Madison, Volleyball 2023

We had a lot of fun watching volleyball this year.  It is a step up from 7th grade and the team showed improvement to back that up. 

They had a new coach, Maddie Underwood, and I think she did a good job.  It is a difficult job to coach when 17 girls come out.  How do you determine who plays and how much? How do you help develop skills when there is one coach and 17 girls?  You can’t even give them all fair time on the court during practice let alone the games.  I felt for her as she navigated these waters. 

Meet the team…

    

I had no idea what Madison would look like this season.  She hadn’t participated in JO or any other volleyball league.  She did do two short camps during the summer though.  I knew she was struggling with her overhand serve.  I was fairly certain that if the coach were to place her somewhere on the court it would be the back row due to her height.  And I wondered how much playing time she would get if she was in the back row and didn’t have a strong serve.  Last year, she was a consistent underhand server.  This year, I think Coach wanted all overhand servers.  So, Madison did not serve – EXCEPT one game that she did a great job getting it over under pressure!  But she would sub in for the server in that position once the serve was lost and play across the back row.  She amazed me.  Her passing was consistent.  She was able to cover much of the court as was expected of her in middle back.  She called the ball loudly.  She listened to Coach’s advice and worked to be better.  I (we ) am so proud of her!! 

    

They had a chance to be introduced at the varsity volleyball game again this year.  It is an exciting night for the girls.

They were able to play a few b-team games.  I was curious how Coach would play kids.  She played those that rarely got in the games all the way around.  Then, she took kids that played only front row and had them play back row and those that played back row, play front row.  So, Madison had the chance to be a middle hitter for a few games.  She did a great job navigating the net – the speed the ball came over, trying to take some of the short balls back over, hitting off the set.  It is very different up front.  She had a lot of fun, and the team as a whole had fun playing in their “new” positions.  It was a good opportunity for all of them.

    

I want to give a shout out to this fan group.  They sat together, cheered together, and had a blast keeping each other company as they supported their sisters… Bailey (Ellie’s sister), Janie (Gretta’s sister), Ellie, and Josie (Gretta’s other sister). 

There was no breakfast before the tournament this year.  The tournament was at Norwayne.  We were seeded 3rd with a 9-5 record… a great improvement over last year.  We played Rittman in the first round.  We won in two games – both fairly close with some good volleys and scrappy plays on both sides of the net.  Then, we faced Norwayne.  We had lost in 3 and lost in 2 against them this season, but split the b-team games with them.  We lost the first game 14-25 (maybe).  We won the second in a comeback 25-23.  Then, we lost the third 13-25 (or close to that).  I think the difference between the teams is that Norwayne had a net game – they knew how to swing on an attack, how to attack an overpass that came just over the net, and how to cover a hit.  We are still learning to be confident enough to hit at a team with authority and don’t have anyone really attacking the ball as it comes just over… typically we just tip back over.  And we didn’t know how to defend the return hits on the overpass.  But our girls played as well as they knew how – consistent passing and working to set the ball up and dig balls hit at them.  I was proud of the way they fought back.  Hoping that each year we develop new skills to level up the play.

Coach gave the girls some snack bags and a note.  As like last year, this is what I hope Madison takes away with her – not the win-lose record, not whether she was perfect on the floor, not who said what or did what, but this encouragement and acknowledgement of her hard work and an attitude of positivity. And I hope she knows that positive doesn’t have to equate to smiling or letting go of the drive to win.  It means that despite mistakes and difficulties, you can see ways to improve, to encourage, and to build up yourself and others.

Can’t wait to see what happens next year!

Wayne County Fair Time

I may be a month late on this, but it was a fun time at the fair this year.  We started the week with Saturday goat shows.  Sam and Lilli had their goats (Darrell and Chuck, in honor of their grandpas!) to show.  They had looked really good, but about 5 days before the fair they got a bad bag of feed.  The goats started losing weight and didn’t have a chance to fully recover.  It is what is it is, but I think they were a little disappointed.  They both did a good job showing and they looked like they had good control of them in the ring. 

         

We spent some of the day Saturday checking out the buildings.  The 4-H building houses their club display with their posters and this year it had a display of Ellie’s Clock Trophy from State Fair.

         

We also hit the school building.  This one gives us a chance to see the artwork done by Madison, Ellie, and other classmates we may know.  It is fun to see all the creative pieces.  This year, only Ellie had a piece of art displayed. 

Also, Saturday, we tried to get in many of the animal buildings.  Once judging starts a lot of the buildings are closed to allow 4-Hers the opportunity to get in and out of their stalls more easily with their animals.  Ellie especially enjoyed seeing the big draft horses, which are ironically housed next to the miniature horses!  We also saw rabbits, fancy (and not so fancy) chickens, cows, and sheep.  We missed the pig building, and when we returned on Monday it was closed for show.

   

We went back on Monday for rides and to celebrate Jeremy’s birthday with a fair food meal.  Next year, we will ride rides on Saturday or Sunday; the lines should be shorter.  Madison wanted to go on quite a few.  Ellie was on the fence so we bought tickets instead of a pass for her to start, but then she changed and wanted to ride more rides.  They rode a few together and a few independently.  They both had fun.  There were some new rides they tried – big swings (Madison), spinning ride in the dark that I don’t remember the name of (Ellie), and the bumper cars (both of them!). 

