Day 89: Going Up

When I was a kid, I specifically remember my folks taking me on a "detour" while at the mall or Sears or wherever, just so we could go up and down the escalators once, to entertain me. 

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, it seems. 

While at the mall today, the boys pleaded for me to take them up the escalator. And so we did. There wasn't anything worth anything up there, but we went up, turned around, and promptly went back down. 

It's the simple moments, you guys. 

Day 88: A Night With The A's

The military treats us pretty well around here. 

Every so often, we score free tickets from Operation Care and Comfort, a nonprofit event ticket coordinator group for military families. They announce an event (usually day of or the day before) that they have a block of tickets for, you email saying you want a few of them, and you get them emailed for free. 

And who doesn't like free?

We found out yesterday that OCC was handing out free A's tickets for tonight's game. 

Of course they're handing out free tickets. The A's can't fill the stadium to save their literal lives, even though they're in pretty decent playoff contention. 

And it just so happens that the good ol' Seattle Mariners are in town, so we jumped at the chance to get tickets to the game. Brad got off work early, we packed the kids in the car and took the hour drive to sketchy ass super classy city of Oakland. 

But before baseball, hockey, because Camden was with us of course, and the Bay Area's largest hockey store is a mile away from the stadium.

The game was great, especially since it was free. The Mariners won in dominant fashion, we had the entire upper deck section to ourselves, and had (almost) the best cheesesteak this side of Philadephia. 

Almost. It is Oakland after all. 

Day 87: It's All A Blur

Wednesday nights have become very complicated in our life. As luck would have it, it's baseball practice night for Calen, and hockey practice for Camden at the same time. 

Because of course it is. 

Mix it in with a full day of work, and I'm tired. 

So, Brad has taken the reigns and taken Calen to baseball practice every Wednesday, and I take Cam to hockey. 

It's all a blur, really. Just like this picture. 

Day 86: Wall-E

We are T-3 months away from our Disney trip, and that means it's time to start having more-often-than-usual Disney family movie nights. Tonight we picked Wall-E, one of Camden's (and Brad's) all time favorites. 

Cam brought down his little wind up Wall-E toy for the movie. Calen of course was jealous, because he wanted a Wall-E to play with too. Of course he didn't care about that Wall-E toy for the five years or whatever we've had it, until this exact moment that Cam brings it out. This apparently is a sibling trait that is never outgrown. 

After I told him several times that he was not getting that ridiculous Wall-E toy from his brother, Calen disappeared for about 30 minutes upstairs, the muffled rustling of loose Legos coming from his room. 

When he finally emerged, he presented to us his newest creation: a Lego Wall-E, complete with moving treads, rotating head and "fingers". 

Color me impressed. 

And so, we watched Wall-E in peace, with both boys having their Wall-E toys. 

Day 85: Under the Summer Lights

It wasn't necessarily an exciting day, the kids had school and I had work and it was just a boring middle America type of day. School. Work. Blah. 

I did take over the reigns of taking Calen to baseball practice tonight, which was almost new and exciting since I haven't really been present in fall ball this season, since hockey just so happens to fall on the exact days of the week as baseball, of course. 

Of course!

This coach is pretty fantastic, and is letting a lot of kids that haven't had the opportunities in spring ball to play key positions (pitcher, 1st, 3rd). They played Calen a lot at 3rd base tonight, which he's never had a chance to do before, AND they are priming him to be number 3 in the starting pitching rotation (because there are only one or two other lefty pitchers in the league, according to coach), as well as catching. 

Calen is LOVING this team. This is what youth sports is supposed to be. 

I enjoyed being able to finally watch baseball practice tonight under the lights, even if it was -431 degrees. Isn't it still technically summer?

Day 84: O'Dark Thirty

We started the day very early. By early I mean basically the middle of the night. 

A 3:45am wakeup, 4:15am out the door, 5:15 dressed and on the ice first practice for Camden's Mites Flyers hockey team. 

Five Fifteen A. M. 

I heard that youth hockey often has early morning practice. I was prepared for this. But Five fifteen ice time you guys. Getting up at 3:45am and having to function as a human being? Should I just insert an IV of caffeine directly to my veins? Should I just stay up the entire night prior and not go to bed until after practice is over? How to people handle this?

To be honest, I thought waking Camden up at O'Dark Thirty was going to be a nightmare. I flipped the light on, whispered a quiet "Cam, wake up!" and after not receiving any sort of response, I said a tad louder "Cam, Flyers practice" and suddenly he shot out of bed, saying "OH MY GOSH, my first hockey practice!!!!" And he was dressed and downstairs in 3.56 seconds. 

This kid loves hockey more than any kid loves anything. 

