Whirlwind Weekend

6 days ago

As the title suggests, it was a whirlwind weekend for @mrsbozz and I this past weekend. We got up bright and early on Saturday morning to head across the Saginaw River to watch our niece play volleyball in a tournament. Their first few games were at a local elementary school which isn't where the photo above was taken.

We got there just in time for the first game to start and they ended up winning that game. I can't tell you the score because it was pretty small gymnasium that didn't even have a proper score board. The officials had to manually flip the score cards after each point and they had it nestled right behind the net post where it was out of view from our vantage point.

Unfortunately, the second game didn't go as well for them and they ended up dropping that game to split the set. Due to the gym being so small, it was really wrecking havoc on the ladies depth perception. They weren't able to get a running start on their serve like they usually do and the ceiling was so low it was causing issues for high volleyed balls.

After those first two games we scrambled back across the river to watch @diamonddaves son who is like a nephew to us play in his middle school football game. He waved to us from the field before the game and though we had to leave at halftime, he knew we were there to support him. It was nice seeing him out on the field and having a good time with his teammates. I was really impressed by how big their team is. I think they had at least twenty to thirty players on the bench at any given time compared to the handful that the other team had.

Since we had to leave at halftime to back across the river for more volleyball action, I can't tell you if they won or lost, but they were up when we left. Oddly enough, they were playing the same school district that our niece faced in her first two volleyball games.

Bracket play for volley ball was at a different venue than the earlier games. It was still across the river, but this time they were playing at historic Bay City Central High School. This is actually the high school that my dad graduated from if that tells you just how old it is. It's a pretty impressive and imposing building. With a much larger court at their disposal, we were hopeful that the ladies would have a nice run in bracket play.

Unfortunately, it didn't go that way and they lost the first match in straight sets knocking them out of the bracket. They were playing a team from Beal City that was quite good. The ladies just seemed out of sorts and couldn't quite get their momentum going. It was too bad that their day had to end so quickly.

With volleyball done for the day, we then piled into the car and headed about an hour south to Fenton, Michigan where our youngest nephew was playing football with his middle school team. It was a rough game, with his team hardly scoring any points. They basically got mercy'd by the end of the game. I am proud to say that one of the touchdowns they did score was thrown by our nephew at the QB position. One of my favorite parts of this game was his older brother helping the other kids on the sideline and trying to give them pointers while their dad coached the team.

They had a lot of issues with the center not being able to snap the ball quite so well. I don't think that's what caused them to lose the game, but it definitely didn't help. I feel bad for that little guy. He is probably beating himself up over it.

We rolled back into our driveway around 7:30 at night a good 13 hours from when we left that morning. It was a long but full day with lots of sports action.