Vancouver!!

One of the kids' big Christmas present was a trip to Vancouver to watch the Canucks. We drove all the way to Bellingham after work on Friday, and then got into Vancouver early Saturday afternoon. The short drive across the border had plenty of drama, Rock became very sick and threw up at least half a dozen times in the 40 minute trip. We stopped to let him rest and stopped by Popeye's. They only let you have wooden or metal utensils at restaurants in BC, they suck hard.

We did some Canuck shopping and I tried to talk Jens into buying the chain.

DeA was starving from the drive, and the kids love the Asian market across the street from the condo, so we stopped in to try and find human food. We found fish head stew, which I don't think qualifies.

Rock still felt like crap, so he and DeA stayed home while Jens, Ryker and I went to the game. Ryker was very worried about Rock, and kept mentioning how badly he felt for him.

We had bomb seats.

Rock and Schnookums showed up at the end of the first period, and Rock seemed fair to middlin', but still enjoyed the game.

It was a tough, physical and poorly officiated game that ended the wrong way, but we still had a blast.

No Canucks game is complete without a visit to Boston Pizza after.

DeA said she had fun, but she kept making this face while rubbing her temples.

Panookie for the win.

It was a rough go the next morning, the kids were very worn out.

We didn't want to load Rock up and drive 30ish minutes to church, so we watched a sacrament meeting on YouTube. Our ward's stream didn't work, so we enjoyed a ward conference from some NoCal ward.

Ryker was very excited to try the Costco poutine, and he was definitely not disappointed.

We made a few more trips to the Asian store, but honestly it felt more like a pet store.

We were going straight to SeaTac to fly out to Arizona, but got in a little workout. DeA and Jens did some exercises together to get Jens ready to spike more volleyballs.

Basketball and Driver's Licenses

I drove all the way up to Liberty Bell thinking that I was going to get to relax and watch her ball out. Instead, I was handed a whistle and told to ref the game.

She is getting more aggressive in each game that she plays.

Thankfully, someone got me a video of her being an assassin.

Rock turned 16 while DeA and Ryker were in Medford buying a new van, so I got to take him to the Dept of Licensing to get legal. It was a great, but weird feeling, when they handed him his new license.

We celebrated with sourdough sandwiches.

I had him drop me off at home and then he drove himself to school...I think that's where he eventually ended up.

Jens had a game that afternoon against Omak and figured out how fun it is to block someone off the court.

Rock wanted La Brisa for his birthday dinner, and they were kind enough to break out the sombrero.

The mini-Brians went to work on the free dirt bike that I found them.

Ryker and DeA met us the next morning at the temple for some youth baptisms. It was a great morning at the temple with everyone.

It was Jens' first temple trip!

The travelers needed some recovery time.

Baby Sofia and Jens, battling the boy cousins together.

The office re-certified our first aid/CPR cards and DeA did not like the gory videos.

I think this one was an eye injury video.

Jens' last game was against Okanogan. They were big 7th and 8th graders but our girls played tough. Jens drained an early runner, that ended up being 40% of their total points for the game.

Jens started blocking out the bigger girls and got a few rebounds despite being a head shorter.

She is a lot of fun to watch play, and I always wonder what song is playing in her brain as she runs up and down the court.

My Eye, My Beautiful Eye

I was throwing BP to Rock in Schoenwald's cage when he hit one back up the middle off of the top of the cage. I looked up just in time to have it hit me in the eyeball. It literally only hit eyeball, didn't even touch the bones around it. It was the weirdest thing I had ever felt; my eye went black, my stomach hurt and I started a cold sweat. Rock drove me back to Hampa's where I knew he and Javi were to check it out. I also texted Ben for some advice. Thankfully, but the time I go to Hampa's I could open my eye and the vision was already improving. They gave me a blessing and Ben told me to use my glove next time.

We had a last-minute cancellation at the office, we called Rissa and she brought Leo, Luca, and Sofia for us to hang out.

Pizza, Paw Patrol, and no parents seemed to keep the boys pretty happy.

DeA dropped Ryker off for YM on her way through to Jens' game in Bridgeport. Ryker and I went to Stormy and joined their trivia night.

We did pretty well the first round and he got to play their plinko board.

He won the mystery box and was pretty excited to see his prize.

It was a novelty mustache ice tray. He was sharp and we won easily.

Rock, Jens, and DeA have been down sick lately. 

Ryker hasn't been sick, but he still likes Leo cuddles.

We had almost spring weather, so Rock and I went to check out the field and were shocked at how good it looked.

We have brought Sofia over to watch her a few times, Leo isn't sure about her.

He is especially not sure about her stealing his attention.

Speaking of attention, Luca is learning to live with less and find love in his tablets and phones.

Dad scratched off the expiration date on the tomato soup like it was the serial number of a stolen gun.

 

Jensley Baller and Sauna Progress

Jensley had her first home game and I was excited to watch her ball.

She worked hard in her first period of play, and got a well-deserved rest in the second.

You can tell that she is still new to basketball (stupid covid), she runs to her spot on both offense and defense. She did finally try to take over and be aggressive with steals and shots, and it was fun to see.

The gym was obviously rockin' for the 6th grade girls basketball game, the boys could barely handle the noise.

Somehow Sofia survived the raucous atmosphere.

By the end, she was starting to figure out sagging on defense and staying between her girl and the basket.

There was a high school game at the other end of the gym, the boys could smell the concession stand pizza from the old gym.

With Dad home, and the 4-wheel-drive forklift at the house, we were ready to try and move the sauna around the house. Thankfully, DeA didn't want to watch and that took a lot of pressure off of all of us.

The sauna fit almost perfectly, and it came on casters so it rolled immediately into place thanks to Dad and Javi's help.

Javi rewarded himself with some sauna time, even though the heater isn't hooked up yet.

Hampa let Rock drive the forklift back up around, and again, it was nice that DeA wasn't around to watch.