         

When we entered on Monday, we saw one of our (graduated) youth from Salem driving the shuttle.  Karey saw us approaching and hollered for Jeremy to come up front and ride with him.  Jeremy took off running like a 5-year-old who had been waiting for this day and hopped on board.  It was fun to watch.  Every guy loves being in the cab of a tractor… particularly if you grew up riding in one with your dad or grandpa! 

It was a good year – decent weather, good memories, and the expected allure of fair food. 

The 1 Hour Away Fun

While we find a lot of things to entertain us at home, we do sometimes venture out.  For Christmas, we gave Gloria a future gift for tickets to the Disney in Concert,  The Sound of Magic.  This was a concert by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra at Blossom.  It was fantastic!  The orchestra played music from Disney films arranged in such an interesting way and then set to video footage of various scenes from the Disney films.  The film part was as amazing as the orchestra – and they were all completely in-sync.  We had beautiful weather, saw numerous people we knew among the throngs of people there, and had a great time together.  The girls’ friends, the Smiths, had lawn seats, so they went to see those.  And then they came to check out seats under the pavilion.

     

More pictures…

    

Jeremy participated in the Velosano Race for the Cure again this year.  This is a bike ride sponsored by Cleveland Clinic to raise money for cancer research.  He rides with the Guardians team – not necessarily the actual team players, but sponsored by them.  They then give the riders a bike jersey and tickets to a future Guardians game.  Jeremy did a great job meeting his goal: 50 miles (with hydration breaks) in less than 4 hours!  Impressive.  (Side note: the weekend before we had gone to Ashland to see Nate and Jen’s family.  Jeremy rode to Ashland as a conditioning ride for the Velosano.  He did a great job in not so amazing conditions – hot, humid, windy, lots of hills, and no support with food/water along the way… )

Jeremy took the girls to the Guardians game the night after the Disney in Concert.  I choose to stay home.  I was already feeling overwhelmed with school and home stuff; it felt like too much to sit at a ball game knowing I had a list of things to do or a couch to just crash on.  He and the girls had a great time and created their own daddy-daughter memories which I think is good.  I think their sad faces aren’t because of their seats (which were great) but either because I wasn’t there or the Guardians were losing…

   

Happy First Day of School!

I overhauled my bulletin boards this year.  Bulletin boards are not really my thing.  That said, a good bulletin board does bring me happiness, and a bad one feels like someone who doesn’t care.  Well, for the past 6 years, my bulletin boards have pretty much looked like I didn’t care.  For awhile, one of mine worked really well to display student work, and I was okay with that.  The other one though was pretty lame.  So, I upped my game by paying for one from Teacher-Pay-Teacher and stealing an idea from Pinterest.  And I received many compliments.  And frankly, it makes me happy every time I walk in my room and notice them.  Here they are (just pretend you like them, even if you don’t):

    

And my desk.  This picture was actually taken after the first two weeks of school.  It had been buried under piles of papers from screeners I had been giving students and I had stayed til about 6pm on Friday night to try to unearth the desk and organize the papers.  This is my goal – a clean work surface – when I leave each week… and even each day if I can manage it. 

    

Here we are bright-eyed and bushy tailed for our first day of school on AUGUST 20th. 

         

The Local Fun

Yep.  I’ve been on a hiatus.  This blog, while something I enjoy for family memories, is not my top priority when things get a bit overwhelming.  And this school year has been a bit overwhelming to say the least.  So, I have been on hold since August 12 (I think).  I now have a list of pictures and topics to try to knock out that span the past two months (approximately).  So, here we go….

Before school started, the girls crammed in some fun around the area with friends and family.  Grandma and Grandpa Ediger took them and Landen out to eat and then to walk on the bike trail to celebrate the last days of summer.  They had fun.  Landen is a cousin they don’t hang out with as much.  I think mainly because he is a boy they don’t do the sleepovers and play times as they have with Meg or Lilli.  But they love hanging out with him.  Every time they are with him, they say how much fun they have together.  So, here they are.

         

Ellie was invited to a friend’s birthday party the weekend before school started.  It was an Olympic theme and they played a lot of games to win medals.  Such fun planning!  (Something I have never done as a parent, but kudos to those that can and enjoy it!)  Here are a few pics from the day…

    

Sometimes, they entertain themselves with an arsenal of fun things at the house.  In the past there were a lot of pretend cooking, Barbies, dolls, Legos (still happens some), coloring, and more.  It has transitioned more now to real cooking, make-up and nail polish, pretend careers, and creative event planning for the family.  I have appreciated their willingness to make supper when I am not around or help me make supper.  Ellie enjoyed picking out meals on Pinterest to have for dinner… which was a win-win for me – I didn’t have to choose the meal AND she either made it independently or helped me.  So, here is an over-the-top make-up day and some food choices from the past month or so.

    

Finally, there is Pepper.  He has gotten two new outfits: an alligator from a garage sale and a security hoodie from Aldi.  Ellie, especially, loves pampering him like this.  We like to think that this security outfit legitimizes his barking… it doesn’t.  It is still annoying and pointless.  But he is kinda cute in it.