August and Beach Volleyball at Seaside Oregon

Beach Volleyball

Seaside Oregon

August 2014

 

 

 Ellie was playing on  4 person team...a beautiful day at the beach.  Ellie is the one with the long braid in the foreground

 Lily played in a two team and a four team tournament.  she is in the center of the court, the one going for the ball...

 Scott and I brought Jalen and Addie with us to the beach, we just went for the one day.  Lacey and Dina along with the volleyball players were there two days earlier.  We couldn't have asked for a better day at the beach...as you can see from the sky, it was sunny and warm and a perfect day for jumping waves and playing in the sand.

Lily buried Addie in the sand

And here is Addie getting ready to make something in the sand...

USA Volleyball

Tulsa OK and USA Volleyball

Ellie

 July 2014

Ellie (13) made the continental team for the USA Volleyball...Her coach for the 10 days was from James Madison University he is top left.  the bottom picture was taken at the very end of the tournament...a proud Mommy is with Ellie!  So for 10 days we were in Tulsa Oklahoma.  We went with Dina, Jamie and Ellie.  Scott and Jamie were able to play some golf...at Southern Hills no less!!
On each hole there are three or more HUGE fans blowing like crazy, you can't even hear yourself talk...I guess it is to help keep the greens dry.  Lots of humidity in the air!

 

 

We went to the Porter Peach Festival...very down home country...and they ran out of peach cobblers!!  but we did manage to get peaches with some ice cream!

The Catholic Church in downtown Tulsa, Dina and I attended Mass there

Lots of graffiti on the walls...very cool

 Ellie's team during the 10 days.. from all over the US

A typical teenager on the phone...ha ha  Ellie thought it was pretty cool!

 

We did watch lots of volleyball, we usually went roaming a bit during the day and then came back to watch some scrimmages and such.  We stayed at a really neat hotel in downtown Tulsa called the Mayo Hotel...



 There was actually a wedding here, the ceremony took place at the top of the steps, beautiful architecture...clean and definitely a 5 star place, we really enjoyed the rooms and the restaurant.

Scott and Jamie played golf twice, Dina and I did some window shopping and found a theater one day to kill some time until the boys would be done with golfing...And when I went to pay for our tickets the price was $2.25...for both of us!!  What a bargain...we went back there several times!

And one time when we took the boys, it was senior day, so Scott and I got in for 75 cents each!!

 

Well, we are very proud of Ellie, she loves volleyball and is always asking "Papa" to go down to the gym and practice with her!  This is the second year she made the High Performance VB team for USA.  She has to keep trying out each year, it is not a given that she makes a team.  There were only 4 liberos from the US that made the Continental teams and she was on the number one team and the number one libero (that means she is a back row defense specialist and can go in and out for two different people...she can only play back row and the libero is not allowed to serve in USA rules.

 

If she decides to try out again this year and makes it we will be heading to Iowa...now Lily is possibly interested in trying out also, her age level will be playing in Las Vegas...we will see if that will work out for the girls this year.  Sure gives us a chance to see more of the United States!

Back to Savannah!

Well, this has been a long time...I typed this post three times, added my pictures, clicked on some key and everything disappeared!!  THREE TIMES I did that!!  Frustrated, so just walked away!!  Then...when I tried it again, I couldn't sign in...finally today I had my Go To Gal (Lacey) fix it for me and voila...now I can sign in!!  Unfortunately this will be a shorter post with less pictures because now it is almost Christmas and a lot has happened in the last 6 months!!



So as the story goes, we left Augusta, GA and headed to Savannah.  Oh we loved that town!  Our first night we ate at Lady and Son's restaurant (I called on our way driving there to get a reservation!  It was delicious food!  This was started by Paula Deen...she started out as a "bag lady"  making bag lunches, then moved onto this restaurant.

chicken pot pie...it was yummy

Scott had crab cakes over a bed of rice and beans

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church

The Old Pink House

One of 24 city parks in Savannah with the Spanish Moss
I could go on and have a lot more pictures, but from here we drove to Charleston and had a wonderful horse and buggy tour of that city.

Scott with the mule that pulled our buggy!

 The row of Painted houses

 One of several million dollar homes near the waterfront in Charleston

The entrance to a restaurant where we had lunch called 82 Queens...and that is the address too!  Awesome She Crab Soup!!
After the buggy ride and walking on foot and taking in some other museum sites, we took a harbor tour.  It was a beautiful day to be out on the water and get the whole history lesson about the war coming from the harbor!

