Hoopfest & Horses

This past weekend, Brad and I ventured to Spokane so he could play in
Hoopfest...this meant, a weekend WITHOUT the kids!!! How fabulous! But that also
meant joining in the madness of over 200,000 people cramming the streets of
Spokane for basketball. It was great!! There were 6,600 teams alone which
translates to 24,000 people just to play basketball...it was a record turnout!

Thursday, my mom took the kids to Grangeville with her and I had the rest of the
night and all of Friday (after work) to get packed up and ready to go. Brad
ended up getting off work early on Friday so we busted butt to leave early but
as fate would have it, we actually ended up leaving at about the same time as
originally expected. We met up with our friends Shane and Angie who were going
with us at Taco Johns for dinner before we left. When we were finishing up and
getting ready to leave, Shane received a phone call that his mom had broke her
arm. His parents were packing for a week long camping trip and she had fell down
the stairs in their house and broke her Humerus. So, after a quick stop at the
hospital to check on her, we were finally on our way at 7:45 pm.

We reached our destination, Ben & Kim Burt's house in Liberty Lake at 10:00. Ben was playing on the team and was gracious enough to allow all six of us stay at his apartment. It was a beautiful apartment and even better, Kim cooked on Saturday night!!! She was a great hostess and we really are incredibly grateful. We also liked the free parking pass that Ben had. All 8 of us loaded up in the mini van and parked for free....wonderful perk!! After about 2 hours of talking, unpacking and settling down, we all headed to bed. The boys played at 8:00 am and since we were 30 minutes from downtown Spokane, we needed to leave by 7:00 am and that meant, with only one bathroom and 8 people, we needed to wake up early.

The boys were ready to play Saturday morning but unfortunately, they lost that game. After that, we watched a couple of other people play since we didn't play again until 2:30 that afternoon. We watched our friend Tyler's team play as well as my cousin Brandon. My other cousin Brock was playing but we just missed his game since we decided to eat lunch at the good ol' Olive Garden.

The boys won their next game which was not the greatest game since the other team were a bunch of whiners. They tried to pull a bunch of fast ones but the Court Marshal made some good executive decisions and Shane scored the winning point with a great foul shot. After that, they had one more game at 5:00 that night. They also won this game because Shane was ON FIRE!!! I'm not sure how many 2 pointers (the equivalent of 3 pointers in normal basketball) he made but let's just say that they made it to 20 points in a matter of 18 minutes when the games have a 30 minute time limit. It was the best game they played and it was AWESOME!!

Sunday morning, they played again at 8:00. This game, we'd rather not talk about but oh well, I will anyway. Everyone was tired but the boys came to play. They did a good job but unfortunately, the other team bested them. This other team was truly a disgrace to Hoopfest. I'm not saying that just because they beat our team but truly because they were ridiculous. At one point, one of their players "chested up" to Bradley stating, "I've taken bigger men than you before!" It was absolutely retarded. When that happened, all of us girls were starting to walk onto the court as well as another team that was waiting to play the following game. No one could believe that this guy was being a jerk. At the end of the game, two Court Marshals became involved and said that for the next game that team played they would probably have the city police surround the court just to keep the peace. Really people, for Hoopfest??? That is stupid! Just kick the stupid team or at least that idiot out and let the rest of us play and have fun. Okay, enough of that, I'm done.

So anyway, the boys went 2 for 4. Not bad because at least they got to play both days. It was a fun weekend and we really enjoyed it. Not sure if we're going to go back next year but who knows.

Sam setting up the play

Brad taking the shot

And another one

Shane taking it to the hoop

Ben putting it up

I love Ben's face in this picture. It just says, "Dude Brad, I think that's a foul...yep, it's definitely a foul!"

Our friend Tyler making the jumper

While we were in Spokane, the kids had a blast at Nana & Papa's house. They went fishing on Saturday (which they kept the rewards for us to bring home) and they also had a great time riding their four-wheeler and Jordyn rode her pony Chico for the first time outside of the corral. The four wheeler was a Christmas present for the kids and they are now getting the hang of riding it. The pony was a birthday present for Jordyn. She loves him and talks about him every day. We wish that we were able to keep him closer to us so that she could take care of him and ride him more often but renting pasture is expensive so he stays on the farm. Chico is such a great pony and he LOVES Jordyn. He knows when she is on his back that she is inexperienced and he takes his time and listens very intently to what she wants him to do. It is so wonderful our kids have these experiences