We are a wrestling family now apparently.

 Will is a couple of weeks into his JV wrestling season.  He's never been on a wrestling team and except for a brief two week camp in second grade (third grade?), he's never wrestled.  He joined to help get him ready for next year's football season.  The workouts are tough, the rules of wrestling are confusing (to me) but he is making it work.  I printed off a 'wrestling for dummies' cheat sheet to take to his first competition last week and he won in a pin after about 30 seconds.  That's one of the fun parts of wrestling - none of these pesky 60 minute games and time outs and halftime and everything.  Just wrestle!  He participated in a tournament this weekend and won 2 out of his 3 matches.  He keeps trying to practice his moves on Glenn and that's probably not going to end well.  Will thinks that Reina should try wrestling next year because there's a girls team too.  Mom has thoughts.  Until then, let's go watch some wrestling!  

Football in June?

Will's had the opportunity to play 7 v 7 football this summer.  He traveled with the high school team to Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins a few times to play.  Glenn, Pop-pop and I took turns going along to watch. What a cool experience!  He played linebacker mostly, a few shots at offense too.  The regular season starts practice in four weeks and we are ready!  

Shirts vs skins (Will) 

Defending the receiver 

This one is a little harder for me - that's Will on the field at Colo State.  Great opportunity but ew.

With that yucky logo in the back but look at the position on defense!  

 

Baseball season again

The temperature outside hasn't always felt like it, but apparently it's baseball season again.  Will is playing with a new team this year.  He's actually on two teams.  One team is for the regular season and just plays in town during the week.  The other team is made up of the best players from the regular season teams and travels to tournaments or plays out of town teams.  The regular season was supposed to start tonight but we had a rain out (which was actually great news because we are in a drought!).  The travel team has had some scrimmages but last weekend Will had games in Casper,  I went with Will for the quick overnight trip and had fun watching him play.  

Playing third base

At bat

 

Football pictures part 1

Will's freshman football season was delightful.  Is it okay to call a football season delightful?  Don't tell Will I used that word.  Let's just say we had a lot of fun watching him play.  He played both sides of the ball - linebacker on defense and running back/full back on offense.  He was also on the kick return team.  He made it through the season injury free but had a lot of bruises and one really good turf burn on his bicep.  He grew a lot as a player.  At the beginning of the season, he had a goal to get 40 tackles and frankly we lost track of his tackles after a few games in.  I know I sound like a braggy mom but it was just a pleasure watching him play a sport that he loves.  These pictures are from a handful of freshman games.  He got to play JV as the season progressed and I'll save those pics for another post.  

Standing for the national anthem, our #33. 

Team huddle pre-game

Chasing the quarterback

Lining up in the backfield on offense 

Sacking the quarterback!  

Taking down the runner 

Leaping through a pack of players to do something 

The first JV game of his career in Gillette.  He's #44 in the middle of the pack on the sideline.  I thought it was fun to grab a pic of the five freshman that got to travel with JV standing in a little herd.  

Getting some JV playing time!  

 

First week of school

Shoot! I'm having trouble formatting my pictures and the page is a little messed up so the first day of school post will have to be sans captions. The kids have been in school for a week and besides Covid craziness, everyone is doing well. None of us have Covid right now but there isn't a mask mandate in the schools (right now also) and almost every day I'll get a message from one of the two schools about positive cases and students in quarantine. Both kids are vaxxed so we have that sense of protection but the whole system seems so much more chaotic than last year. But again - I"m not turning this into a Covid rant. Both kiddos had mostly positive reports from their first week of school. Reina is adapting to Jr High wait Middle School pretty well and besides being crankily tired on Friday night, had a good week. She says she likes her English class the most but she's also really liking art. And science. And French/Spanish. Etc. Will is pretty busy with football after school and more homework than last year at night but he's doing well too. This post will include a picture of Coco looking beautiful (naturally), a picture of Charlie looking concerned on the first day of school, Will and Reina in first day of school outfits looking too grown-up (hey I made it through the first day of school without crying!). There are several pictures of Will's first football game. He's #33. One picture shows him getting ready to sack the quarterback and if I'd had my wits about me, I would've kept taking pics instead of dropping the camera to scream "GETTTTTT HIMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!" which he did. There's also a pic of Will trying to get by a kid who's several sizes bigger than him and another pic of Will getting a great block for his teammate to run down the sidelines. Will's team won their first game 38-9 and we just love watching that kid play. We end the photo roll with our beautiful girl looking way to ready to conquer 7th grade.

The rest of June

I've been too tired at night to write but we are having a fun and busy June.  Lots of baseball, a dance recital, gardens in bloom and work have been filling up our time. We've had a roller coaster of weather too - super hot days at baseball and then at the end of the week we are wearing sweatshirts and closing the windows at night. So here's the rest of our month in pictures.  

Baseball!  Will's team has had games a few nights a week with a few weekend tournaments.  The season ends on July 18 so we have some hectic schedules coming up but boy do we love watching this kid play.

Dance recital time!  I have enough pictures for a whole post but here's a picture of our girl in her ballet costume.  She also danced modern and hip-hop this year and more pictures of that coming soon!

Cousin time ! We had a summer kick-off bbq at Fry Farm with the cousins and Hansen grandparents.  Baby cousin doesn't want to snuggle like he used to but he's still pretty darn cute.  