We stayed the night in Mt. Pleasant and the next day we took a plantation tour.

 this is the car we were driving  What fun that was!!  Red Mustang convertible!!

 one of the many slave homes on the plantation

"I felt like a bird out of a cage.  Amen. Amen. Amen.  I could hardly ask to feel better than I did on that day."
Houston Holloway, former slave from Georgia recalling moment slavery ended

Entrance to the Boone Plantation
These live Oak trees were planted in 1743...two rows of them between the road leading to the plantation house.
It took more than 200 years for the trees to meet overhead to form this corridor to welcome visitors!

After a day of touring the plantation and hearing the stories of the area, we headed back to Savannah, stayed over night and then headed toward Augusta and our plane to take us home.
We made a quick stop in Macon, GA and had to see a couple of churches.

this is the Catholic church and directly behind it was a Baptist church, then to the right of it was this church pictured below,

another Baptist church...one for the blacks and one for the whites!

the inside of this beautiful Catholic Church  St. Josephs!
Well, of course I have many more pictures, but this hits the highlights and now I can be done with this trip!

 

 

 

This will be a two part post...This is The Masters in Augusta, Georgia!

Can you just imagine my surprise when my friend called and asked if Scott and I would like to have two tickets to a practice round of the Masters in Augusta, Georgia?  I did NOT even have to think a second...but of course thought I should ask DH.  And I wasn't thinking how great to go to the Masters...no I was thinking, WOW, if I am in Augusta Georgia, then I have to go to Savannah and then of course I have to go to Charleston too!  Savanah has been on my bucket list...I was wondering if I would ever get there.  Now thanks to my friend Liz, I can scratch that one off...although I would love to go back and explore more and see more of the coast..like Hilton Head etc...!!

And if Scott had a "bucket list" I know the Masters would be on it for sure!  So let me take you there...Warning...picture heavy!


just because I thought it was a cool tree, and it has resurrection ferns growing on the limbs!

We learned about resurrection ferns on our tour of a plantation later in the week. They are called that because when the fronds "dry", they curl with their bottom sides upwards.  In this way, they can rehydrate the quickest when rain comes, as most of the water is absorbed on the underside of the leaf blades...thus:  resurrected!!

15th Green with the Grandstand behind it.The pond at 16 is just to the left of it.

15th Green



Looking at the 16th pond from the 15th green

 



Sergio Garcia on the 7th Tee

 

"Amen Corner"...the second shot at the 11th, all of the 12th, and the first two shots at the 13th hole!

It came about because one person wanted a catchy phrase like baseball's "hot corner" or football's "coffin-corner" to explain where some of the most exciting golf had taken place (the Palmer-Venturi rules issue at 12 in particular)

14th fairway

16th tee, after the golfers hit their balls, the crowds cheer them on to go up and "skip balls" across the pond...they all oblige (at least on the practice rounds!)

I had to get in one picture of Phil...sadly he did not make the cut!

 

 

The grass is cut so finely and so perfect (can you imagine not ONE dandelion!) when Liz stepped on it she was sure it was "artificial grass"!!

 

Since Scott has been watching the Masters on TV for years, his goal was to see the coarse and get a perspective on each hole.  Seeing something on TV is so different than in real life.

Now when he watches it (YES he came home and watched the whole thing on recorded time) he knew how hard the greens actually are because he saw first hand all the dips and run offs etc...I don't claim to know all the correct verbiage, but I do know that he achieved what he came to see at the Masters!

Thank you so much Bob and Liz for giving us this once in a lifetime opportunity!!

Now stay tuned for Part II of this story as I will share pictures of Savannah, Charleston and Mt. Pleasant!

 

February * Basketball * Volleyball

Our family is active in sports...basketball, volleyball, football, motorcross, cheerleading...we have it covered!  So this month we took a few trips to watch the granddaughters play.

We went to Seaside one beautiful sunny day to watch Ellie play in a Basketball Tournament.

Seaside Oregon...we couldn't ask for a better day!

We walked the strip, had lunch and watched some BB games!

When Ellie was playing a tournament at Putnam we picked up my dad so he could watch her...of course I had the other kids come too and got a picture of them with him!  Doesn't he look great for 92?

 

 Over the President' s Day weekend, Dina, Ellie and I flew to San Jose because Ellie had a three day VB tourney there.  After landing and getting a car, we drove to Santa Clara U and walked around campus...we went into the gym so Ellie could see what it looks like to play on the Big Girl Gym!

 

Her team did very well at the tournament...out of 149 teams in her division, hers came in 4th!  Yahoo!!  Lot's of great volleyball!

 

After the play on Sunday, we all went to Stanford and roamed around that campus.

Here is a picture of the team...Ellie is the shortest and the only 7th grader on the team.

She plays the libero position!