Adam and Heather Hayes

I thought that Heather was going to write about Tricity's birthday, but seeing as she is about ready to pop (less than a week), I figured I'd write this one.

Tricity had a lot of fun on her birthday and was enjoying the few days of sunshine we had before it started snowing on us again. She had a couple of friends over and they had a lot of fun playing barbies, running around outside, pulling the sled around on the grass??, digging around in the mud, and other little kid things.

 

Tricity was really looking foward to getting a red shirt (I think she has a favorite red shirt that she outgrew so she was looking for a replacement.

 

She wanted the game Candyland (which I had never played before).

 

She also wanted some "boy Barbies" as she calls them.

 

All in all I think she had a lot of fun. I also had the opportunity to take Tric to Kindergarten Roundup. They do all sorts of tests on your kid like hearing tests, physical fitness tests (catching a ball, walking backwards in a straight line, skipping, etc), cognitive tests (draw a picture of your mom (how many body parts did they identify, draw a triangle, square, circle), recognition tests (identify colors, shapes, letters, rhyming sounds). After everything was done, she had done great. The only thing they complained about was that she gallups instead of skips.

As a side note, Tricity and Erith have started playing chess, and Tric is really quite good at it. She beat Josh (with one suggestion from me... but shhhh don't tell. She had him 2 moves from checkmate but didn't see the move, so I suggested that she move her bishop... that was my hint). She gave my dad a run for his money as well. He thought he would just play around until she started taking pieces of his off the board. 

Well, this was an interesting tournament. We played really well (except for one game). We were on our path to win our pool and play against Hillcrest. All we had to do was beat North Fremont (who was only playing with 5 girls). Unfortunately, the girls figured all they had to do was show up and they would give us the match. Not so. :( So after our humiliating defeat, we ended up playing for second.

• Idaho Falls (Justin) (win)
•      25-18 (win)
•      25-13 (win)
• BVC (win)
•      25-18 (win)
•      22-25 (win)
• North Fremont 
•      25-18 (win)
•      16-25
• Blackfoot Tabu (win)
•      25-18 (win)
•      23-25
•      17-15 (win)

I will hopefully have my middle back for this next weeks game (or at least the one after that.) I should also have a couple of players that have been doing junior miss and other stuff back as well. So I'll have to figure out where to put them in my rotation.

We had an amazing practice yesterday where we really focused on hitting (that is where we lost with North Fremont... we got behind and then got scared to hit.) I'm feeling a lot more positive about this upcoming tournament. The practices last week were just off for some reason. They just couldn't seem to concentrate, but this week is much better. 

Well we had our third volleyball tournament which puts us half way through the season. The girls did amazing this week. We won our pool and then played against Hillcrest again. We are the only ones that have even beaten them during any games. Although we won the first game against them, they rallied back and won the next two. However, it was extremely close and one call one way or the other could have changed the outcome of the game.

In our second game against Tabu, we came back from being down 7 points to gain the lead at 17-16. However, we decided that defense wasn't that important and gave them the next 9 points (I was all out of time outs and they just started picking on one of my back row people.)

• Blackfoot - Tabu
•       25-18 (win)
  
•       17-25
• BVC (win)
  
•       25-16 (win)
  
•       25-12 (win)
  
• IF - Tracy (win)
  
•       25-13 (win)
  
•       25-22 (win)
  
• Hillcrest
•       25-23 (win)
  
•       19-25
•       10-15

All in all it was a great tournament. As long as we don't talk about where one of the coaches son's got upset about some calls and tried starting something with the 95 lb, 5' nothing girl ref. He got in her face after the match, and I couldn't just sit there waiting for him to hit her, so I got between them. He kept saying not to touch him, and I kept telling him to calm down. I wasn't sure if he was going to through a punch or not. Anyway, in the end he didn't swing (at me... though he did hit some lockers on his way out of the school) and I'm not sure he'll be allowed into any more tournaments.

Well we had our second tournament. This week was pretty good. We split with the "undefeated" Hillcrest team and I think we would have won both if we hadn't had one of the girls sprain her ankle. I spent quite a while getting some ice for her ankle and when I got back we were losing 10-22. As you can see the games were pretty close. I was very proud of the girls.

