Sports

Matthew finished up his basketball season a week or so ago.  He had a great time and learned a lot.  His coach and his team were both great so it was a good experience all around.  Here is Matthew after the last game.  One of the parents made cool basketball cookies and another parent made certificates.  He also got a YMCA medal.  Matthew said his favorite part was playing games.

 

Here is Matthew with his team.  You can see he is one of the taller ones.  He was quite a formidable defender.  A little too formidable.  They played a man to man defense and Matthew stuck on his man pretty well.  We sometimes had to remind him when his team went back on offense.  He got better at dribbling and was also pretty good at getting rebounds.  It did help to be tall.

Anna, who is not tall compared to her peers, has said she wants to play next year.  She did swimming this time while Matthew did basketball, and she's doing well.  Her teachers said she is ready to move up to the next level, but can't move until she turns 6 in August.  But she's having fun and getting better at swimming I think.

 

Here is Matthew after one of his last practices.  It had been a warm day (one of our first ones) and he rode his bike outside for a couple hours before basketball practice.  During basketball he started feeling sick and then threw up when we got home.  I think he had some heat exhaustion.  I gave him some pedialyte and tylenol for his headache and he felt back to normal within an hour or so.  Poor guy.  Now whenever he feels a headache coming on he says he has "The H.E." and wants some pedialyte.  He has had no real recurrences yet...we're making sure to stay nice and hydrated.

And then there is karate.  Here are Anna and one of her karate classmates getting a new stripe in karate.  She has earned four stripes and will move up to yellow belt once she earns her next one.

 

And Matthew earned his yellow belt last week, so he is very excited.  No more white belt.

I didn't get a picture in his karate uniform so he modeled just the belt for me.  :)

And here is an unsanctioned recreational activity that Grant and Matthew like - fighting with "swords."  Grant is using a pool noodle here.  You can see John in the background and may notice that he is a) too tall for that bouncer and b) has no clothes on.  He had just made a big applesauce mess in the kitchen and I had to take his clothes off and put him somewhere to contain him while I cleaned up...and I managed to take a picture of the sword fight somewhere along the way.  Hmmm, priorities.  Anyway, those are some of the sporty things we have been up to.  We're hoping for more warm weather and less of the "H.E."