Thanksgiving 2008

I love Thanksgiving. It's one of my favorite holidays. I was quite pleased with it this year. I was very nervous because it was going to be one of the few not celebrated with our family. My first choice of course is to have Thanksgiving with my family, but since that couldn't happen it was nice to have good friends to celebrate the holiday with. We had our neighbors the Davis', the Gunn family, and the McClaren family over.

Javonte, Travis, Wendy, Kimmie (pre dinner)

Wendy, who didn't want her picture taken, and me and Kimmie. All working hard of course in the kitchen.

Jayley who kindly set all the tables.

Sam, such a cutie. He loves cameras. He must have been taking a turn with the video camera.

Kimmel and Jeremiah Gunn

Kimmel, the kid is only three and look at that basketball form. He's got the moves.

Me and Wendy working hard of course :)

Cody Davis

Steve McClaren and his son Cooper

More basketball

You guessed it more basketball up here in Alaska.

Friday night was a 3 on 3 tournament. It's so much fun.

 

*It starts at 5:00 p.m. 

*It's double elimination

*Score to 15 by 1's, 3 pointers are worth 2

*half court games 

*It's one of the big fund raisers for the high school teams.

 *3 age divisions for boys/3 for girls

Ron was on a team in the men's open division. They didn't make it very far, but they were the oldest team in the tournament and they didn't have a sub. Their 4th guy got sick and didn't make it. I only got this picture taken of him. (He's in the orange, on the left, Bishop Youngberg on the right with the ball, and Travis Tippets barely seen in the middle). Last year Ron was on the winning team. 

I didn't get to play. The teachers I play with had a school fundraiser at the Elementary school that same night and so none of them could play. It was a bummer because we planned on being in the tournament. 

The good news is that both Travis and Jayley's teams took 1st place in their divisions. The champions get sweatshirts and 2nd place gets t-shirts.

CHAMPIONS

This is Nick Silva and Travis after their championship game sporting their champion sweatshirts.

CHAMPIONS

Cassidy, Bailey, Brindalyn, Jayley

I purposely took this picture with the clock up above them. If you look at the time it says, "12:26". That is the correct time. It is 12:26  a.m. That's part of the fun of the tournament. It goes until the double elimination is completed. The final game of the night got over around 1:00 a.m. Jayley's team had just finished their game when I took this picture.

Jayley on the court right before her championship game started.

Jayley's team's name was 2BJC. It stood for 2-B's-Bailey and Brindalyn, J-Jayley, C-Cassidy

Jayley made the shirts for her team.

 Nick made the shirts for their team. They were called the "Bomb Squad".

Brady, Travis, and Nick right after their championship game. 

Trip to the Emergency Room

I'm really irritated and not because I wasted my time, but because my judgement was different than the ER doctor. I do not go to the hospital very easy. If I go it's because I know there is a reason. Jaden cut her thumb tonight. It was sooooo disgusting. It went all the way through the epidermis. It was so nasty. I've never seen a cut that deep. Granted it wasn't super long, but it was deep. Because it was in the web of her thumb, an area that has a lot of movement, I felt like it needed to be stitched closed. 

Anyway, the Dr. put neosporin and a band aid on it. Well, he had the nurse come in and put neosporin and a band aid on it. I asked the nurse how it was going to heal together. It was gaping when she put the band aid on. She said she was wondering the same thing. So she had the Dr. come back in so I could ask my question. He told me it wasn't going to heal together. I said, then how is it going to heal. He said with scar tissue in between. He said that it would only take 1 stitch and he doesn't think it's worth it to put 1 stitch in. He feels it's better to just let it heal.

I don't get it. I'm irritated. It's not a life or death situation and so of course I didn't push the issue, but obviously I didn't come home and go to bed even though it's 12:22 am. I'm too mad. Here's a picture of it. It was too hard to get a close up. It's kind of blurry, but you get the idea.

You can't see in the picture how thick her skin is. The picture doesn't show the depth of the cut, but you can see how it's gaping.

She's holding up both hands to show her ring and her band aid. The nurses gave her a ring.

I should have taken the picture when we first got there and she had her coat off and was laying back on the pillow. Instead I got this one right before we left. 

Okay, now for the funny stuff. When the nurse came in Jaden knew all about everything;

the band 

the temperature

the blood pressure

of course because she's been in the hospital so many times because of her seizures.

So when the nurse was done doing the vitals Jaden says to her,

"So how many weeks am I going to be here?"

We all started laughing. We had to explain her familiarity with the hospital. The funniest part is that Jaden is old enough to understand what a week is. 

She was serious when she asked that question.

Jayley made the paper

Jayley said that one of her teachers at school was teasing her for looking down and not looking up (that's how you should be driving to the basket). Anyway, when we first saw the picture in the paper I told her that it was awesome that they got a picture of her using her left hand. It's hard to use your left hand. A lot of high schoolers can shy away from driving with the left hand. I was proud of her for already being comfortable using her left. So because I had told her that when the teacher said that to her she said, "well at least I'm using my left hand." He looked at the picture, looked at his hands, and said, "good job, you are using your left hand." She was still embarrassed that she wasn't looking up. Oh well, it's a cute picture I think and it's the top picture.

