13 Games in 4 Days: Part 1

Buckle Up! It's Jamboree Weekend. This is not for the faint of heart. Grab your coffee. Numb your butt (seriously, think about sitting in the bleachers for this many games). Apply your eye black. It. Is. Go. Time.

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You know it is power-packed when you need to 1) write out the hour x hour schedule and 2) color code it so you know which child goes where when. Then 3) cross-examine for overlaps in drop off/pick up/shuffle. Finally 4) be thankful Gpa V came because clearly you need another person with a driver's license!

We kicked off The Weekend of Hockey on Thursday night (otherwise known as St. Patrick's Day) by heading to Mike's game. He plays with three other Shako coaches, so representatives from all their families also showed up. We had 9 (out of 10) kids represented and three wives. I was in charge of the tagalong Moon child, which was super easy because A loves Fiona and happily hung out with her. The Ps were there and Dec lived his best life running around with the boys, while Hannah teamed up with Fiona and A and lived hers. Quinn rotated between groups, depending on who looked like they were having more fun!

The big boys won, probably thanks to some of the coaching from the stands. Cooper took advantage and impersonated Brad's "spectator" coaching perfectly. My favorite was when Brad hit the crossbar and Coop yelled "you gotta hit the net." The mite coach contingent couldn't stop laughing when N ran behind their bench and yelled "move your feet." As you can see by the smiles (taken right before C handed out green frosting cookies to all), they had the best time!

Gpa V arrived Friday afternoon, looked at my schedule list, and [probably] contemplated hightailing it back home where it was safe. Instead he joined us for an early pizza dinner and it was off to the rink for the M3 Mite Olympics. This was Dec's level - and they did an hour of various drills and games. It was super fun to watch and sounded like it was a lot of fun (and lots of work for the coaches). My favorites were dodgeball and the relay races. 

Dec is a dream partner for half of the relay race - because he has great balance and weighs nothing. When his partner T was pulling, they handily beat everyone! However, T is much bigger than Dec and when it was D's turn to be the puller, they weren't quite so fast. I'll give the boy credit - he hung in there and was much closer to the front than expected. [Photo tip: D is #12 in the red jersey/black helmet pulling red jersey/white helmet]

After D's game was the event we had been the most excited about. All the girls moving up to 10U next year were playing the coaches. Plus one very special guest. A fair amount of the boys coaches had not signed up to play in the girls game (I have thoughts about this, but will leave it at that), so they were a bit low on grown up players. I played a very winning hand and asked Uncle Brad if he would come play - for Quinn. We all know he can't say no to that. She wasn't sure if he was coming, so when I had her pop her head out in the hallway, the smile was epic!

The game was so much fun to watch. The goalie for the girls was their goalie coach and the coach's goalie was one of the dads. It was hilarious to watch and the girls were just beaming. As you know, Quinn doesn't care for emotion - but she was visibly thrilled to be out on the ice with both Mike and Brad. It was such a special game for these girls - to celebrate the end of their Mite/8U career.

After the game, Quinn hung out with her teammates, Mike played in the boys vs coaches game (as did the majority of the girls coaches. just saying), and I ran home to snag a piece of equipment that Quinn forgot. I missed most of the boys v coaches game, but sounds like it was high energy and a lot of fun.

If you are counting and think I missed a few Vs, you are right. While all that was happening, the bookends were invited to head home with our neighbors to make a very long night slightly less long. Instead of sitting at the rink for over four hours, they got to head home with the Bs for a 2nd dinner floor picnic and movie. Thank goodness for great friends and a village to raise the children.

Meanwhile, I met Gpa and Q back at the rink for the final event of the evening - the M4 Olympics. Basically the same as what Dec's group did, just for the next level up. Quinn was tired from the game, but had a fun time competing with her teammates. I think their favorite event was "longest slide" and I noticed that they all took a couple extra beats to get up. Quick power nap, maybe? [photo clue: red jersey, orange stick]

And with that, we were home around 9:30. We ran the hockey players through a quick shower rinse and hustled them off to bed. Five games down. Eight more to go ...