves hanging out with her team.
The girls all get along and really just have so much fun playing together. Here are some pictures we took before we headed out the door at the BBQ restaurant that we ate at. The first picture is of Coach with all the team on the 2nd floor landing. They were all wearing matching shirts that they had just gotten that say Stay Humble and Hustle Hard on it. The girls love those shirts. And one last picture with all the girls on the stairs. I'll include their names here again, so from left to right: Memoree, Emily, Selma, Sophie, Allison, Andrea, Abby, Bella, Regina, and Alex. With Coach Dawson and Coach Denise in the back.
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