Sophomore Year

August brought the start of another school year!  William is now a sophomore at Benet Academy where he is taking AP European History, Chemistry, Honors Geometry, Spanish 2, American Literature, Religion 2 and PE.   He has to get up way too early to be the first kid on the bus, but Lucy and I walk him there to get our morning exercise.   It's an easier to do in August than in January and February, but this is the last year we have to do it, since he'll have his drivers license and a parking spot next year and get to sleep an extra 45 minutes.     The club volleyball season for 16s started with the school season.  He is the Libero on 16-2s after being the DS on 15-3s in the prior year, so his hard work has paid off.    This is also the year he grew taller than both mom and dad and continues to grow.  We love taking lots of photos of the tallest Shields.

Cicadas - Brood X

There really is not a good way to photograph the ridiculousness that was Brood X in our yard this summer.   For the months of June and July it was SO LOUD - I screen shot decibels in the 80s and 90s.  Both of our volleyball teams (Benet and 630 15-3s came over for pool parties during that time and had to tolerate it.)   The real winner was Lucy who must have eaten 1,000 shells.   Her sturdy stomach handled it and her dog walkers (usually me) didn't have too much extra to deal with.   The third - and perhaps worst - wave of it came in late July and August when the cicada mite bites started.   Cicada mites are microscopic creates would in wooded areas where cicadas are present and often fall from trees onto humans and bite them.  Our hot tub, pictured below, was ground zeo in my estimate for cicada mite contact.   

This owl was my Christmas present from John and finally was installed after the ground was clear in the summer.   It's in the front/side yard but another example of why our beautiful yard was so attractive for the cicadas now and I'm sure will be again in 17 years with its mature trees.

Florida Themeparks

 After volleyball wrapped, we could play!  We had an afternoon with our favorites at Animal Kingdom, and then we moved to Universal Studios for one night/two days of parks.  We stayed at the Royal Pacific, which is the hotel we liked previously.  It's a very convenient walk to the parks for early admission.  Our first night we got rained out so didn't get to see the evening shows / fireworks I was hoping to finally see.   We ordered room service and vegged in front of the TV instead.   On the second day there was more rain before we had to head out.  We got in some good rides, but mostly good laughs about how drenched we were.  Luckily we could shower and change in the hotel gym before our flight home.  

New to us on this trip was the Velociraptor Coaster.  We road it front row and back row and then the guys road it some extra times while I wandered back to Hogsmeade for ice cream.   Doesn't look like I took too many photos....it was hot, we were tired, and it's cool but not Disney.   The End.

Florida Volleyball

Our second summer at AAU Nationals in Orlando was a lot different than our first.    The biggest difference is that with 630 Volleyball (honestly, with every team except SPVB), you travel your own kid instead of doing group travel and housing.   So John and I had less of a Disney vacation this year!  We did still stay at Disney, at the Boardwalk Villas, but William was very focused on being game-ready so he didn't join us at the parks until after the tournament ended.   It didn't help that we played afternoons so were volleyball occupied from noon-10 p.m. each day.  At that it was 1,000,000 degrees out!   

But the trade off was the volleyball games themselves were much better!  We were in the games and played well and enjoyed the team a lot.  I enjoyed trying to color coordinate with the uniforms each day.  Definitely not as elaborately themed as my friends at the girls tournament in June, but we were an enthusiastic cheer squad nonetheless!

To shake things up for the third day, William played libero for the first match.   Guess I had guessed right on rewearing that red shirt!  Or because I abandoned my black outfit when it was too hot out.

Fourth and final day was a little bit anti-climatic.   We had started off strong days 1 and 2 but dropped out of gold round on day 3 and on day 4 weren't in competition for the out rounds.   But we showed up to play and got in two good matches before starting our vacation.   It was sad to say goodbye to the families that had welcomed us to the team in November.   We are forever grateful for the experience of 15-3s!

William Turns 15

William's birthday fell during finals week this year, so we saved the pool party and family visit until the weekend.  As is tradition, Rosie was here for his birthday, so both she and Lucy signed his card and I drove to pick up donuts.   It's hard to buy for a 15 year old who asked his uncle for the one thing he really wanted (air pods), so I got him a box of 15 different things: mostly foods from World Market!  It all must have been pretty good because he didn't offer to share much of it!  John got him the cologne he ask for.  I don't remember what it's called but it smells great.  My better than the Drakkar Noir of my youth.

In a harbinger of what was to come, I saw the first cicadas on the pool deck that weekend.....

For birthday weekend, I was very excited to bake and decorate a volleyball cake.  It was my first time to decorate with frosting tips and I thought it was a good effort.  I was particularly proud of getting the buttercream frosting pure white.  Thanks internet for that tip about the violet gel food coloring!  And my mom brought her famous rice krispy treats.  So we were ready!

Happy to have the entire VanMeter family here to celebrate the newly 15 year old!