47 posts tagged “wrestling”

I just returned from dropping Cody off at his 2nd year of Christian wrestling camp.  Its on a lake about 40 miles from here.

Its only 3 nights, thank goodness, because I really don't think I could handle more.  I broke down and got him an extra cell phone for the family.  I went with a $10 track phone.  I'm surprised at how nice it is for being cheap but then its not a huge deal if he loses it.  I just hate for him not to be able to call. Cody's on the big yellow tube.  When somebody above jumps on it, you catapult off.

Its a good thing the guys and Lily decided to go fishing yesterday because they brought in 13 walleye after just 1/2 day.  The storm from the night before must've stirred up the fish.

Jace had another horrible night alone in his room.  I forgot how short bursts of sleep give you really weird dreams.  One time, I was even dreaming that Jace kept coming in our room so I don't know if that even qualifies as sleep!  He was basically up from 1-4 am.  I just don't know what to do!  We could move Lily in but eventually he won't want her there anymore and then she'll be the one who struggles.  The joys of parenting.

Show us a picture of your father.

His senior picture.  Isn't he handsome?

And a recent one.

What an exhausting weekend!  My dad arrived Friday night just in time for the State Greco Tournament.  Ray worked at the tables and I worked at the awards copying all the bracket sheets onto the big poster boards for the winners.  Serious writer's cramp!  The National Anthem went very well.  There was only one note that was a bit shaky so I was happy overall.  Only a few of the other wrestling parents knew I sang so there were a lot of surprised people.

Jace easily won his first two matches which put him into the championship round.  It was back and forth but Jace came out victorious to be the state champ!

We were pretty excited about Cody's prospects because Adam, his biggest competition, went down a weight bracket and the other really tough guy wasn't wrestling Greco.  Cody earned 3rd place.  Somehow, we didn't end up with a picture of it.  It was near 10 pm when Cody finished so we had my dad take the kids home as we weren't done working the tournament.  We got home at 11 pm, completely exhausted, to find my dad reading the paper and the kids all still up watching cartoons!  Ack!  He flunked babysitting.  We hurried them into bed as we had another big day ahead.

Saturday morning, we had to be back at the tournament by 8:30.  They do a neat parade of athletes where each team comes out while they're playing "Let's Get Ready to Rumble".  Jace's first match was against the boy he wrestled for the championship Friday night.  We knew the kid would really be gunning for him.  Jace lost the first period.  We thought he'd won the 2nd period which would've taken it to a 3rd but the ref. changed the score after some discussion and Jace lost.  He was very upset and then the ref. admitted he was wrong but said it was too late.  I don't know why it always seems like those situations always hurt us and never benefit us!  Jace wrestled back strong to take 3rd.

Cody also wrestled strong and made it to the match for 3rd & 4th place.  It was really close but he lost.  Fourth place was still great, though!

Our club did a big raffle for the tournament with 16 different prizes.  It was a shock when we won one of the top prizes!

We didn't get out of the tournament until 5 pm on Saturday.  Afterward, we went to Pizza Ranch for supper with my dad and then he headed back home.

Sunday was not a day for rest either.  We had to be at church by 9:30 and the Chorister Choir sang.  Cody missed the first half of the song but at least got Lily's solo at the end.

After church, Ray took the kids home to get them lunch before Jace's soccer game.  I had to miss it because we had a church council mini retreat for the whole afternoon.  I got done just in time to make it to Cody's soccer game which they won 6-5.  My brain is so fried! 

We have an extremely busy weekend.  It begins this morning with Lily having kindergarten visitation.  She was very excited about that.  Right after, we go for her official speech evaluation. 

This afternoon, I'll be doing registration for the state freestyle & greco tournament which is here this weekend.  This closes out the wrestling season which always brings mixed emotions.  On one hand, I'm always exhausted by now as the boys have wrestling practice Mon, Tues, & Thurs from 5:30-6:30 for Jace and 6:30-7:30 for Cody.  We did a few tournaments in January and have been to one if not two every weekend since the last one in February.  I won't even begin to go on about our gas bill!  However, I do love wrestling and it's always a lot of fun.  At least we're onto soccer which I also love!  The boys wrestle greco tonight and freestyle tomorrow.  I'll be helping with awards and singing "The National Anthem" tonight.  I haven't sung it since h.s. and that was in a group of 6 so I'm quite nervous!

Lily has 2 birthday parties tomorrow.  Sunday brings church, two soccer games, and a church council retreat.  When in the world are we going to get Cody's new room painted?