Cam in the white jersey during pre practice warmups

After practice was over and we had inhaled our first cup of coffee, we had a solid hour and a half before Intro (the weekly hockey camp he's been in for 8 months now) was going to start. 

It was only 6:30am. 

So we headed to the nearest Starbucks that was open and used some giftcards to get breakfast and a second round of caffeine. 

Maybe hockey players invented coffee. 

Correction: maybe hockey parents invented coffee. 

The great thing, in theory, is that we were done with sports by 9am. The bad thing is we were basically in a hungover state for the rest of the day, and ready for bed by 4pm. 

I hope we get used to this. 

Day 83: Do, Or Do Not, There Is No Try

Today was a big, huge, gargantuan day for Camden. Possibly the biggest day of his tiny life. 

It's hockey team tryouts today!!

The term "tryouts" was used loosely, and pronounced "assessments" in adult language. The only kids that were cut from the two 8u teams were the ones that really can't skate well enough to keep up safely with the rest of the kids.

But don't tell Camden that, because we told him if he didn't work hard or pay attention they'll cut you immediately from the team!!

Whatever it takes to make him work as hard as he can.

The excitement coming from this kid was addicting. He couldn't wait to get on the ice and show them what he's got. 

The tryouts took about an hour and a half, and at the end, Cam stopped every coach and asked "did I make it? Did I make it?!?"

Every coach told him he made it.  


Then Cam announced "We NEED to go to Mary's Pizza Shack for dinner. Because it's my two favorite things today, hockey and Mary's pizza." And so we did.

Introducing the newest Santa Rosa Flyer, 8u Mites division!

Day 82: The Night Before Hockey

It's the night before real, full blown hockey tryouts, and Cam is just full of flutters. He's BEYOND excited, jittery, full tilt bouncing off the walls waiting just waiting for tomorrow to come, hoping he makes it on a team. 

I won't lie, I'm even a little nervous for him. 

Calen and Dad were away at baseball practice tonight, and Cam just couldn't settle and insisted that we needed to watch "a hockey movie", so we watched The Mighty Ducks of course. 


Cam sat here and I watched him out of the corner of my eye, grinning and giggling and announcing "THAT'S A PENALTY!!!!" and then bouncing and clapping and laughing as we watched the movie, and then blurting out:

"I CAN'T WAIT TO BE ON A REAL HOCKEY TEAM!!!"

This is what he's meant to do. He doesn't care about anything the way he cares about hockey. 

Good luck tomorrow, Bam. 

Just a kid with his hockey stick and his lollipop, shooting a few in the garage

Day 81: Back To School Night

We made it through an entire first week of school, so let's celebrate surviving a week of getting lunches packed and battling common core homework with Back to School Night at the boys' school!

This is a fun little introduction to the school that Two Rock Elementary does every year. There's a barbecue dinner provided while the principal discusses how the school operates and introducing all the teachers and all that jazz. 

I love this little school. There's only one classroom per grade, every teacher seems to know every student (and parent), and it's just an intimate little wonderful school.

After the assembly, we head into the boys' classrooms (one at a time obviously) where their teachers do a little presentation and explain the curriculum and classroom goals and whatnot. 

I'm pretty pleased with both the boys' teachers, and we got to see some of their little projects they've already worked on this week as well. 

It was such a neat night seeing the kids' "home" away from home and meeting the teachers that are molding their little minds. 

Sitting at Calen's desk. I felt like I needed to sneak this picture because the teacher was talking and I was "using a cellphone in class". Like I'm in 4th grade or something. 

Calen's "flag" with his loves. Baseball, basketball, football, Star Wars and his puppy Rebel

Camden made a bird feeder for "finches" in his class this week. So cute. 

Day 80: When In Doubt, Use Duct Tape

Camden's tryouts for travel Mites hockey is in three days. 

Like real, actual tryouts, for the first time in our kids' little lifetimes. Although MOST kids make one of the teams, not necessarily all do. 

We've been working a little extra hard off the ice the last couple weeks on stick handling. 

I don't know a ton about hockey, but I do know that Cam generally has a bad habit of skating with only one hand on the stick, which is fine when you are an adult pretending you're in the NHL, but as a first year little Mite player, he really should have that other hand on there. 

And how do you teach a 7 year old how to keep two hands on the stick?

Duct tape the hands on the stick, obviously.

Camden thought this was hilarious, of course, and in the process his muscle-memory was developing on where to have his hands and keep his hands. He skated on his rollerblades up and down our sidewalk, over and over, 

Can we do this with all things? Like, duct tape him to his desk at school, the chair at the dinner table, the pillow to his head at night? 

Hopefully no neighbors saw him and thought that him being duct taped to a hockey stick was some form of ancient Canadian child abuse or something. 

He really did have fun. I swear. 

Disclaimer: no tiny hockey players were injured in the making of this blog post.