Thumb update

We went for Nathan's final follow up appointment today, this time with the doctor who was out of town when Nathan was originally injured. He said it wasn't the ligaments--that his thumb was broken after all!

So kudos to the trainer, who suspected it all along and who insisted Nathan be in that hard splint for 10 days. The doctor did say the break has healed and Nathan is cleared to play again, he just has to tape it for practices and games for the rest of the season.

And since he's been playing piano for a week now without pain, I'm thinking we are good to go all the way around!

Another Trouncing (Them, Not Us)

We played a Thursday night game this week, and I felt so sorry for the team we played. They used to be a football powerhouse among 6-man private schools, but then a couple of years ago couldn't even make a team. They are returning to the gridiron this year, but they were no match for our boys. The game was over early in the 3rd quarter, 46-0. (And we even played many of the guys that don't often play!)

Nathan was still sidelined, of course, but he is planning to practice next week and even run a couple of series in the JV game since varsity will have a bye. He's ready to get back at it!

Aaron had a beautiful touchdown reception in that it was a good catch, but he also juked the defender in order to make it in the end zone. He had some great tackles on defense, too. Where he struggled was--surprisingly--kicking! He missed 3 of the 5 kicks he attempted. Not sure what happened there, but he has two weeks to get it figured out!

The next game will start district play, which means that this is when the season REALLY starts!

Another Win--and a Nathan Update

We won again tonight against a small public school team, 58-13, just after halftime. Of course Nathan didn't play, but Aaron had an awesome interception on the 8 yard line which he ran back for a touchdown (72 yards). (Six man plays an 80 yard field.) He also made five of seven extra points.

Nathan's hard splint should come off on Monday. He'll be able to practice again--and probably play piano--but I don't know if he'll play next weekend or not. After that, we have a bye week, so he should be doing very well by the time district play starts in October.

Injury Update

Home from the doctor, and the news is much better than we anticipated!

Nathan has a ligament tear and a slight fracture in his thumb. He is in a hard splint (like a temporary cast) for about 10 days, then he'll move to a regular splint. Three or four weeks from now, he should be back on the gridiron and in front of the piano.

A Rough Night

We lost a heartbreaker last night: 45-38. But it was a rough night in more ways than win/loss.

Deep into the third quarter Nathan came out of the game. I watched him talk to the trainer. Watched the trainer tape his left thumb. Watched Nathan take a few snaps on the sidelines. Watched him talk to a coach and the trainer again--this time swiping his good hand across his face beneath his helmet.

Tears. Not good.

Next thing I knew, he'd taken off his pads and had his hand in ice. At the end of the third quarter I got the text from his dad on the sidelines: probably broken hand.

Ugh. For Nathan, a hand injury will not only sideline him from football, but from his greatest love: piano. He goes for x-rays today and we'll know more. I'm praying hard that it won't be as bad as they thought last night!

As for the game, the boys played with such great heart. The defense held on several back to back goal line stands. They were amazing; they just fell a bit short.

Aaron had probably his best defensive game ever. Usually his tackles involves wrestling the other kid to the ground. Last night all three solo tackles were hard hits. He also had a couple of assists and several hard hits on guys just after they missed catching a pass.

In kicking, he made 4 of 5 PATs (one blocked). He did catch 2 balls for 27 yards, including one touchdown early in the game--thrown by Nathan.

Before his injury, Nathan was 6 for 12 with 104 yards and 1 touchdown. His best stat through these 2 3/4 games is that he hasn't thrown an interception.

Our team is very deep this year except at two spots: quarterback and center. Our backup QB, a senior, usually plays center. So those key roles will get interesting. I know Nathan's just hoping he can get back in there before the season ends. We'll know more in the coming days.

Win number 2!

This season is already way more fun than last season! Not only are we winning, but the kids at every level of our school have discovered school spirit!

We won against a public school team, 60-13 in the 3rd quarter.

Nathan's game: He did much better this week, but took a hard hit and sprained his shoulder. Fortunately we have a doctor on the sidelines who gave him exercises to do and told him to keep it iced for a few days. But even that didn't hinder his play much. He completed 5 of 8 passes for 92 yards and one touchdown--to Aaron!

