Lia and Lacey off to Mozambique!

Lia's mom (Lisa) and I have been friends for over 20 years.  We met in Huntington Beach, CA where we became roommates and friends.  We were roommates when we met our respective husbands and got married four weeks apart from each other.  She flew out to Chicago for my wedding and I flew out to Seattle for hers.  And then we both had our first kids (both girls!) within a year of each other and got them started as pen pals when they were old enough to write.  Lia and her mom flew out here for their Spring Break in 2021 when Lacey and Lia met for the first time and they've been friends ever since!  In fact, Lacey has flown out to Seattle twice since then to visit Lia.  Well, Lia's mom decided to send Lia on a humanitarian trip through HXP and told us about it.  Lacey decided she wanted to go too with Lia, so the next thing I knew,  they had been assigned to Mozambique for a 2.5 week long adventure and we've been counting down the days ever since!

Last night, Lacey and I drove out to Dulles airport to pick up Lia.

Lacey said goodbye to our three sweet foster kittens Bluey, Tiggy and Pinky, since they will be gone by the time she returns in 2.5 weeks.

And then we got up at 5am this morning to head to JFK airport!

Lia landed at 5:30pm last night and we dropped her off at JFK at 9am this morning.  In the 15.5 hours we had her, we drove her through 5 states (Virginia, Maryland, Deleware, New Jersey and New York) plus the District of Columbia.  A LOT of driving!!

But we finally made it.  And we said our goodbyes....

Have the adventure of a lifetime, girls!

Love God.  Love People. 

Final LAX Tournament of the Season

 

Both Riley and Ella had their final lacrosse tournaments of the season this past weekend.  The tournament is called Genesis and it's in Hershey, PA.  There are several different locations around the Hershey area for the tournament so Dave and I drove up separately and he went to Ella's games while I went to Riley's.  So even though Ella was there too, all my pics are of Riley for this one!

Go #34!

United On and Off the Field.

Sadly, this is the last team picture we will have of this awesome team.  The owner of the club decided to make some coaching team and is replacing all three of our coaches next year.  And they announced a couple days after the tournament the roster for next year and about 5 of these girls aren't on the roster.  There have been a few changes here and there, but for the most part, this team has been together for 5 years.  Half a decade is a long time when you're only 13 years old!  It's almost half your life!  So when we parted ways the following day after our final game, it was a very emotional goodbye. 

But before we parted ways the following day, we went out to a team dinner on Saturday night and had a great time!

And then had another win the following morning....

Which meant we went 4-0 in the tournament (we are MD United 29 East) and advanced to Playoffs.

Sadly, we lost to Philly Blast in the Semi-Finals.  But still a good tournament overall! There were 78 teams  and 9 brackets in Riley's age group that came from all over the country, so they had a great run making it to the Semi-finals!

And now, we wait to see what next year brings......

I Like It, I Love It, I Want Some More of it!

 

I saw Tim McGraw in my 20's in California and again in my 30's with Dave in DC.  So, I figured I may as well go see him in my 40's in Baltimore!  I saw he was coming to concert, but was hesitant to spend the money with everything else we have going on.  But on Thursday, the day before the concert, they slashed the ticket prices because it wasn't sold out, so I quickly grabbed three (for $42 a ticket including all taxes and fees) and asked my sister-in-law and niece to go with me. 

Carly Pearce opened for him.

And then Tim took the stage!

We had great seats!

A list of all the songs he sang.  Fun night!

Summer Swim Team for Ella

Summer Swim Team has begun!

Shipley's Sharks 2024

I think this is the very first year I've only had one kid on Swim Team.  We started with this team in either 2013 or 2014 and have been involved ever since with all of our kids participating over the years.  But as they've gotten older, they've moved on to other things in the summer.  In fact this is the first year that Riley decided not to do it.  But Ella is still going strong!

Go Sharks!

Young Men's Camp for T!

 

Tanner and I got home from our Tahoe trip late Tuesday night and then he and Dave got up at the crack of dawn the following morning to head to Elk Neck State Park for his church youth group camp and by Noon, this was Tanner up in the treetops for a ropes obstacle course and zip-lining.  Non-stop fun for this one so far this summer!

They also went target shooting.

And those are the only pictures I've received so far!  But I think he's having a great time and will get home tomorrow 🏕

LAX for the Cure

 

LAX for the cure is one of the biggest lacrosse tournaments in the Nation.

In addition to it bringing the best teams and the best competition from all over, it raises a ton of money for breast cancer research.

This was Ella's first time competing in this tournament so it was fun that the girls got to experience this awesome, fun, highly competitive tournament together. 

Everyone orders special pink uniforms, gets pink swag, pink everything!

Riley's team

Ella's Team

 

Riley's team started out strong with a win over Pride 29 Red.  But then they lost their next game against the Yellow Jackets by just one goal.  They played two more games the following day and as long as they won their fourth (and final) game against Renegades (a team we beat 9-3 just two weeks ago at another lax tourny), then we would advance to the finals.  But, disappointingly, we ended up tying them.  Big Sigh.  Even then, we were tied in terms of teams that could advance, so then they had to decide based on goal differential and the other team we were tied with had more overall goals.  Riley's team has won this entire tournament two of the last three years, including last year, so they are defending champs.  And this is the very first time they've ever not advanced to playoffs, so it was a big heartbreak.  But they are trying to stay focused for next weekend, their final tournament of the season!

As for Ella's team, they won all four of their games and then advanced to Playoffs.  Sadly they lost by just one goal (3-4) in the Quarterfinals.

But overall, a fun weekend with lots of great competition and getting ready for Summer Genesis in Hershey, PA for our final tournament of the season!

And, side note, Dave wins Father of the Year, since he handled all of this by himself over Father's Day weekend since I was in Tahoe with T!

White Water Rafting

On our actual birthday, June 17th, we had the grand finale of our birthday buddies trip by going White Water Rafting along the American River in Lotus, CA.  It was AMAZING!!!!  A major highlight for all five of us!!

And we totally lucked out because we ended up getting a "private tour" with just the five of us on board along with our awesome guide, Eduardo. 

SO. MUCH. FUN!!!!!

Happy Birthday, T.  16 looks good on you!

Our guide is from Brazil and has won the world championship in kayaking/rafting multiple times.  He is going to quit being a tour guide after this season, so he can focus solely on making the Olympic team for the 2028 Olympics.  We're going to follow his journey and cheer him on!