Xander's Art

Xander raced into the house one day after school and excitedly announced that two paintings from each 3rd grade class had been chosen for a display at the Abingdon Library and his was one of the ones chosen! "Can we go to the library?" he eagerly asked.  He was on cloud nine so of course we headed right over with my camera in hand.
And there it was - Xander's tree!

We were obviously very proud of Xander and so excited that his artwork had been chosen.

The Big Basketball Post

Xander's basketball team the Celtics came into the end-of-season tournament with a pretty average record; they won some, they lost some. Due to this they were a low seed and had two games to play on Saturday instead of just one like the higher seeded teams. Xander's coach was out of town so the coach's wife, along with some help from David, coached the team.
Go Celtics!

Xander took a few shots, unfortunately not making any of them...

but successfully grabbed a few rebounds.

Hangin' out on the bench with his dad.

Our guys put up a good fight and were able to pull off the victory! With the morning win they were headed to an afternoon game against one of the top seeded teams. As fate would have it Xander's soccer team was to play in a playoff game at exactly the same time. I told Xander that his soccer team needed him more and that because his basketball team was going up against one of the toughest teams in the league they would most likely lose. The decision was made that Xander would go to his soccer game but by the look on his face in this picture right after the basketball game, he was NOT happy about missing the afternoon basketball game.

Later that evening we received an email from the coach's wife letting us know that Xander's basketball team had won and the next playoff game was Wednesday night. I was absolutely blown away! I knew this other team they had played and knew how competitive the coach is and had felt certain that our boys would lose and lose badly just as they had to this team earlier in the season. Well, that's why you play the game - you just never know what will happen on any given day!

Jump ahead to Wednesday night. We played against another very tough team that had beat us by over 20 points during the regular season.
The before -the-game pep talk!

Our boys played tough but not quite tough enough in the first half...we ended up down by over 10 points going into the second half. But something woke them up in that second half and they came out and played some great basketball.

They were able to rally in the fourth and move ahead by 5 points in the last few minutes of the game, pulling out the victory that now placed them in the championship game on Saturday.
The cheers from the bench as the buzzer went off! Who would have thought that this average little team would make it to the big game?

The fans at the championship game! For Xander this was the second year in a row and he was beyond excited. The team we were playing had gone undefeated during the season so we knew this would be a tough game.

At half time we were up by 9 points and were feeling good. Xander had even thrown up a 3-point shot that had me cringing as he launched it...and then it swished right in! I was so amazed and happily joined all the other parents as we cheered loudly for my sweet boy that had only made 2 other baskets all season!

The second half turned out to be quite rough for us as we only scored one basket and allowed the other team to come back and claim the win. First and second place both receive a trophy, thank goodness! Xander was upset about the loss but excited that his team had finished out the season strong.
Team picture: (back row) Thomas, Tyson, Tyler, Matthew; (front) Cameron, Xander, Cameron, Zach, and Coach Brad.  We were missing Elijah.

Thank goodness Xander ended up having another fabulous coach!

Yay to another fun basketball season!

Visiting DC

One of the things Bryan wanted to do during his stay with us was visit our nation's capital and see all of the monuments and historical documents. I love going to DC so we turned it into a field trip for Savannah and off the three of us went. We rode the train in and spent the day soaking up all our national treasures.
We were not prepared for the cold (thanks for the wrong forecast, weatherman!) and it was quite a gray morning. Pair that up with all the gray monuments and you get a ton of gray pictures!
I think the WWII Memorial is beautiful though this early in the year they did not have the fountain going - bummer!

The Atlantic side...

and the Pacific side.

Too many stars.

The Lincoln Memorial.

I just love him!

The Washington Monument in the background.  When we were there it was still being worked on;  I think they're just about finished.

The Korean War.

And Vietnam.

Still beautiful, even on a dreary day.

We had our own personal greeter in front of the White House...isn't he adorable?

He had no problem coming right up to us and asking if we had any spare food. Who can resist paws on your hands?

Savannah was a little hesitant at first but he was just so dang cute that we just had to give him a little treat.

He ate the grape that Bryan gave him and then buried the one Savannah handed him. It might have been the highlight of the day!

Not a fan of who lives there but it's still the beautiful White House.

After hanging out with our little squirrel friend, we went separate ways; Bryan headed over to the Holocaust Museum and Savannah and I decided to hit the Museum of American History. But first we grabbed some hot chocolate...we were freezing!

We saw some pretty awesome exhibits!

I loved seeing the sun stone from the original Nauvoo Temple!

And the ruby slippers are a must see!

Hangin' with some soldiers during the American Revolution.

One of my most favorite quotes by President Lincoln. If only he hadn't been assassinated, our country might have healed much more quickly.

Savannah and I then headed over to the Museum of Natural History. Savannah loves looking at all the animals.

We even saw Sven from Frozen!

After several hours of the museums we met up with Bryan to check out our nation's most famous documents - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We were not allowed to take pictures of them so we just took a picture outside the National Archives to commemorate what we saw inside. Unfortunately the documents are not doing so well, especially the Declaration. It's hard to see any of the signatures anymore.
We finished up our day with our nation's Capitol though this is the closest we got. It had been a long day and we were all ready to go home.

I am so glad that Bryan came for his visit and that we got to spend such a wonderful day together in DC!