~sigh~

Talk about top of the mountain to down in the valley. 

We left Kansas City on top of the world.  We had won the state title and could not be happier.  We traveled out of downtown KC and stopped to get something to eat.  We all felt fine and enjoyed a victory dinner with the team. 

Three hours later, Sarah was sick with chills, cough, and congestion.  By the next day, her fever went over 103 and we were in the ER.  She was diagnosed with Type A flu that had already settled into her lungs forming a nice case of bronchitis.  Nice.  We got home from the ER and pharmacy at 3am Monday morning.  At 3:15am Sydney woke up with a cough and congestion.  By 6am her fever hit 103.8!  Off the the dr we went with her.  Yup, flu.  Thankfully our doc prescribed T*miflu for all of us.  So hopefully if the rest of us get it, it will be a mild case. 

~sigh~

We WON State!

Yup.  The little team that could became the little team that did!

WE WON THE STATE CHAMPIONSHIP!

We played pool play all day Saturday ending the day with a 5-1 record.  We lost the first set of the day which is soooooo typical of our girls.  We came out of pool play ranked first, with Winona ranked 2nd. 

It's funny because Winona is a school located about 60-70 miles from us and we were in Kansas City to play them for the title.  As we were leaving Saturday evening, a sweet old lady in a Winona shirt looked at me and said, "We could have saved everyone alot of trouble and money and settled this down south!"  So cute.

  After pool play we took a little side trip which I will tell you about later.

 *wink~wink* 

Then we had a big dinner with the team.  Our girls absolutely love to eat!  It is so funny to watch them!  They order big dinners and do not waste a bite.

At 1:30 Saturday afternoon we faced off for the winner-take-all game.  The first set was sooooo close but we won by two.  The next set, we just ran away with it!  So:

WE ARE THE STATE CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!

I took over 500 pictures this weekend!

We are at STATE!

We made it to Kansas City safe and sound!  After settling into our hotel rooms, we had a few pre-tournament activities to do.  First, all the players signed volleyballs that will go home with teams after the tourney.  Then, we toured the convention center.  It's getting exciting!

Tomorrow we start playing at 10:00am. 

GO BEARCATS!!!!!

The Big Send-off

Our whole community is so excited about our girls heading to the State Championships.  The last team to make it all the way to state was my team in 1989.  (Sheesh, I am old)  Some of our local businesses showed their support on their signs and of course the school had well wishes on thiers as well. 

Everyone wanted to give our girls a big send off to show them how proud of them we are.  So bright and early this morning we all gathered at the school to wish them well.  Everyone cheered as they loaded the bus and then Coach Middleton said a few words.  We then all let go of balloons and cheered as they drove off.  Our local sherriff even escorted them out of town.  Pretty sweet!

....memories....

Sweetest Ladybug Ever!

Let me begin by saying that I am not a big Halloween fan.  Even when I was little, I just did not like it.  It just did not settle well with me.  So we do celebrate, with limits. 

That said, I just had to show you the cutest ladybug ever.  Yes, ever.

hee hee

WE'RE GOING TO STATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday night was a gut-wrenching, stressful, wonderful, victorious night for our girls. 

We traveled nearly 3 hours Bell City to play in the regional championships.  Basically 16 teams were still in the running for State Championship and this night would slim it down to 4 teams. 

We first played Leopold, the team ranked 2nd in the state (we are ranked 4th).  It was a point for point match.  They had some big ole girls that could slam the ball!  We lost the first set which made all of our hearts just drop.  But our fighting Lady Bearcats have heart.  They fought their way back to win the next 2 sets and end Leopold's season. 

Next up, Bell City.  We were on their home court and expected their crowd to way out-cheer us.  Not so.  The Bearcat crowd was about 4 times as big and loud as the Bell City crowd!  (Don't they know this is VOLLEYBALL?!  Where were they?)   Again, good team, big girl that could jump to the moon, hang there, and then slam the ball.  We fell to them the first set, just to give us all heart attacks make it interesting.  Our little fighters came back and took the next two sets to give us a ticket to the STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

So cool!  We head to Kansas City on Thursday for the Final Four playoffs!  We will have pool play on Friday, the top 2 teams from that play for 1st and the bottom 2 play for 3rd on Saturday.  I am so excited! 

Our little team this year is kind of a afterthought.  For years our community was looking forward to last years team to get to be varsity and take it all the way.  However they lost in districts.  This year was kind of thought to be a building year.  But our girls are have heart.  They are not arrogant, or conceited.  They want to win and are not afraid to fight for it!  They work so hard and we are so proud of them.  WE'RE GOING TO STATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pumpkins!

This past weekend we spent a day together.  With the busyness that has engulfed us, we are trying to carve out family time.  It is definately not easy to find time, but I can see my children growing into adults right before my eyes and I am determined to make the most of the time I have left with them living in my house.  It was a cool and crisp Saturday and we headed out to pick up Hannah and the boys.  We took off to a cute little feed store that has tons of pumpkins.  Wayne has recently finished a job that was along the way so we stopped to give it a test!  It is a series of climbing rocks that honestly does not look like much, but it was so fun to climb on them!

After our backs were killing us from climbing and lifting we finished playing, we headed on over to get our pumpkins.  All Sydney wanted was a "baby punkie".  We were all doing our best to talk her into a bigger size that we could actually carve.  So when we went inside to pay, the owners said that they had been watching her want the little one, and they just gave it to her.  So sweet.

We tried to sit the kids up on pumpkins to get a decent shot, but the little ones kept falling off their pumpkins.  It was so cute.  But we did get a semi-decent picture.

Sydney proudly loaded up her baby punkie and set it right beside her in her carseat.

Then we headed off for lunch and one more playground where my big girls got into a jumping competition.  Actually they were trying to jump out of the swings at the same exact time.  Didn't happen.

Eventually we got them off the swings, home, and carving pumpkins.

 

We tried to give Sydney's pumpkin Asian eyes, but they came out looking more evil than Asian.  She wasn't too sure she liked it.  In the end she preferred her baby punkie!