April 30, & May 1, 2010

Friday 30~~~~ We drove to Carmichael, California where we will be staying at the Elk's Club here. It is a few miles from the basketball tournament in Rockland, CA where the team will be playing basketball tomorrow. The first thing I did after we set up was bake two pans of Fudge Brownies to take to the game tomorrow for the team. I had trouble with my oven again baking around the edges and not the middle, so we had to cut the done ones off and rebake the middle. They weren't the best brownies I have ever made, so I frosted them with my delicious fudge chocolate frosting I make and we thought they would be OK. They were made with love, and I am sure the team appreciated them . We go to watch them play at 9:15 in the morning and they play their second game at 9:00 PM in the evening. Saturday May 1st~~~~The game was played at the Hardwood Palace in Rockland, CA, it is an Industrial Warehouse that was converted into 8 basketball courts. It is like the Hoop in Portland except they don't have curtains separating the courts and the noise was real noisy. I don't know how the boys could tell who the whistle was blown for or the game buzzer, the noise from the court a few feet away was so loud, it sure fooled my old ears and Kent's. We decided young ears must hear the sounds better as it didn't seem to confuse the players. We lost the game in this morning, the boys could have played better, we were ahead at the first of the game and after that we got behind about 10 points and we just couldn't seem to catch it up. It was great to watch Nathan play ball, Grandpa was very proud. (picture) We gave the brownies to the coach after the team had their pep talk from the coach. (picture) The team left to go to their motel to swim and enjoy the day till their evening game. Kent and I went home and I took a long nap because my asthma has been bothering me so bad lately, I can't sleep and I am up early trying to breathe. We went to Mass at 5PM and from there we went out for Kent's favorite meal, PIZZA!!! We brought it home to eat, as Kent loves Pepsi and if they serve Coke products, he likes to eat at home where he can have his Pepsi!! We watched a movie until time to go the the second game of the day. We got there early to watch the team warm up and to try and get a few pictures of the players to send to Cindy, Kent's daughter. The team started out real good and they were ahead at half time, then things slowly started slowing down and we ended up losing by 10 points again. The boys played a real good game on defence and offense, the teams were just better, partly because of having more experience playing together as a team and as a traveling team, our team is a first year team playing together and as a traveling team. Next year they will really do well we think. We were proud of how they played and their sportsmanship was fantastic. Our third game to play was to be on Sunday at 4:40 and with the distance to travel back home of 600 miles that late at night and to have the team back to go to school, our coach had to withdraw from playing. Of course the team was very disappointed, but it was for the safety of the kids to not be on the road traveling home to Oregon all night. They will have a lot more games to play and this just gives them more experience.