Schoenbar Shootout

Another crazy, busy basketball weekend. The Schoenbar Shootout is the annual Junior High Basketball Tournament. Boy was it a crazy weekend. I've never worked so hard at a function. It was a long, hard weekend, but a ton of fun. Because the kids have to travel so much for their sports, they fund raise and fund raise and fund raise. It's crazy how much they have to fund raise. The tournament was run by the parents; concessions, t-shirts, hospitality room, scorebook, clock, etc. It was a lot of fun, but it was a lot of work.   Jayley played 11 games in 3 days. 

The most memorable part about the tournament sadly is that there was a major epidemic of the stomach flu. Players were dropping off like flies. It was so bad that we had to set up sick rooms at the school. It wasn't food poisoning. It was actually going around the whole town. 3 players had to be taken to the hospital. By Saturday it was just a big puke fest. The bathrooms were covered in puke. The parking lot even had puke in it. It was so gross and sad. Despite the puke fest it was a fun tournament. It was just a freak thing.
Jayley's 7th grade team took 2nd. They were beat by Juneau in the championship game. Jayley plays on the 8th grade team as well. They took 1st. Jayley is on the far left in the picture.

Busy Basketball Weekend

Last weekend was a busy one and it hasn't stopped. I'm still trying to catch up. 

First of all, I sent Jayley off on the ferry to Craig, Alaska Wednesday after school. There was a junior high basketball tournament there.

Then Friday early morning I sent Travis off on Alaska Airlines to Seattle. He was in a basketball tournament there. His basketball coach has been working them really hard. It's pre-season and so they are signed up in a league called "Blue Storm".  The tournament was a blue storm tournament. They've worked really hard for this and they did really well. They won 3 out of 4 games. This is really good considering the schools were all from the city and the competition is usually tough. And the most exciting thing about trips like that is the mall. They got to go to a mall. Of course I'm sure I would be more excited than Travis was, but none the less that's a perk of going to a bigger city.

Then Saturday I played in a basketball tournament that was here in Ketchikan. It was a fundraiser for the varsity girls basketball team. I played with the group of teachers that I play with on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was a lot of fun. It brought back memories of the good ole days. It was fun to be back on a high school court. I only wish I still had that high school stamina.

(Some of the games were in the practice gym. This was one of them. I didn't want you to think this was our main gym. Ketchikan actually has a really nice main gym.)

These are my basketball fans that came and watched me play:) I think they got bored and stepped out in the hallway for a bit.

After the basketball games we went out for pizza. It was so much fun. I couldn't resist going out for dinner. Since Travis and Jayley were gone we only had the 4 youngest. Life was so much simpler. It's strange how taking 2 kids out of the family can make such a difference. 

Brent wanted to stay home and watch cartoons. Go figure, so it ended up just the 5 of us. I can't imagine how simple life would be with just 3. It was such a piece of cake. But I guess there are pros and cons to everything because without the older ones I wouldn't have anyone to watch play basketball right now and they are alot of fun to watch, especially the older they get. Travis most likely will be on Varsity next year. I really can't wait for that!!!

conversation

Because of Jaden's seizures, she sleeps in bed with us. Most of her seizures are during the night and without being right next to her, it would never wake us up when she had one. Even a baby monitor wouldn't work. Her seizures now are very quiet. She quits breathing and goes into muscle contraction in a fetal position. So consequently she sleeps in our bed. Anyway, this morning I'm still laying in bed when she wakes up. This was our conversation upon the first second her eyes opened and she was awake.

Jaden: Mom, did I grow?

Me: I'm sure you did, but probably just a tiny, tiny bit.

Jaden: but did I grow?

Me: Yes, do you want to grow up?

Jaden: Yes, I-want-to-be-a-parent.

Me: chuckle, you are just like Travis

Jaden: I had a dream.

Me: you did

Jaden: Yes, it was a fiction dream.

Time for a haircut

We gave Travis a haircut on Sunday. I must have forgotten to take an after picture. This is all that's on the camera. Anyway, I never blog much about him. He's so busy and hardly ever around. I made him stop for a second so I could get a picture of him. He lets his hair get about this long and then he wants it cut. Then we go about 3 months and then cut it again. When it gets this long he starts getting called "goldilocks" at basketball. I think it's cute, but it's nice that he gets it cut short because then for the next 3-4 months I don't have to cut his hair. I like his basketball coach. He has a rule that their hair must be short and natural color or they can't be on the team. 

Did you vote??

I did my duty and I voted. I hope the outcome agrees with my vote. 

It probably won't, but I can hope. We'll see.

Also, we switched to the democratic party because Sam wanted to vote. 

We registered him and he got to vote today too.

(Thanks for your help ACORN)

more pics of Jaden

I cut another inch off of her hair. It's not quite as cute because it is really short, but it's still cute and it looks better now cause it's even all the way around.

She was a goof ball. I was trying to get a picture of it all morning, but she was acting crazy. This is Jaden all the time.