June: Busy, blessed, and a little bit crazy

 

Whoa, summer can slow down any time now. How is it the beginning of July already? It feels like we blinked and June disappeared. As the head volleyball coach at Elida, we kicked off our high school summer league, which runs every Wednesday night. My Wednesdays start at 7:00 a.m. making chicken sandwiches before taking the kiddos to summer swim practice in Wapak. Once I get home, I print off court sheets, make sure everything is organized, and usually stop by the courts around 2:00 p.m. to make sure everything is ready before games begin at 4:00 and run until 10:00 that night. To say my Wednesdays are wild is an understatement. June kicked off with youth volleyball camp June 1-3. We hosted the fourth through eighth graders for the first hour and a half and then the first through third graders for the final hour. It ended up being a great way to split the groups, and our high school players did an awesome job helping coach the younger kids. 

Olivia helped with VB camp every day except Wednesday, when she headed to Wapak with Isaac for their first summer swim practice. I only make them go there once a week since Olivia already has USA Swim practice every day. The second week of June also brought summer lifting, conditioning, and open gyms on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so volleyball is definitely getting plenty of attention this summer. As a first-year head coach, there has been a steep learning curve. Between making sure everyone is compliant to participate and planning practices, camps, and leagues, it has definitely been a lot of work, but I’m enjoying every minute of it.

The other major project this summer has been remodeling our backyard oasis. ChatGPT has been busy telling me what to change, what to buy, and where to buy it, and let’s just say Amazon, Wayfair, FedEx, and UPS have all become frequent visitors. It has been so much fun watching everything come together. We added new landscaping solar lights, Adirondack chairs a new patio dining set, a bistro table, coffee table, side table, storage cabinet under the TV, rugs, and cushions. The only thing left is hanging the string lights, and then I think we can officially call it finished. I absolutely love how it turned out and can’t wait to spend the rest of the summer enjoying it.

Isaac found a new love this summer…umpiring baseball. In addition to playing Junior ACME baseball, he has been asked to umpire several little league games. He absolutely loves it, and we’ve heard nothing but compliments from coaches and parents. One coach even gave him extra money after the game just to tell him how much he appreciated how clearly and fairly he made his calls. Jeremy, Maw, and I have all gone to watch him umpire at different games. Never in a million years did I think I’d be sitting in the stands watching my own kid umpire baseball, but it has been fun to watch him grow in confidence.

June 7-11 had us making another trip to Kenyon College for Total Performance Swim Camp. This time Olivia attended the Elite Sprint Camp. It was her first time going without knowing anyone, but thankfully her roommate was from Pennsylvania and she said they got along great. Her biggest complaint was definitely the dorm rooms. Temperatures reached around 90 degrees with no air conditioning, which made sleeping nearly impossible. Despite the heat, she loved every minute of camp. She really enjoyed the lectures on mental toughness, received compliments from an Ohio State coach on her starts, and even learned a new breathing technique for her 50 freestyle after watching an Olympian break down the race. She also came home with some fun measurements. Her vertical jump measured 21 inches, so she definitely inherited her jumping ability from her dad! Her wingspan measured 70 inches, too. We’re still hoping she has a little more growing left to do, but that’s already a pretty impressive reach.

On June 12, Isaac officially opened pool play for the backyard Wiffle Ball League that he created for our family, along with Maw and Paw. We all have to play one another before the tournament seeding is determined. Games are only two innings long, but don’t let that fool you because there is an extensive rulebook that Isaac wrote himself. He also made everyone come up with team names and even bought a scoreboard. Jeremy usually handles the music, complete with the National Anthem before first pitch and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” between innings. We all kind of dread actually playing because Isaac takes it very seriously, but we laugh so much every game that it’s become one of my favorite summer traditions. We combined opening day with a cookout where Isaac picked the first peppers from his garden to stuff and grill. Ironically, he doesn’t even eat the peppers, but he sure loves growing them.

Mid-June brought some Flag City fun in Findlay. I ran a 5K with Traci Sneary and Jazz, the athletic trainer. There were definitely no record-breaking times, but we had a great time. Afterward, I headed over to the pool to watch Olivia compete in her USA Swim meet. She had the opportunity to swim the 400 freestyle relay with the older girls and definitely held her own. They swam a great race and just barely got out-touched at the finish.

There was plenty of random summer fun mixed in as well. We’ve taken advantage of the Kids Bowl Free coupons, made homemade ice cream cut-out cookies just because, and I made crown-shaped cutouts for my godmother Sis’s birthday. Isaac used some of his umpiring money to buy himself a new Wiffle ball bat, and of course volleyball summer league continued each week. I also checked off something I had been putting off…my first colonoscopy.

Speaking of volleyball, the way summer league ended was about as dramatic as it could have been, especially for my first year running it. The morning before our championship tournament, our athletic director called to tell me the Red Cross had reserved the fieldhouse as an emergency shelter because severe storms were forecasted for that evening. The district decided to close all facilities at 4:00 p.m., which meant I had to notify every coach that the final tournament was canceled. Unfortunately, basketball had the gym reserved the following day, and the next week I would already be on a cruise, so there was simply no way to reschedule. The frustrating part? We barely got more than a rainstorm. After all that, summer league ended without a championship night for no reason at all. It definitely wasn’t my decision, but thankfully everyone was very understanding.

We then headed to Denison for another USA Swim meet before beginning our vacation. We packed everything so we could leave directly from the meet and drive to Cleveland to catch our flight for a week-long cruise with the Cousino's. We actually got a bonus night of vacation by spending Friday evening with our friends before Olivia swam again Saturday morning. The Cousino's flew out of Columbus while we met Grandma Barb in Mansfield to drop Olivia off with her before flying out of Cleveland ourselves. We clearly didn’t do enough research on airport parking because we ended up paying $170 to leave our car there. Lesson learned!

The cruise definitely deserves its own blog post, so I’ll save all of those stories for next time. While we were gone, both kids competed in a summer swim meet against Ada and swam really well. Isaac also headed off to his very first 4-H Camp. He was pretty nervous beforehand and had already completed more than ten hours of counselor training before ever leaving Lima. Once camp started, though, he was an instant hit with the campers. He wore his cowboy hat all week, and many of the kids simply called him “Cowboy.” By the end of the week he was absolutely exhausted, but he couldn’t stop talking about how much fun he had and already said he wants to do it again next year, as long as baseball doesn’t interfere. 

While Jeremy and I were cruising, Olivia competed in her biggest USA regular season meet of the summer at St. Xavier. Since her best friend Courtney and her parents were already going, we arranged for Olivia to be “adopted” by them for the weekend. St. Xavier is one of her favorite meets because swimmers compete in prelims and finals each day. We’re honestly starting to think she either swims better when she goes with them or maybe Jeremy and I should just stay home because she had an incredible weekend. By Sunday evening we returned home from our cruise, Olivia returned from Cincinnati, and Isaac came home from 4-H Camp. For a few short days we were finally all back together before packing up once again to head out for our Fourth of July adventures.