Clutch

It was an interesting week around our house, with Jacob done with camp and Carter finishing up.  I was home for three days and Craig was home for two.  We tried to find a balance between giving Jacob "true" summer vacation (i.e., letting him just relax and fill his time as he wished) and being productive.  He had a lot of summer reading work left to do, so it couldn't be all fun and games!  He and Craig did some fun basketball stuff while they were home, though.  I had a lot to accomplish myself during the time off.  I finally sorted through and photographed the rest of the artwork that came home from school and camp, and tried again to clean up some of the baby stuff.  I never did get back around to our donation pile, but hopefully eventually.  At least I got in a couple workouts!

Tuesday night Jacob had basketball, the first night of the playoffs.  It was a tough game against a higher seed, but Jacob's team won and secured their spot in the championship game on Thursday!  We celebrated by hitting up our new 110 Grill for dinner.  It's a full service restaurant that caters to those with allergies, particularly gluten issues.  Nearly their entire menu can be altered to be gluten-free!  It was Kids Eat Free night, so we figured we'd at least get one kid fed for cheap!  Unfortunately, the thing Jacob decided to try, totchos (tater tot nachos) ended up not being to his liking, but he did love their dinner rolls and he very much enjoyed his flourless chocolate cake dessert.  The rest of us enjoyed our meals as well, so we'll definitely go back and try again.

Yum, berries and chocolate!

On Thursday, Carter had his school meet-and-greet.  It was nice to see his new teacher and check out his classroom.  We were also able to scope out his classmates.  It turns out he only has two repeat classmates, the pair of twins whose bowling birthday party he went to last year, and one other kid he knows from one of his camps this summer.  Three is better than none, but I know he will miss his old classmates.  I realized that it has to be a bit jarring going into first grade like that, because for his entire school experience, he's always been with the same kids, and now it'll be different.  He should still get to see his best buddy Ben at the afterschool program, and we actually got to see him checking out his classroom next door that day.  Hopefully Carter will make a lot of new friends this year so he'll know more kids going into next year's class.  I also really hope this teacher will be as good of a fit for him as she was for Jacob.

That night, it was off to the championship game.  They were playing against another higher seed, a team that they'd battled hard twice this season. 

Jacob warming up

Pre-game huddle - notice the difference in height between a couple players on the left vs. Jacob on the right!

It was a very close game, back and forth throughout.  Jacob's team worked hard to keep pace, and in the first half Jacob got two beautiful three-pointers to give his team the lead each time.  It was amazing to see him contribute like that in such a big game.  In the second half they were on the losing end of a larger deficit, and had to battle back.  Their tallest player and best rebounder went on a fantastic run as time ticked down, and they got it close.  They took advantage of some foul shots and took the lead late, and by this point everyone was on the edge of their seats!  This team had only been together for a month, just eight games, yet the stakes felt so much higher than that!  It was a nerve wracking last minute or so, but it was so wonderful to see them pull off a victory!

Jacob was mid-celebration here...you can almost see the bounce in his step!

Getting ready for handshakes

Imagine our excitement when we saw the box of trophies come out!  Jacob has received medals from a couple lacrosse tournaments, and small participation trophies from baseball, but a real trophy was a new one for him, and it was a big one!

Getting his trophy

Team picture!

Jacob was so excited to have won, and everyone was really complimentary of his contributions to the team.  The head of the league actually thanked Craig for bringing him there and was super impressed with how he saved his best performance for the championship!  He even called him "clutch"!  We were so proud, and he couldn't stop talking about how awesome it was to win.

Two handsome boys with fresh haircuts!

Overall, it was a successful season because Jacob learned a ton and benefitted immensely from the consistent in-game playing time twice a week.  He got so much more comfortable in his role, excelled defensively, and found a better balance between looking to pass and taking a shot when he gets the ball (since he'd almost always look to pass in the past).  He's doing the same league again this month, and this time he's on a team with a bunch of players from the travel team he'll be a part of in the spring.  It'll be nice to start building those relationships now.

We finished off that night with some celebratory ice cream at Dairy Queen, and even ran into another teammate (the tall rebounder whose late-game heroics won the game and earned him MVP honors).  Carter (and his crazy hair) really enjoyed a cookie dough Blizzard!

It was a great way to start heading into the long weekend, although I was still pretty stumped on how we'd be spending that weekend.  I got into a bit of a funk on Friday, in fact, because the easiest option--doing touristy stuff in Niagara Falls--seemed like it wouldn't work with how our timing was playing out.  I had actually hoped to get a head start to Buffalo on Friday, but because no one was giving me any feedback on any of the options I kept presenting, I didn't feel comfortable starting to pack.  That left too little time that evening to eat, pack, and get to Buffalo before it was too late to have an early start the next morning.  Then I started to panic about timing and long waits for the things we would have done, and I realized we had to scrap the whole plan because there just wasn't time (or probably energy) to accomplish all we needed to do to make the purchase of the activity pass worthwhile.  On top of everything else, I was too full from Friday's lunch with Jacob (trying out Core Life - not particularly successful) to use my birthday dinner at Red Robin like we'd planned, which messed up our evening even further--both because of timing and because I didn't have anything else planned.  In general, nothing was seeming to work out, and I was convinced my birthday would be spent sitting around the house listening to the kids fight and complain about boredom all day.  After a couple hours of moping, I finally formulated a plan, and it seemed like it might actually work!  Stay tuned to find out whether or not it did!