630 Volleyball Banquet

The club season pauses mid-February so the boys can join their high school teams for March-May.  They then return to the club for June and July culminating in the AAU National tournament in Orlando over 4th of July.   While most teams will wait until after nationals to have a team party, we felt it was important for these boys to have a last get together before their freshman season.  Coach Matt put together a slide show with season highlights and gave each boy a picture and award.  I'm so glad we got together now; the boys loved seeing each other's pictures and hearing the explanation of each award.

William wears #1 so was up first.   He received the Most Dependable Award.   Coach said that when William (or...Will as he is known on the team and in school these days...) joined the team, he was their missing piece.   That he fit right in from the very first practice and has been there for them since (his) day one.

Each picture frame had three photos of the boy in it.  They had fun getting them out at their table afterwards and picking favorites.   The photos were taken by the dad of our student coach, Andrew.  Luckily he's also going to take Benet photos since Andrew is a senior.

Since the 11 boys go to 8 different high schools, they will get to see each other across the net throughout the next two months.   William and Aidan will play on the freshman team at Benet together.  They are scheduled to play against Jonas, Gabe and Eeshan, and Howie during the regular season.  They may see some of the others at invitationals.  

 

Whole 30

My brother and I challenged each other to a Whole 30 which ended up being a great experience.   I'm tired of egg casserole (which I didn't really love before anyway), and it required a lot of thoughtfulness when traveling or away from home.   But I felt great, lost about 10 pounds, and ate a lot of delicious food.  I thought cheese is what I would really miss, but have preferred to omit versus substitute.   I also ate a lot of date for the sugar.  After my trip to Dubai with dates as desserts, that was easy to comprehend.

Some of my favorite creations are posted below:

Mango, dates, spinach, banana protein smoothie

Homemade barbecue sauce that is compliant (i.e. no sugar)

Whole 30 dinner party.  The cauliflower was amazing.  The Hawaiian rolls are for the guests.  I ate my pulled BBQ chicken on sweet potato rounds.  Maybe I was starving but it was delicious!

This broccoli casserole with a cashew sauce meant to replicate alfredo sauce was a no for me.

I've always loved fresh taco fixings but pickled onions (that I made) were my favorite garnish of the month.

Shredded sweet potato was a great topping for salad.    Looks and feels a little like cheddar cheese and has its own nice flavor.  

 

Chiefs Super Bowl

With our basement out of commission, and just generally realizing it's stressful to watch your team in the Super Bowl, we didn't attempt a party.    I did make a few festive desserts.  Otherwise, I tried to make mostly healthy versions of foods in order to not completely unwind my Whole 30 commitment.

Mama Kelce's Chocolate Chip Cookies - recommend!  They have white and dark (or milk) chocolate chips and a dash of cinnamon.  You also melt the butter first which results in a thinner cookie with crispy edges (my favorite)!

I have no idea how I got it into my head that I wanted to make a red velvet cake.  Probably because the game was near Valentine's Day which always reminds me of my mom's amazing recipe for Waldorf Astoria Red Cake which she would make in heart shaped pans.  This used up all of my "Christmas red" gel food coloring and made me look like I had murdered someone!

I was much more focused on the baking instead of decorating and did not get out a proper tip for the LVIII.  And then I actually thought it was XIII until I did that math and had to edit!   But rest assured, it was delicious!  I started eating it at breakfast as one would do.

Lucy doesn't have any costumes...maybe I need to get her a Chiefs bandana for next football season.

The end!  And you can see that we still hadn't called Christmas quits with the reflection of our tree in the window.
 

Brew City Battle

The boys had one more out of town tournament in January before finishing up the season locally.   We traveled to Milwaukee (again) but this time played downtown.   Our hotel was just a block's walk and there were places to eat (and Starbucks), so it was super convenient.   The best part of the weekend was that the boys were on fire!   They breezed through Saturday until losing the last match which was full of questionable / annoying calls. But they battled through the Gold Bracket on Sunday to come away with a third place finish (including a win over Friday's loss).

Unfortunately we didn't get a team photo with all of the boys.   Eeshan was late on Saturday due to a conflict and Jonas was out on Sunday due to illness.   But between the two days, this is the full team.

Some action shots between the two days.   They wore their Arizona Iced Tea customs on Saturday and black on Sunday.   Adding to the excitement was that our Coach's 18s team had overlapping matches for much of Sunday.   We had a substitute coach plus our student coach, Andrew, for several sets.   The boys rose to the challenge during all of it.  

 

John keeps buying Yeti cups and koozies at Ace Hardware, since he says they're on sale.   This new mug was good for the car drive since it has a straw.  It wasn't amazing courtside since it was so small.  William also told me that I wasn't on trend since most women and girls carry oversized Stanleys and not medium sized Yetis!  I got a really big kick out of that because it sounded like he was trying to educate me on what's going on out in the world.   I have the socials...I've heard. LOL.

(Photo cred: Andrew's dad)

Also on Sunday was the Chiefs vs. Ravens playoff game.   There were quite a few people wearing Chiefs gear at the courts and streaming the game on their devices.  When I was walking laps through the rest of the convention center during their ref match, I "watched" part of the game over this balcony.  

Wrapped up the long weekend with a win, a medal and a 2 hour drive home in the dark.   John wasn't able to join us because he was home dealing with a flooded basement.   Our sump pumps failed to keep up with the melting snow, so we lost our carpet and baseboards.  Luckily the remediation was done quickly and the walls didn't get  damaged and everything dried out.   New sump pumps were installed relatively quickly and the floors and trim are on order.   

SoCal Cup

630 Volleyball teams played over MLK weekend in the SoCal Cup in Los Angeles.   Since I had to work it ended up being a guys trip.  And thanks to winter snow storms here, they got to head out a day early to beat the weather delays....and then school was moved to asynchronous so William didn't end up missing any school! 

While Lucy and I battled the snow, the guys were in beautiful, sunny SoCal.  On their off day, Friday, they went to Universal Studios while I monitored the parents text thread for all of the travel delays.  With that many families each arranging their own travel, there were a variety of airlines and travel times in play.  One boy - whose family didn't have nonstop flights - didn't arrive until the middle of the first game on Saturday afternoon.  Everyone else made it on time or early.   

The 15s were afternoon wave on Saturday and Sunday, so the families had time for morning activities.  On Saturday, they hiked the Hollywood Hills sign and on Sunday did The Grove Farmer's Market.  In between, there was a lot of tough volleyball.   They held their own in most matches, but the boys had a different lineup than usual, as their setter didn't make the trip due to family obligations.  Grant, our libero, set last year, so he volunteered to do it.  William and Aidan took turned at lib before figuring out the right rotation.   It was a great team building exercise though, and they took it into their next tournament.   And these Chicago kids and families were loving the LA sunshine.  I did mention there was A LOT of snow at home, right?!   

 

Also of note was that the JW Marriott where they stayed in LA was the host hotel for the Emmy's so the walk to/from the convention center was circuitous the last day due to street closures.   And John got this photo of William in his volleyball kit (pink shorts in the very middle of the photo) with the "prom people."   Or the B-listers as they said since it was mid-afternoon and none of the real stars had arrived to walk the red carpet.  To be clear, this photo is taken on zoom from across the street through a construction fence barricade!

Finally, on their way back to the airport they made a detour at the USS Iowa for a quick photo and look about.