Aaron played well, too, although he didn't touch the ball much. He had the touchdown reception, kicked 6 of 7 extra points, and had an interception hit him in the chest, but he dropped it--though that wasn't a bad thing since it was 4th down!

Thankfully, Nathan has some time to recover with the long weekend. Then we'll get back at it again!

Update

Well i cant remember the last time i wrote on this blog but i figured i would give everyone a short and sweet little update. First off if you stop by chilis in the near future and order the sweet and smokey chicken crispers i helped pick out the final version of that sauce. Second off on tuesday i pledge into Phi Mu so thats all i got for now

Elizabeth

An Easy Win

One game, one win. A much better start than last year! In fact, this team is such a change from last year's team it is mind-boggling to realize that many of the same kids are out there! They've grown taller and stronger. They look like a varsity team now. So much so that I kind of felt sorry for the team who opened our season today.

We won 48-0 just after halftime. Our guys ran hard and hit hard. They seemed to know what they were doing more so than last year. And even though a few didn't perform as well as they thought they should have (that would be Nathan), in the end, it didn't matter. Others picked up the slack. And that shows me that we have a team.

As for the boys' individual stats for this game:

Nathan struggled a bit, but he didn't turn the ball over. He was 1 for 5 passing, but that one completion was for a touchdown. He wasn't happy with his performance, but it wasn't as bad as he thinks it was! With so many on the team this year, he is not having to play defense or special teams. He's not even holding ball for Aaron on extra points anymore! He is concentrating solely on quarterback.

Aaron didn't catch a pass, but he didn't have one thrown to him, either. But he played very well on defense, making three solo tackles and nabbing an interception. He also kicked 5 of 5 extra points. All in all, a very good game. He was happy not to have to take the field on kickoffs or kick returns this year, either!

Next week will be a true test--a public school 6-man team. Should be interesting!

2nd scrimmage

Second scrimmage went well. In fact, we are getting excited for that first game next weekend! Nathan and Aaron hooked up for one touchdown and Nathan threw several others as well. Aaron had solid defensive play, too. In fact, I'm not sure either of the other two teams' defense scored on us all day long!

1st Scrimmage

It was a scorcher at the scrimmage today--but they played well, so I guess it was worth all the sweat!

Nathan took all the reps at quarterback, so I guess he's secured that spot. Aaron had a touchdown catch and a beautiful play on pass defense that would have been a touchdown had he not knocked it away.

Next week is another scrimmage, but this time against a little bit more challenging teams, so we'll see how that goes!

End of Summer

Well the boys have survived the first week of two-a-days. Another week and we'll have our first scrimmage. It's the the beginning of the last season of both boys on the same team. I started this journey when they were 3 and 4/5 and playing on the same soccer team!

Elizabeth is off to college week at Glorietta with her BCM group from college. When she gets home we turn right around and take her back to school.

So summer has flown and we are almost back into the swing of school. That means more updates for those of you who enjoy keeping up with my kids!

Making the Dean's List

Elizabeth discovered yesterday that she made the Dean's List at school this year! While we are so proud of her academic accomplishments, she was a little disappointed. Why? Because her GPA came within .2 of making the President's List!

A few pictures

Just a few random pictures from the past few weeks:

Wedding cake by Elizabeth for our counselor at school.

Nathan at his end of year piano recital. He took home nearly every award he competed for!

Aaron and Lana at the Spring Sports Awards Banquet

Racking Up the Accolades

Today we had both academic and sports awards. Long day. I'll hit the highlights.

ACADEMICS

No "academic" awards, per se, but these two fall within that arena:

Nathan (along with his cousin Chris) received a perfect attendance award for this school year.

Aaron received the ACSI Distinguished Christian High School Student Award for Leadership and Athletics (voted on by the teachers at our school.)

ATHLETICS

Here's where they cleaned up. These awards encompassed basketball and baseball.

Basketball: Nathan was named an all-district honorable mention as well as Freshman of the Year from our district! Wow! Two of those in one year! He was also give the Hustle Award for our team. Aaron was named to the all-district 2nd team and given the team MVP award.

