February, Part 1-Volleyball in Austin, Aubrey Becomes a Teenager

Abby's club team had an out of town tournament in Austin, TX during the first weekend of February. We purchased flights for me and Abby to fly out Thursday of that weekend. Unfortunately, there was a bad storm that passed through southern Texas and Austin ended up covered in ice. Our flight was cancelled and rescheduled for Friday morning. By Thursday, that Friday flight had also been cancelled so Abby and I ended up renting a car to drive to Austin. We rented a one-way car so we could fly back home Sunday instead of driving home too. When we got to the El Paso airport to pick up our rental car, they had upgraded us to a Jeep Wrangler. Abby was so excited because she says that is her favorite car and on top of it all, it was red! She had to have a picture before we headed on our way. The roads weren't too bad at first, but they got worse the farther south we got. We heard from other families on her team that were ahead of us on the road that the freeways were blocked and closed because of accidents. By the time we got close to the turnoff to head towards Austin, the backup said it was over a 2 hour wait and this was 11:00 night. Abby and I ended up finding a small hotel in the last town on the freeway thinking we could sleep for a bit and then drive in the daylight hoping the roads would be clear by then. We woke up at 6:00am, waited for the sun to rise and then headed slowly on our way. The freeway was still blocked, but a back road was passable, but it was covered in snow and ice. We drove very slowly, but I felt much better driving in the daytime. Luckily we had an afternoon pool play so we had time to drive the final 3 hours into Austin that should have only taken one. We crested a hill once and had to maneuver around a stalled semi which caused us to slip and slide on the road a little bit, but we were okay and luckily that was the only time I didn't feel in control of the car. Our jeep was awesome on the snow-packed roads and I was so happy when we finally made it to our hotel. My parents had traveled up from San Antonio and they met us at the hotel. We took the jeep back to the Austin airport and rode the rest of the weekend with my parents. It was good having them there. The girls played Friday afternoon and did well in their pool. Here's Abby with her closest friends from the team: Selma, Kyndall, and Nat.

 

Abby and I took a picture on our way out of the hotel the next morning. They played hard teams during their first pool play and ended up beating a team that was ranked higher than them so we ended up 2nd in our pool. On the second day of pool play, we were in the top pool playing against the top ranked team of the tournament. We beat two teams that were ahead of us, but we couldn't beat that top ranked team. We did win one set against them and they had some very tall girls and strong hitters. It was great to see how well our girls played together. We had a chance to beat that team in the third set, but it wasn't meant to be and they came back to take the win. But, we ended up 2nd in the pool so we were still in the gold bracket for Sunday. The other crazy part of the weekend was due to the ice storm, Austin ended up issuing a water ban. Their water ended up getting contaminated so you couldn't drink anything. A lot of restaurants were closing early and it was hard to find places for food. We drove an extra 20 minutes to make it to a restaurant to find food that night. Our hotel handed out water bottles because we weren't supposed to drink the water in the rooms. It was crazy, but luckily we only had one night left in Austin.

We had our first game on Sunday scheduled against the team that beat us the first day of the tournament. We thought we'd have a chance against them since we had seen how they played, but they came out strong and we just weren't meshing that morning. We couldn't seem to get any kills and they just slowly pulled away from us. We lost that first game so we were done for the weekend by 10am that morning. Most of us didn't have flights until that evening so we just took our time and wasted the day away. Abby took a selfie with grandma and grandpa who were there to cheer her on. She also wanted a picture of the team behind us in this picture. There was a boys league that was playing this weekend too, so it was fun to watch the boys play. They are always so tall and can hit the ball so hard. 

Since we had so much time on Sunday, we took a drive to the capital building and decided to take a little tour. Abby and I took this picture outside the building, but we also walked all around inside. It was really cool. We saw pictures of all the Texas governors and got to see all the rooms where the people meet for voting and other things. We really enjoyed it. The building was so tall and the architecture was amazing. My parents headed home that evening after dropping us off at the airport. We waited for awhile at the airport but were on the same flight as Nat and her family, so it was fun to be with them. Nat even got to sit with us on the plane. We flew home and made it in time to have dessert at Kasibbons dinner.

The following weekend in February was the big qualifying tournament in El Paso. It's only a two day tournament and of course we were against the top ranked teams in the tournament again. The girls were starting to gel by this point, so it was really fun to watch them play. They had some great plays and Abby did well. She usually started each game and sometimes stayed in the entire game. Sydney, the other setter, would sometimes come in to set, but Abby was much quicker and had more consistently good sets. 

 

My favorite part was bringing the entire family. They hadn't seen Abby play in so long and we knew we wanted the girls to see Abby's team this year play together. They were very impressed with the good hitters and with how involved Abby was as the setter. They kept asking questions about Abby who called out numbers to her hitters so they knew what to expect. I loved having them there with me to cheer on Abby's team. They won two of of their games on Saturday, but lost to the top team from their pool. But ending up 2nd in their pool still put them in the gold bracket for the following day.

The Sunday bracket games were played at UTEP for their division. We ended up having to play Abby's old Stars team first thing on Sunday. It was nice to say hi to the other parents, but it was a stressful game. Abby really wanted to beat them, but we didn't do as well as we had hoped, so after losing the first set, Coach Jose tried changing it up which only messed up the girls more. He didn't even play Abby except to serve and he switched around the hitters so the girls were very confused. At one point, they were so unorganized that they played an entire point with only 5 girls on the court. It was a little sad. Abby was furious that she had told her coach she'd play on Sunday this season because they needed her only to sit the bench during an important game. She was almost ready to just leave, so she talked to her coach and told him her frustration, but he talked her into staying.

