itp x3! eekk!

What a weekend!!!  We seem to just be getting busier and busier!!  But I truly do love it, and I wouldn't want it any other way.  I love spending time with my family, supporting my kiddos, and livin' the dream!  In fact, I love it so much that I drove into Atlanta three times this weekend.  That's saying something for this country girl :)

Ryan made the Creekland middle school academic bowl team this year!!  He was one of only three 4th graders to make the Macedonia team, and he played again in 5th grade.  We're super excited for him for this middle school team.  It's intense, but he's owning it and rocking it.  He wakes up on his own four days a week, and we drive him to school for 7am practices.  Yikes!  In fact, I had just told Coleson that I was loving the extra time with just Ryan in the morning - we walk the girls out to the bus at 7:03, but Ryan wasn't leaving until 7:50.  And literally the next day, Ryan finds out he made the team, and we find out the practices are mornings, hehe.  It's all worth it though.  There's nothing better then seeing your kids find their passions and thrive.  So he had his very first team tournament on Thursday night, locally - more of a Cherokee county scrimmage.  And then Saturday, they had a tournament itp ["inside the perimeter"].  Here's Ryan and three of his best buds ...

Jake, Matthew, Ryan, Spence

Saturday morning we woke up about 6:30 to leave at 7:20 for our drive down to Chamblee.  My friend, Amy, aka Jake's mom, rode along with me in my party van.  We took Ryan, Jake, Matthew, and Spence down to the tournament.  As 6th graders, we were told they wouldn't play in this tournament, but everyone was encouraged to attend and observe.  They'll play again in November - everyone will participate then as there will be "novice" [6th grade only] teams in that tournament.  Matthew actually did get to play the first half of one round.  Rumor was that Dr. Naz was upset with the vets' performance so he subbed in some 6th graders.  Matthew answered a few questions, and the 6th graders were actually leading the round when they were subbed back out, woohoo!  And there were worksheets that the entire team could collaborate on.  But since they weren't actually expected to participate, Dr. Naz was totally cool about not expecting the 6th graders to stay all day.  We left after round four and took the boys to lunch at Moe's - an unanimous pick, phew.  I think Amy and I did good - they all ate, and no one got sick off of the various combinations of drinks from the goofy freestyle machine or from the salsa shots that I know my son, at minimum, was taking ;)  We got them back to the safety of our Cherokee county bubble just in time for a flag football game.  Which they played awesomely.  Won by three touchdowns I believe.  And Ryan got an interception!!!  This is a really fun flag football team full of friends!  And while winning definitely isn't everything, it sure is more fun to watch a good, competitive game.   

So that was itp trip number one.  After the flag football game, we headed home to regroup and shower and about an hour later, we left again.  We took the girlies to the amazing Khodabakhshs' house for the evening, and then Coleson, Ryan, and I headed downtown.  Abby got her For King and Country concert a couple weeks ago, and Saturday night was all about Ryan :)  We ate dinner at the CNN Center.  We need to go back and do one of the tours!!  Our little smarty pants seemed to really enjoy it - he recognized the huge globe from his CCN10 episodes and had lots of questions about it all.  And dinner was yummy!  The guys shared wings and I had a fancy chicken sandwich complete with coleslaw, pickles, and some hot sauce from the wings.  And the highlight of the evening ... the Hawks home opener!!  Ryan and I initially had tickets to the Braves postseason game, but umm yeah, they lost before they got to our game.  Fortunately our tickets were refunded, and we made a Plan B :)  This was my first time to State Farm Arena, and I'm pretty sure my first ever Hawks game.  Coleson took Ryan and Abby and some friends there back in March.  Chloe and I watched from home - that was a great game that the Hawks won in overtime.  Here are a few of the March- game Hawks fans [they went as a group of ten] ...

Abs, Taylor, Ryan, Clark

This was a great game as well.  No overtime [which was fine with me!], but super close the whole game and the Hawks got the win!  It was a really fun atmosphere; I'd go again.  Our seats were in the upper level, but only eight or ten rows back and right at mid court, great view.  And our parking was great too - easy in and easy out, always a plus.  It was a long, long, long day, but wonderful!!!  In fact, I skipped church Sunday and laid in bed way too long :)  Here's some pictures from Saturday's fun!

Abby's soccer always adds a bit of excitement to life and our weekend plans, and this weekend was no exception.  She was supposed to play a Sunday game in Douglasville at 3pm.  I guess they got more rain then we did over Friday and Saturday [we ended up with barely any despite the crazy forecasts], so Sunday's game was cancelled even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was in the high 60s.  Instead she played in a scrimmage at her home fields ... and then she and I went back itp.  She was invited by a teammate to try out for a Georgia Alliance elite team?!  Basically four leagues coming together to make an all-star team of sorts.  We still haven't decided if we'll sign on or not, but the practice went great!  Abby, of course, would play soccer all day every day.  It's hard to imagine we're even thinking about doing this, but boy oh boy, her face and giggles and smiles when we asked if she wanted to go down and at least check it out.  The coach seems really good, I thought the practice went really well.  I guess the proverbial ball is in our court now.  It sounds like the coach would like to take her, but it was left at we would talk about it and email him.  The team has actually already formed, we've missed two practices, but the coach is hoping for one or two more girls and apparently asked the current players to invite the best girl from their home club team.  While we were down there - all the way past Turner field - Ryan was having a blast hanging out with Jake and his family all afternoon.  Lunch at Cracker Barrel, lots of ping-pong and playing, cookies, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.  Coleson and Chloe had fun running errands and cooking Chloe's dinner choice - ravioli [no sauce though!] and salad.      

Now to continue my Monday morning recovery!  Updating the budget, running lots of laundry, uploading pictures of weekend fun, that sort of stuff.  And then next up is prepping for the Halloween week ahead and volunteering in Chloe's class in a couple of hours.  As locash would say, "man, I love this life"  Or actually, a better one would be Dierks Bentley..  "And some days you're just alive, some days you're livin'"  That's more fitting - it's Abby's current favorite song.  Her favorites do change pretty much daily, but we listened to that one several times on the way home from our itp soccer journey last night :)