Baseball: Nathan was named to the all-district 2nd team and awarded defensive player of the year for our team.

So proud of them both!

Crossing the Finish Line

Aaron finished 7th in the 800 at the regional track meet, so our seasons have all ended. I'm so thankful, really! We all need a break! And I'm glad for him that he didn't wind up dead last. He hates that! So we'll hang up our game hats for awhile, do a little working out in the summer and hit it with football two-a-days in August. Of course check back for news on sports awards and academic awards and the like, as well as news of Elizabeth at the close of her first year of college!

It's such a busy, wonderful time in our lives. I'm so happy you can be part of it through this blog!

Ending on an Upnote!

We got a win--in our district! We went into the last game with nothing to lose. The other team was playing for a playoff spot. Through the first four innings, we played well, managing to stay ahead by 1 run, 6-5.

In the fifth inning, Nathan came in as relief pitcher. They tied it up 6-6.

Into the top of the sixth, and our bats got hot! We scored 9 runs and batted around!

Nathan gave up a two-run, over-the-fence homer in the bottom of the sixth. Two more runs scored on errors. We went into the final inning up 15-10. We ended the game on the score of 20-11.

Nathan pitched great. In his three innings, he had 4 strikeouts (including the final out of the game) and 0 walks. He also hit the ball hard, reaching base three times on clean hits, not errors. All of our players got at least one hit in this game.

We have a lot to build on for the coming years and a coach who is looking forward to walking the journey with them, so its all good. But it's so much better to end a hard season on the upswing!

Extra innings!

One of these days they are going to win a close one. And this was almost it.

After 6 innings, we were losing 10-6. In the top of the 7th, we managed to score 5 runs! Wow! So we went into the bottom of the 7th up by 1 run. They scored one, tying the game at 11. A batter was up with one out and the winning run on 3rd base. The ball was a high fly to the outfield, that was caught, but the 3rd base coach and the runner didn't wait to see the play and he ran without tagging after the catch. The runner was already past home base. We threw to third and tagged the bag and we were out of the inning.

But we just couldn't hang on. They scored the winning run in the bottom of the 8th. Still, we not only battled back, we battled back to get ahead. Mental errors were our downfall, and plenty to go around.

Nathan pitched well and hit well, and those things should only get better in the next three years. I think we still have a rainout game to makeup but don't know if that will happen. I'll be glad when this season is officially over!

Lo and Behold!

Aaron qualified for the regional track meet in the 800 meter race! Wow! We are shocked! He even had to dig deep at the end because the 5th place runner was on his heels. But he did, and beat his previous best time by around 10 seconds!

He managed to get 5th (we think) in the triple jump, which doesn't move on to regionals but did get points for his team. His 4 X 400 relay team also came in 5th.

So I guess it's one more track meet for us!

Two More Awful Games

Two games in two days. Both awful in their own ways. The first involved a two hour drive to get there. But then we were so pleasantly surprised! We led 4-1, then 5-2, over a non-defeated district team. But with one bad inning, it was tied again, 5-5. Then the other team pulled ahead by 2 and we went into our last at bat. We put runners on base. And move them. Our 6th run was coming in from 3rd base. The throw made it to the plate. Our runner jumped over the catcher to avoid the tag. But the ump called him out anyway. Our coach protested--very politely, actually--and was thrown out for the first time in his 25 year coaching history! It was awful. Even some of the parents for the other team admitted their catcher didn't make the tag. On the up side, Nathan had some good plays at short and put the bat on the ball every at bat, even if he didn't always make it safe to first. His final hit of the game was an especially hard zinger up the middle. He was on third base when we got our final out of that game.

From there, we moved to a game a bit closer to home. Nathan took the mound. He'd been pitching well this season, but watching him today, you'd never have known it. Nathan averages 1-2 walks per 7 innings. Today, he walked 6 in two innings! Couple that with a few hits and a few errors and we were done after 4 1/2 innings, losing 11-1.

It hasn't been a fun season, but our coach is encouraged for the future. After all, we start 4 freshmen and 2 sophomores!

Prom 2010

Another prom is over and done. Aren't they a cute couple?