They ended up winning their next couple of games against some pretty tough teams even though they were on the losing side of the bracket. Abby played hard and luckily felt better as the coach put her in to play and kept her in during those next games. 

They got to the point where they were one of the last four teams going for the silver, but the team they played in the semifinals was really good. We went to three sets with them, but they were a strong team and came out with the win. We talked to the parents who were really nice and found out they were a team from Lubbock I believe. The parents were really impressed with our team too and said we were the hardest team they had played all weekend. It was sad that we didn't do as well as we had hoped overall in the tournament, but I'm glad we ended the tournament against a really good team while playing our hardest.

On February 10, Aubrey turned 13! She was so excited about her birthday. I took a picture of her at breakfast the morning of her birthday. She also requested a cookie cake, so I added the "Aubrey 13" and had to take a picture of that too.

 

Aubrey's birthday happened to fall on a half day at her school for parent/teacher conferences, so she was so excited to be able to come home early on her birthday. All she wanted to do was have a few friends over during that half day, so I picked her and Jocelyn and Allison up from school and we drove through Chick-fil-A for lunch and then headed back to our house. They ate their lunch and then just hung out. They ended up taking a walk to a couple more friends' houses and bringing back a few more people. I tried to stay out of their way for the most part, but I did make them get together for one picture, so here's Aubrey on her birthday with some of her friends (who are all from band): Evan, Emma, Aubrey, Jocelyn, and Allison. They had fun hanging out and visiting and Aubrey said it was a great birthday.

After everyone else got home from school and work, we went out to dinner as a family. Aubrey picked Tropical Smoothie Cafe since it's her favorite place and we had dinner and smoothies. I wanted a picture to remember her birthday, so Abby took a selfie with all of us together. 

Aubrey didn't ask for many gifts this year, but we loved being able to celebrate her. She's coming into her own and we love seeing all that she does. She's enjoying dance and band and has a lot of friends at school between all of her classes and extra curriculars. She talks about someone different everyday because she knows so many people and they know her. Aubrey went to her school's Valentine's dance and had fun with her friends. This picture was posted on the school's Facebook page and I loved seeing Aubrey front and center. She said she had a lot of fun at the dance.

Aubrey's currently the class president of the MS young women's class at church and she LOVES K-pop music. She knows everything there is about K-pop, their bands, and their singers. We love her and love to see her excel in all of her passions. At the Kasibbons dinner where we celebrated Aubrey's birthday, she had to have her favorite treat that Sis. Kasallis makes - raspberry squares. She got some gift cards from the families that came for dinner and the Kasallis's got her a K-pop poster for her room. I also had to get a picture of one of her school projects. She and Jocelyn are in Social Studies together and they did a NHD project on September 11th. They created this diorama of the twin towers to go along with the paper that they had written. I was impressed with their creativity and their research. They spent weeks on the overall project and I wanted a picture of the final outcome. She's a hardworking student and I love seeing her excel at everything she tries. Happy Birthday Aubrey!

The biggest event that occurred on Aubrey's birthday was that we went to pick up our new dog. Even though it's a family dog, Aubrey got to name it since it was her birthday. She gave us a list of names she liked, and we all decided on Leeno. It's a K-pop name, but one that we could all pronounce and easily change to a dog-name-friendly spelling. We got Leeno from our friend Dee Bowden, who's dog had puppies in December. They are blue heeler, husky mixes. We picked the puppy with the darkest coloring on his coat and with dark eyes. Some of the puppies had the bright blue husky eyes, but it was a little too stark for me, so I'm glad the girls were ok with the dark brown eyed puppy. We took a picture of Leeno with his siblings the night we signed the paperwork and brought Leeno home. He was 9 weeks old having been born on December 10th. We had toys, a bed, and a kennel ready for him when we got home.

 

He's so tiny and cute and we were all instantly in love. He was a little lethargic the first day he was with us after leaving his siblings, but he quickly learned to have fun with us too. He loves his chew toys, especially his Duckie and the girls love him too. He loves to chew on things and he loves to run and chase toys in the yard, but he's a fast learning and he picked up the commands for sit and shake within the first week.

We got him kennel trained and potty trained pretty quickly as well and the girls were really good about cleaning up after his messes during that training period. He took over the princess chair and always looked so cute in it when he tried to spin around and get settled in it for a nap. He's been a lot of fun even though it's been a lot of work. Tyler gets up with him in the middle of the night, but after the first week or so, he started sleeping through the night and not whimpering when we'd put him in the kennel for the night. He's a very smart dog and we're learning a lot but having a lot of fun too.

Finally, I wanted to add a quick picture from work. We celebrated one of our coworkers who had gotten married, so we decorated the lounge for a bridal shower. Julie, my coworker, has great creativity and she makes such cute decorations and things. The teachers loved it and the new Mrs. Tate was so surprised and appreciative. One of the teachers took a picture of some of the office and monitor staff, so I made sure to save it. I love working with these ladies. From left to right it's me, Julie, Sylvia, Paloma, Diana, and Lupe.