On an unrelated note, night 4 was the best so far in the new bed.  The bad part is that means I didn't move around as much and woke up with a sore shoulder.  It wouldn't have been sore in a softer bed!

We had two wrestling tournaments this weekend.  The first one was here on Friday night.  Jace had 3 easy matches and took 1st place.  Cody, on the other hand, had 3 very difficult matches and took 4th.  The good news was that Adam was pinned by one of the other boys but Cody did not get pinned by that boy.

Saturday, we had an out of town tournament on the ND/MN border.  It's always a difficult one because MN wrestlers are tough!  Jace lost his first match.  He really ticked me off because he was already crying after just losing the 1st period so he mentally fell apart.  I don't have a problem with the boys crying if they're hurt but I don't like them being poor losers.  Jace struggles with that because he's never lost much.  He won his 2nd match and his 3rd match shown below.  He took 2nd place.

Cody pinned his first opponent.

 

I missed his 2nd match because Jace was wrestling at the same time but it went into the 3rd period and he lost 1-2.  Close one!  His 3rd match was Adam.

He lost but did score a few points.  Overall, Cody took 3rd.

Afterwards, we did some summer clothes shopping and had lunch at Space Aliens.

Saturday we were out of town for the first freestyle wrestling tournament of the year.  In freestyle wrestling, points are given for rolling your opponent and you win by pinning them or winning 2 of the 3 periods.  Jace won his 1st match in the first 2 periods without the opponent scoring, he pinned his 2nd opponent, and beat the 3rd one in the first 2 periods just like the first.  We were really impressed at the variety of new moves he was using!  He earned 1st place.

Cody pinned his first 2 opponents and lost to the 2nd one earning him 2nd place.

We got home just in time to go to a family bowling get together for Ray's work.  I bowled a measly 106 for my first game but redeemed myself with a 172 on the 2nd one (and beat Ray)!  It's been a long time since I've bowled that good without it being on the Wii.

Sunday, our dumb "set their own time" clocks switched to Daylight Savings Time.  We had to switch the time zone for it to have the correct time for the past several weeks.  Of course, I didn't notice until I'd showered and done my hair so I could've slept another hour!  Chorister Choir sang in church.  This was their 2nd song.

For the 2nd Sunday in recent weeks, Ray's truck wouldn't start so he didn't make it to church.  Therefore, I was stuck with 3 kids by myself plus I was one of the song leaders and our pastors were at a conference so I had to help lead other portions of the service, too!  He better get that dumb thing back in the shop soon or he's going to be in the dog house.

The rest of the day we were complete bums.  I really should've gone to Maurice's to use some of my $50 worth of Big Bucks that expired yesterday.  However, I was chilled and couldn't get myself to leave the house or the recliner for that matter.  We really dodged a bullet with the weather.  We were under a winter storm watch expecting 6 inches of snow and we didn't get a single flake!  However, they got up to a foot within 100 miles of us and there are a lot of schools closed.  There was a beautiful sunset last night, though.  This was taken from our deck.

Show us something that represents how the month of March went for you.

Eventful month!

The boys had a good showing yesterday and both came away with 1st place.  We were really impressed with Jace because he was wrestling kids up to 66 lbs and is just 60 lbs himself.

Friday night was the dual.  Last year, we were the state champions for the B division so they moved us up to the A division.  We pretty much knew that we wouldn't have a chance then.  Jace started ahead on his one and only match but got pinned in the 2nd period.  Cody's first match was against a 7th grader but he held on and only lost by points.  The team got clobbered.  In the 2nd round, they moved Cody up to wrestled at 90 lbs instead of 85.  It was a knock down drag down match with the lead continually changing.  With 5 seconds left, Cody was behind 12-14 and just needed to turn the kid to his back to tie it up.  He had him turning but ran out of time.  If he'd only had 2 more seconds!  It was a fun match to watch, though, and we were proud of his determination.  The team lost by just 2 points but we were all glad as it was already 9:30 pm.  We were really disappointed with the lack of organization and won't be doing the dual again next year.  It's not worth it to wear the kids out and have them tired right before the tournament.

Both boys had to wrestle at 8 am Saturday morning.  We got to the meet and Jace's wrestling shoes were nowhere to be found.  The boys each have a wrestling bag that everything is supposed to go into but you wouldn't believe how often we lose things!  We were both mad at Jace and finally found another boy from our team who had the same size foot so they could take turns wearing his shoes. 