It wouldn't be a summer picture without hail in the backyard.  We had a heckuva storm a few Fridays ago.  The good news is that our hail tent did it's job even though it collapsed in the middle.  Surprisingly, the fabric held and even with the center collapsed, the plants underneath survived.  The flowers and veggies that weren't protected took a beating but, as always, it could have been worse.  We also need a new roof and paint on the house.  Yah for insurance?!

Pauley men!!  Will is about two inches taller than me and as you can see, is creeping up on Will.  They wear the same size shoe now and I wear Will's shoes when I go out into the backyard and don't want to get mine dirty.  Shhh, don't tell him.  

First jam of 2021!  The weather was delightfully cool enough this weekend that I fired up the stove and made some strawberry jam.  Supplies are much easier to find this summer compared to last year so I hope to have a bunch of batches in the cupboard soon.  

Hail from the earlier picture.  Some of those pieces were annoyingly gigantic. 

Will headed off to football camp with the high school team (gasp).  Will traveled to Nebraska with his teammates for a few days.  He had a great time and informed me that he's practically ready for college now because he's stayed in the dorms and gone to practice without us there.  He might be ready but I am most certainly not.  

Charlie and his very favorite bunny slipper chew toy.  It's hard to be a tough guy when you really love chewing on a squeaky fake slipper.  

Volleyball Player!

Folks, we have a volleyball player in the house!  Reina had her first elementary game this afternoon.  She joined the team last year but they just had a few weeks of practice before Covid closed school and canceled the season.  She's been practicing for a few weeks this year, then the snowstorm canceled the first game last week so we had to wait until today to see her on the court.  I had a preview of her volleyball skills because she and I practiced (with some new friends that we've made as part of the Adopt-an-Airman program) yesterday and I was BLOWN AWAY with her skills.  We were practicing on a full sized net and Reina was serving the ball with no problems and getting a lot of bumps and even a few sets. She was so nervous about today's game but once it started, she settled right in.  She got all of her sets over and was almost perfect with her passing.  Her team won 2 games to 1 and it was very exciting!  Volleyball is a little different speed than Will's basketball games - the girls are very encouraging to each other and there's a lot of cheering and clapping.  As we watched the ball hit the floor a few times, Glenn remarked that there aren't a lot of ball hogs either!  :)  

I sent this picture to Pop-pop, Grandma and Aunt V.  Pop-pop made Reina's day by writing back "who's #44?  I don't know her - does she play for Central (the high school team)?"  

Getting ready to play some defense!

One of her killer serves.  The net in her league is lower than a regulation sized so she had no problem getting it over the net and serving it strong.  

 Win or lose, Reina girl, we just love watching you play.  

8th Grade Basketball

The 8th grade basketball season ended today.  Will played on the A Team the entire season and we are really proud of him!  He improved a lot and he has a really sweet shot.  We had so much fun watching him play.  Today was supposed to be the end-of-season tournament but Laramie couldn't make it over the hill so it was just three teams, single elimination.  Will's team lucked out, they were supposed to play Laramie but they just had to play Carey and won in exciting fashion.  It was the sports highlight of my year so far.  

Earlier in the season playing against a Nebraska team.  Will's team wore masks during all of the games. 

Getting ready to grab a rebound. 

The championship trophy!  

 So another milestone completed, the last junior high basketball game.  Baseball practice is already underway and his first game will be in about a month or so.  The days are long but the years are short.  Again.  

Day 189

 Will's officially OFFICIALLY quarantined.  After my post last week, we got an email the next day saying that the A team football kids could back to school on Friday.  So off he went Friday morning.  He wanted me to bring him his football equipment because there was still going to be practice Friday afternoon.  When I went to drop the stuff off, I was informed that he was officially being quarantined.  We have a letter from the Dept of Health and everything.  It's a little intimidating but basically, he can't leave the house until school on Sept 29.  No visitors to our house.  We're monitoring him for symptoms and he'll get tested later this week.  So far so good.  Although every time the kid sneezes or coughs, I want to take his temperature.  That level of scrutiny is super fun for him, as I'm sure you can imagine. 

The rest of us are good.  Reina and I stayed home most of the weekend, except for a few essential errands and we did curbside pick-up wherever possible.  Glenn was hunting, which is the perfect definition of social distancing.   The dogs got some long walks and jogs and the cats got more attention than they feel is necessary. 

I took some pictures of Will's game on Wednesday and I'm so glad I remembered my camera.  The team still has two games on the schedule for when quarantine ends for them, but I'm not sure if those games will go.  We'll just have to wait and see.  For last week's game, the team was missing about a 1/3 of the players so Will got a ton of playing time on defense too.  The score was not in their favor but I think he had fun out there.  

Will, his water bottle and the corner of someone's head.  

Getting ready to play some O-line 

I know someday I'll look back on these pics and think that he looks so small, but right now?  Who's that giant man/child out there?  

Day 141 and baseball pictures

This weekend Will had his last baseball games of the season.  His team went 4-0 over the two days including a dramatic walk-off walk against an obnoxious team.  It was a fun way to end the season.  I tried to take some pics to capture the last weekend so here we go.  

Glenn rarely sits in our chairs when Will is up to bat or on deck.  He and my dad migrate to the bleachers or behind home plate.  Here's Glenn wandering back after Will got on first base.  

Will on first base.

Will on second base.

Will and teammate chilling in the dugout. 

Base running

Look at those wheels. 

Last at-bat.

This baseball season wasn't what we thought it would be, traveling baseball without all of the traveling.  But he had a good season, he learned a lot and had a good team to play with.  He gained new skills and a lot of experience.  He worked hard and has the bruises to show for it.  We sure love watching this kid play ball.