Wrapping up Basketball and the GPLHS Tournament

 This past week was pretty busy and crazy. We are finally wrapping up the basketball season, which both sad and kind of a relief. I love to watch Emma play basketball and it's been a fun season for both teams, but I am ready to get some weeknights back again. 

Emma's YMCA league had their end of the season tournament this past week. Emma played on Tuesday evening, and they beat the other team by quite a bit. Emma played hard, scored some points, and was fun to watch. On Thursday evening, they played for the Championship. They ended up coming up short. The other team just plain played better. Emma's team struggled to make their shots, they were not rebounding well, and they just didn't show up enough to win the game. Some of the girls were pretty upset by the outcome, but overall it was a really good season and the girls played well and improved a lot over the season. 

Emma was a little upset about it, but overall she was proud of the season and said she played her hardest, which she did. Her YMCA league is still having some practices because they have the Tri-State Tournament at the end of March. So, we still have a little bit of basketball left. 

On Friday evening, we randomly found out that the Jefferson girls basketball team was having their last home game to either lose and go home or win at go on to play playoff basketball. So, we decided to go. We brought Hannah T with us, and we enjoyed a really good basketball game. The girls were really interested in the game the entire time, which was nice to see. Elliott got kind of bored, and just walked around for a lot of the game. 

On Saturday, we woke up early to head to Watertown for Bethel's last basketball tournament of the year. Bethel was playing in the recreational league, so they just had three games to play and that was it. Bethel ended up going 3-0 (for the first time ever). They played some good basketball (and some not-so-good basketball) and ended up winning all their games. Emma played really well overall. We still need to work on rebounding and aggressiveness at times, but she is getting the concepts down, and just need to work on fine tuning her skills. 

My parents also came to the tournament and enjoyed some basketball games. In between games, we went and got some coffee and walked around. After the last game, we went to Dempsey's and had some beers, played some games, and then ate some pizza for supper. Finally, around 4:30pm we checked into our hotel and went swimming. 

We ended up with the pool to ourselves for a good hour, before other people came in and we left. We cleaned up, and then played some games in the lobby. Elliott now is obsessed (and pretty good) at Rummy Cube, and we also figured out how to play Skip-Bo again, and everyone was enjoying that. By 10:00, we were all pooped and headed to bed. 

Today, we ate some breakfast at the hotel, played a few more games, and then headed home. We are currently working on laundry, house cleaning, and just relaxing a little before our weekend is completely over. 

This next week will be quite a bit quieter. We only have one basketball practice, and no games. And really nothing else going on. I don't know what we will do with all our free time. 

We had a really nice weekend again, but I'm ready to not pack for a hotel again next weekend. This week, we have braces to look forward to with Emma. She get them on on Tuesday! Wish us luck!

Elliott's bird he made in Science class 

YMCA league 

Second Place!

Bethel's Basketball Team 

Dempsey's 

NEHLS Basketball Tournament

 Last weekend, we had our annual basketball tournament in York, NE. All in all, it was a pretty fun, basketball-filled weekend. Many kids on the team were battling illnesses and not feeling the best, so we had to throw together a really interesting mix of people all weekend. We also had a good reason to break in the new truck, so we decided to take that to Nebraska. It was fine, except we didn't have a Tonno cover, so we had to keep moving our luggage around when we needed to stop places. 

We headed to Nebraska on Thursday after lunch. We all handled the 4 hour drive pretty well, and then got settled into our hotel. After visiting with everyone else, we headed out for supper. We went back to the Mexican Restaurant we went to last year, and we enjoyed a very good supper again.

Once we got back to the hotel, the kids went swimming, while the adults played some games and visited. We played cribbage and then Uno Flip with some of the older kids. It was a fun evening. 

On Friday, we played a lot of basketball. Bethel had four games to play. We started at 10:30, so it was to sleep in a little. Bethel was outmatched in a lot of their games, but they played hard and learned a lot. They went 1-3 on the day. In between games, we did a lot of walking about Waco, NE to kill time and to avoid bleacher butt. Emma had a really good day. She came out a little flat in the first two games, but in the second two, she played really hard, was aggressive, scored some points, and got some rebounds. It was fun to watch her play and watch her continue to improve. 

We finally wrapped up our day around 4:30pm. We went back to the hotel, and the kids swam until our pizza party. We all enjoyed some pizza, drinks, and more visiting until we were all ready for bed. 

On Saturday, we had our pool play. We got seeded number 8 so we played the number 9 team, and beat them. Then, we had a devotion, awards, and then played again at 12:30. We lost horribly to the number 1 team, and then headed home. 

On the way home, we stopped at the Nebraska Crossing outlet mall. It was beautiful day, sunny and 62 degrees and we enjoyed the outdoor mall. We shopped at Under Armor, Nike, Lindor Chocolate, the Croc Store, and a couple other places. It was pretty fun and helped break up the drive. 

Our next stop on the way home was Hu Hot in Sioux City. We were all starving by that time, and we really enjoyed our supper. It was pretty busy in there, but it was a good stop. We finally made it home around 8:00pm and called it a day. 

Sunday was pretty much a church day and then a catch up at home day with laundry and cleaning. It was a really fun, really busy weekend. 

Dad and Emma at the outdoor mall 

Elliott and his new crocs 

Roadtrip to NE