Jace had a 22-man bracket.  His first match was with a kid he'd lost to early in the season so I think he was psyched out from the beginning.  He lost 0-11.  Once you lose, the best you can do is 3rd place.  The next match, he won easily.  Cody finally got called but to the upstairs gym.  I just knew that was going to happen to us.  I went upstairs with him and Ray stayed downstairs and we were to call each other when one was up.  Cody had a 13-man bracket.  One guess who his first match was against?  That's right.  Adam.  We were so sure he'd be in the next lower weight group but he actually weighed in at more than Cody.  Cody lost 0-11. 

Ran back downstairs only to catch the end of Jace's next match which he also won.  Ran to the bathroom, back upstairs, just sat down and Ray called to say Jace was up again.  Ran back downstairs to watch Jace win again.  Ran back upstairs wondering the whole time whether I was working harder than the wrestlers!  In the next round, Cody had a bye then he won the next match by points.  Cody had an extremely competitive bracket and I was just praying he'd at least place (top 6).  There was one boy that he has to wrestle every other year (he's a year older) and has never beat.  I watched him crush a few kids and was hoping Cody wouldn't have to meet him.  No such luck.  Then I just hoped he wouldn't get hurt!  Not only did he not get hurt but he won 4-2!  We were so excited. 

We missed Jace's last match because he pinned the opponent very quickly.  That earned him 3rd place.  Out of 22 boys, you can't complain about that one bit!  Of course, he'd won the past 2 years so he was disappointed but he bounced back quickly.  (The boy who took 2nd was a teammate of Jace's who he beats easily but sometimes that's the luck of the draw.  The first boy Jace lost to ended up being the champion). 

Cody lost his next match by a small margin which put him into the finals for 5th and 6th place.  His last 3 matches were all within about 1/2 hour and you could tell he was really running out of steam.  It probably didn't help that he'd only been to 2 practices in the past 2 weeks between illness and First Communion.  He ended up losing 0-2.  That earned him 6th place which we were still very proud of.  He was the state champion last year but he's on the young end of his group this year.

Adam took 1st.  Doesn't it just figure that our boys both ended up wrestling the champions their first match?

Now, we switch to Freestyle & Greco for the last month.  As for the wrestling shoes, we went back to the hotel but they weren't there.  So, we stopped to buy a new pair.  At least they were on sale.  We got home and had unloaded most of the car when Ray had me put Jace's name and our number in his new shoes (they were in his old ones, too).  Five minutes later, Ray decided to finish unloading the car and he brought in a plastic bag that had been by my feet in the car.  Guess what was in the sack?  Ray had put them in the bag and I'd been sitting by them all day.  We had to apologize to Jace since it was our fault all along.  At least the new ones are 1/2 size bigger so will hopefully fit next year, too. 

Friday night, we had dinner at a restaurant called The Pier on the Missouri River. It was a neat location and I had pretzel crusted chicken.  Sounded good but it was a bit plain in taste.  For dessert, we went to Cold Stone Creamery where Grace was working.  Afterward, we went back to the hotel for some swimming.

The boys didn't have to wrestle until later on Saturday so we had brunch with Grace at Perkins.  Then, Grandma & Lily went shopping while the rest of us went to the wrestling tournament.  Cody hadn't wrestled for a whole week due to his bronchitis and was still coughing quite a bit so we didn't have very high expectations.  Wouldn't you know his first match was against Adam?  Cody lost but by the fewest points ever against Adam 3-5!!  We were so proud of how hard he wrestled.  His next opponent he pinned in the 1st period and he beat the next guy buy a technical fall (more than 10 pts) earning 2nd place.  I think he's got a real shot at another state championship this weekend because Adam will be in a lower weight class.

Of course, Jace's goal was to keep his streak of nobody scoring against him.  He pinned his first 2 opponents in the first periods before they had a chance to score on him.  His last opponent he beat by a technical fall 11-0.  So, he's now had 12 straight matches with nobody scoring against him.  I'm afraid we'll have to start widening our doorways soon for him to get through!

Cody took off before I had a chance to get his picture.

Everyone but me went back to the hotel to rest while I hit the mall.  Grace was working at Maurices and I got the cutest outfit!

We took our Wii along because my brother had never played one before. 

 

 

We had supper at The Walrus and then did some more swimming.  I finally decided to get in myself and had quite a good time!

 

We celebrated our family Easter on Sunday.