Allow me that cliche', friends. It's in reference to my four little children, who aren't so little any more. As blogged previously, I took Hot Wife and The Octopus to Chicago last Friday night. We had to sort of hustle back Saturday morning because Drew had a team in a 3-on-3 tournament at the Francesville Fall Festival. He had a team last year that wasn't very competitive, so he put a little more thought into assembling this team and had high hopes that this team would do better. I say "sort of hustle" because we left the hotel around 8:00 or so. While that isn't early, it's about 4 hours earlier than we would have preferred.
On a side note that isn't too far off the path here, let me take a minute to say that Drew is a great kid. I'm entitled to brag a little bit here because he's nothing like me at all. He got a few of his interests from me, but beyond that he's pretty much a carbon copy of Valerie, which is a good thing. He was one of two students in his class to get straight A's all the way through elementary school. He was student of the month in every grade, and two teachers told us they saved his award for the month that received special recognition. His teachers routinely asked Drew to befriend new students, as well as students who are sort of difficult--all you teachers out there know the ones I'm talking about. Drew is also one of the top athletes in his grade, at least to this point. He's the point guard on the basketball team, and when they had a 5th grade spring football team, he scored a 75 yard touchdown the first time he touched the ball. He was by far and away the best pitcher in his baseball team this summer as well. He's popular with the ladies, but so far he thinks they all have cooties...which I'm pleased with! I know that will change in time, but we'll ride this for as long as we can. Everything I like to do he enjoys as well, which is a tremendous blessing. We're both into sports, woodworking, kayaking, reading, Purdue football, and White Sox baseball. The only rooting difference we have is that I root for The Beloved Bear, but Drew is a Saints guy because his favorite player is Drew Brees. I can definitely respect that. So all in all, he's a good little dude.
Drew's 3-on-3 team did better than last year's squad, but they came up a little short. It was a double elimination tournament, and they won two games before getting knocked out. I included a few shots of him in action. You will also notice that Drew was dead tired after he finished playing. He fell asleep with Braden in his arms while we were headed home, and he took about a two hour nap as soon as we got there. (By the way, for those of you who are wondering why Braden is not in his car seat, this is my defense: we 
went to the Fall Festival straight from Chicago, and the back was full of lathe and accessories. We seldom, seldom, seldom take Braden anywhere out of his seat; in this case I took back roads all the way home. Please don't send the Bad Men after me.)
On to Alex' involvement in the Festival. She is in a singing group at school, and they sang Sunday afternoon. If this blog wasn't taking me so long to do (I'm watching the Beloved at the same time I'm writing this) I would include a side note on Alex too. She too is a wonderful little girl, very sweet and very responsible...unless you include keeping her room clean in there. My mom was down over the weekend, and I'm sure she was horrified at the girls' room! There's a shot of Alex singing included here. I called this entry "Getting Involved" because Drew and Alex are both getting more involved in things all the time. They have to make choices, and we certainly don't allow them to be involved in everything they would like to do, but we're getting to that stage. Drew will be heavily into sports, whereas my guess is that Alex will lean more towards the music and drama-type things. She likes volleyball and basketball, so she may do those things too. Please, God, just keep her away from cheerleading!
Thank you for reading my little blog.
2 comments:
You have awesome kids..... I hope I have kids as cool as yours some day. I'm mad that I missed Thome's 500th as I watched the Bears..... but it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy - well, maybe you. But you'd have a lot of catching up to do if you started today.
Drew's team played hard - they were fun to watch (and sad when they were defeated, but there is always next year!).
The girls' room looked similar to one I remember several years ago when I would remark, "Hope the firemen don't have to come tonight - they'll never find you!" Life goes on . . .
Good kids - amen!
Post a Comment