A couple of weekends ago, we had ourselves a couple of nice days. It’s been bumped back a couple of times for various reasons, but it was a good weekend.

First, my wife and I decided to shop local by not going more than 15 miles. That put us in a little clothing/hair boutique, a die-cast model shop, and a wine tasting. All good times.

#areyoubeingsarcastic

Not really. Ok, the boutique was not my thing. It’s run by a former student which is cool, and she’s really expanded her clothing selection. My wife can order online and pick it up in the store, which is cool too. We got presents for nieces there. Nothing for me.

#ha

The diecast place we’ve never been to and it’s was kind of cool. So much ag equipment, race cars, little cows and horses, along with a plethora of other stuff to check out. I ended up buying a model of a John Deere tractor that my father-in-law used to drive. It brought up good memories for me (I’ve never driven big tractors) and my wife told tales for a while about all the stuff he used to own, fix, and swear at! 🙂

Finally, we have the awesome little business in town where you can pick up the “stuff” of Christmas to decorate your house for the season. You can also pick up dry soup, bread, and appetizer mixes there too. But the reason we go, the wine. The owner used to work at our school and has this amazing knowledge of local wineries, what’s good and what’s not, along with a mountain of different flavored beers. We love going in there to catch up with her, to sample a few things, then walk out with gifts for others AND ourselves. This time was no different. Wine for my mom, for my wife, and maybe another trip back later for beer! 🙂

Sunday? A basketball day? Why not? We were entered in a tournament about 90 minutes from our school.

#yikes

I know, right? We played against teams that usually are pretty stacked with varsity players, and most of the time, I have few worries. We go to these tournaments to get the experience and maybe win a few games. No, my anxiety came from the fact that we are very short handed. At the beginning of the week, we had seven. 2 eighth graders, 4 seventh graders, and 1 sixth graders. We ended up with 1 eight grader and 4 seventh graders.

5 girls. For three game.

#goodgravy

Yup, I was not happy. My smallest team in the past was six girls, and we added two seventh graders to round it out, no problem. This year’s edition of rounding it out has not gone well at all. Trying to get sixth graders to play up has been next to impossible! The one who was going to play with us got smacked with a softball TWICE and had a concussion. Another girl had hamstring issues. And a third was sick. My team was five girls.

However, those five girls made some fans of other players, coaches, and fans because they just played their hearts out. We lost our first game by 5, our second game in double overtime, and our third game by 9 and only because we just ran out of gas in the last four minutes. All in all, it was just a learning experience for me as a coach, just cheerleading the entire time, and trying to keep spirits up as they got more and more tired. They were grumpy on the way out, but I was so proud of how they stuck together. There are things to work on for sure, but it was a great start to our club season!

Then, I got to see another basketball game! I’d reached out to a former player, who is currently in her freshman year of college basketball. She was playing at home, so after our tournament, I crusied south and caught the second half of her game. I was able to sit with her parents and talk with them (I’ve had two of their three kids in class) and then talked with her as well!

I was really worried about the tournament. I spent a lot of emotional energy simply being worried about things that just weren’t worrying about. As the tournament progressed, I was proud of the effort they put out there and it reminded me of the team that A played on. Small team, but tons of energy. As for the final game, I saw the player I remembered: upbeat, not afraid, and playing to a passion that I wish I could bottle and give to other players.

And to have that time with my wife on Saturday: priceless! 🙂

A great weekend for sure! ❤️