Lax For the Cure

 

This weekend was Lax For the Cure, an annual LAX tournament in Princeton, NJ.

There are hundreds of teams from all over the country that come to this event, which also serves as a fundraiser for Breast Cancer.  So all the girls get all decked out in pink (pink uniforms, hair ties, socks, etc) and play their little hearts out.  Here is Ella (bottom row 2nd from right) and her MDU 2031 East teammates meeting the GOAT of women's lacrosse, Chloe Humphrey (in the middle in all black).

And Riley meeting her with a big hug. 

Chloe Humphrey plays for UNC and just won the National Championship.  She also won Player of the Year and Attacker of the Year.  She's also in the NCAA record book for the most goals (90) by a Freshman.  Both girls were super excited to meet her.  And they were not disappointed.  She was gracious and kind.

Chloe and Riley selfie

And Chloe wasn't the only champion there!  Eli Manning's daughter is Riley's age and plays for 

the Steps Elite NJ Navy 2029 team, which was Riley's team's first opponent.  Unfortunately for us, Eli Manning's daughter and her team were really good and beat us in that game, but it was fun to see Eli Manning on the sidelines!  Here he is packing up and walking down the sideline after the game.

Riley's team.

This year wasn't their year, but they have won the Championship title for this tournament twice, so we have lots of good memories here!

And while neigher Riley or Ella's teams advanced to the playoffs this year, they both won their last games, so they still went home on a high!

It's tradition to provide each girl with a fun pink swag bag full of pink-themed goodies for this tournament.  Little things like pink candies or hair ties or nail polish.  But a mom on Ella's team went ABOVE and BEYOND.  A brand new Nike duffel bag.....

A personalized card

A personalized necklace

Goodr sunglasses, a cosmetic bag full of cosmetics, a Nike waterbottle, cooling rags, perfume and on and on and on and on.  I've never seen anything like it - it was amazing!!!

Welcome home, girls!

They both have try outs this week followed by one last tournament next weekend in Hershey, PA.

And then we take a much needed 2 month lacrosse break before the Fall season starts up....

Beach Babes

 

One of the fun things about living here is that you can do a Beach Day as a day trip!  The Atlantic Ocean is just a 2.5 hour drive from us. From left to right, this is Kylie, Briley, Riley (affectionately known as "the 3 -ileys") and Audrey.  They are besties from Church and love to hang out together.  Sadly, Briley's family is military and so their three year stint of living here has come to an end and they are moving to Alaska next week.  Riley is so sad about their awesome little foursome being split up, so she decided to put together an epic going away party/beach day for Briley and for the four of them to do together..... which involved me taking the day off work and driving them to and from the beach!  Ha!  Actually, it was totally fine because I love watching my kids have fun and it's such a great group of girls.

Girls just want to have fun!

Beach Babes turned Boogie Boarding Babes

I told Ella she could bring a friend as well and she chose to bring her good buddy Ethan.

They played football.

And soccer.

And boogie boarded.

And soaked in some rays!

Great beach day with my girls and their friends!

Happy Birthday to Us!

 

Since Tanner left for a week-long overnight camping trip with his church youth group at the crack of dawn on his (our) birthday, we decided to go out as a family the night before to Top Golf to celebrate.

Here's Dave taking a swing.

Lacey's turn

Tanner's reaction after hitting it all the way to the back net.  He was definitely the best golfer of all of us!

Riley Jane

Ella practicing her swing.

We ate some good food and had lots of fun competing against each other and ribbing on each other's terrible swings and whiffs!  Great family bonding and a fun way to celebrate our birthday!

Then we came home and ate homemade strawberry banana trifle.

.....and opened a few gifts.

The next morning, Tanner made a birthday post documenting some highlights of his past year before leaving his phone at home for a week since camp was a phone-free camp.  It's always good to have some digital detox!

All in all, a pretty good year!

And Lacey's birthday post to me....

And Tanner.

We snapped a pic together on our birthday before I dropped him off at camp.

Happy birthday to us!

I made birthday cupcakes for everyone.

Have a great week, Tan!

A few of the pics from the week.

Highlights of the week were kayaking and paintball.

Tanner also found a stick and decided to wittle it into a bow.

In progress.......

And done!

And a shout out to Sunny and Raven, Tanner's two geckos who also share our birthday.  We actually have no idea how old they really are since we don't know how old they were when we got them (we purchased them from a family friend who was moving) but we got them exactly 6 years ago as a gift for Tanner's 11th birthday.

Happy 6th Birthday Sunny!

Happy B-day, Raven!

He's 17 years old and now in the body of a six-foot man.

But he'll always be my little boy.

Love you a million billion, Tanner!  My Birthday Buddy forever! 😘