• Hillcrest
•      10-25
•      25-18
• Madison
•       25-15
•       25-14
• Sugar Salem
•      25-18
•      25-23
• IF - Justin
•        27-25
•      22-25
•        15-8

Overall it was a good tournament. We now have a few weeks off before our next tourney. We just found out that we might have lost one of our middles because of a torn meniscus (cartilage in the knee.) She had been having knee problems before we started practices.

 

Volleyball is underway for this year and we've had a few weeks to prepare for our first tournament that was today. I've got pretty much the same girls I had last year. (We had a really young) team last year, so it is nice to be playing a girls our own age finally.

A shoutout goes to Bethany for coming and helping me with practice on Thursday. I think she had fun and it was really good for the girls.

Today we had our first tournament of the season. We played pretty well. (The girls had the jitters during the first match, but got into the groove after the first match. I had the jitters a bit too, but I got over it a lot quicker than the girls did.)

The game results were as follows (them means they won, us/bold means we won):

• Hillcrest
•      25-17 (them)
•      25-14 (them)
• St. Anthony
•      25-21 (them)
•       17-25 (us)
• Toca
•       23-25 (us)
•       22-25 (us)
• Bonneville
•       17-25 (us)
•       20-25 (us)

 

The girls played well, but were pretty tired by the end of the tournament, so we'll work on conditioning some more. So we start the season out 3 and 1. Not a bad start.

Well this has been quite the year for politics.

I'm normally not one to talk about politics (except between myself and Heather). However, this year (and last) I've followed the primaries fairly closely. I've watched as the field has narrowed to practically one candidate (McCain) on the republican side and two candidates (Clinton and Obama) on the democratic side.

As I've watched I've noticed something quite unique in the approaches of the candidates. There seems to be only one candidate that is playing end game. As I listen to victory speeches, there was only one that was truly trying to appeal to both sides (not just their party). One that was speaking of uniting a nation instead of merely uniting a political party. The only one that is speaking of us as a country, instead of the usual us versus them of politics. The only one that is playing end game, that is gathering supporters from all walks of life, political backgrounds, and economic status is Barack Obama.

I have to say he is extremely good at speaking. Now, that doesn't qualify or disqualify him for political office, but invigorating speeches of unity, change, and hope surely aren't going to hinder his chances of getting elected. Play this clip and you'll get an idea of his eloquent speaking ability.

I absolutely love the line "In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

There are numerous issues that we disagree on, but I doubt I'll ever have a candidate that I ever fully agree with unless I run for office (and I'll never do that.)

I think that tomorrow after the Texas and Ohio primaries the field will narrow down to Obama and McCain. I'm doing my research into both to get a better idea of where each one stands on issues.

Regardless of how I vote this upcoming November, from what I've seen I think that Obama will win the election with over 65% of the votes.

Well, thanks to my friend Daniel, I went snowboarding for the first time in my life.

I had an absolute blast. We went up to Targhee and Daniel showed me the basics of standing up, falling down (j/k), and turning. We went down the "bunny hill" once and then we went to mid mountain. He endured a rather long trip down the mountain as I tried to get the hang of basic turns.

After we made it down the first time, he had to run off and teach a class, so I got to practice a bit on my own. I went down a couple more times and fell about a thousand times. I was getting ok at turning from heel side to toe side, but couldn't quite get toe to heel. Dan finished his class and came and helped me out for another run. Then we went and ate lunch.

After lunch I started doing much better. After I was able to switch from heel to toe and back again, my legs started to like me again. (I kept favoring my left leg, so it kept getting really tight and sore.) Dan spent the whole time trying to get me to not favor it so much.

I actually made a complete run down to about 20 feet from the ski lift without falling. Then I was going too slow and just tipped over. Oh well. Next time I'll have a perfect run.

Dan didn't throw me on anything too difficult which was nice. Plus, although he had plenty of opportunities to laugh at me, he didn't.

All in all, it was a great time and I'm eager to try again.

Well, I've spent a lot of time lately out in our driveway trying make a path for our vehicles.

 

Yesterday morning was disheartening because it would blow in faster than I could dig us out. Luckily, the wind died down a bit in the afternoon and I was able (with the help of Stuart) to make the driveway look like a driveway again (instead of rolling hills).

 

Today was the same way. It just keeps blowing us in, and it sounds like we are in for a couple of big storms again this week. The kids are loving it though. They have their own little "mountain". They have been outside playing a lot (especially since we've had a lot of snow days these last few weeks.

 

As for now, I think I'll just stay here in my nice warm office and be glad I don't have to drive to work.