Hockey Home Tournament and Other Winter Stuff

We stay pretty busy with hockey, basketball, and volleyball. Rock had his home tourney in Wenatchee and did well.

He played pretty early on Monday morning and rocked the lumberjack hotel breakfast.

I worked the clock all day Monday, including Rock's game, so I had a great spot to watch.

I was working out in Javi Gym when I stubbed by pinky toe on a piece of equipment. I think it's broken.

Ryker wanted an excuse to make homemade hamburger buns, so I did the burger part. They were pretty, pretty fantastic.

He also 3D printed a board game.

DeA and I got each other a sauna for Christmas. It was delivered on Saturday and it looks amazing. Now we just need to figure out how to get it below the house and hooked up to 220 power. No biggie.

Sofia and a lot of volleyball

Rissa and Javi's baby is named Sofia, after the Disney cartoon Sofia the First. Her brothers will definitely call her Sofia the worst, but that's not my problem.

Now that he's been replace, Luca has accepted his role as one of the middle children who, like his cousin Ryker, sit at Hampa and Nama's and eats while watching a show.

Jensley had her first volleyball tournament early Saturday morning. She started a little nervous but quickly found her confidence.

She didn't even want to try overhand serves when the season started, now she's nailing them consistently.

Rissa brought her whole entourage to catch the last of her games.

The girls played well and lost to the top Wenatchee team in the semis. They were pretty, pretty exhausted.

Rissa was definitely happy to use Sofia to troll for attention.

Leo and Luca know that they have to up their game if they are going to be able to compete for attention now.

Thankfully we had a hotel room reserved, because the kids were cooked and Rock had to go to the Wenatchee Wild game for their fundraiser.

Jens barely made it through the first period.

Post Christmas stuff and a weekend with KC

Ryker only wanted two things for Christmas: A 3D printer and filament. He also got a shelf to hold all that filament.

Nama Rae finally got to live the Christmas break life that she had missed.

I had fun watching football on the couch with Jens.

Apparently Rissa doesn't believe in feeding her boys

After work on Friday, DeA and I drove to Spokane for an early flight on Saturday. We tried a restaurant that we have passed for years and she loved it.

The plane ride was smooth and we were able to get to KC around 3pm on Saturday.

He has just barely started trying to talk, and over the weekend had improved quite a bit.

We spent a lot of time just sitting with him and listening to Harry Potter. I tried to ask questions, but after a few he grew weary of them and said "read...the....books".

It was both relaxing and exhausting to sit there and try to observe every breath, cough, and movement.

The hospital still had Halloween decorations up, and in the dark evening light it scared the crap out of DeA.

We snuck out on Sunday while he was getting cared to by the staff and got to see my old mission companion Dave. We enjoyed the hour together, and it was good for both of our wives to hear someone else tell the same stories that they thought were made up.

We helped KC facetime with Heather and Mom and Dad and our siblings. He tried to put on a show and did a great job talking so that even on speakerphone they could understand him.

Judy and Gary were very kind and brought us a New Year's Eve dinner to enjoy at the hospital.

Monday was full of therapies. He did great during speech therapy and drank some real liquids which was a big deal.

We went with him to OT/PT and watched him play some cool games

They put him in a hoist and had him walk about 60 feet.

Even though it was heavily assisted, it was great to see his improvement and effort.

A well-deserved thumbs up followed by a nap.

We had a great time with Cheese and are glad that we were told to make it a priority to see him as soon as we could.

 

Christmas Vacation

Rock signed himself up for a college level biology class. He promised that he could handle early morning seminary, college classes, and hockey. Well...

Finally, Christmas break arrived and he had a tournament in Winthrop. Dad took him up Friday because his game was in the middle of a work day, but I was able to watch him play his two Saturday games.

Rissa's no-screen rule seems to evaporate during the break.

It was a fun, busy time at Mom and Dad's.

It was fun to go to the gym with this muscle mama.

We have been trying to introduce Leo and the cats, but he still wants to eat them.

Ryker kept begging to play the Reindeer Game even though we spent all morning moving Janet and Butch. Guess who decided that he didn't actually want to play at the last minute...

I think Leo is offering emotional support to DeA as they both try to survive having the kids home all day.

Ryker made the traditional Christmas Eve pizza. It was delicious.

The toasted corn meal gave the later pizzas a nice smokey taste.

Rissa and Javi put together some cool games with money for the kids.

The kids were easier to get downstairs now that they know who sets everything up. DeA enjoyed putting together Jens' present.

They aren't little anymore.

But they still get excited.

Eventually, the excitement wore off and the sleep depravation kicked in.

Dad commissioned a portrait of Mom.

DeA took her traditional post-Christmas nap