Wednesday, April 2, 2025

March Round-Up!

Good-bye March . . . Hello April! We've already had quite a start to April with tornados coming through our area this morning, but we are thankful for safety from the storms. Before we get too far into the month, however, I want to share about our March. I think you'll notice a theme in these photos and what dominated our month 😉.


The whole month, we had track & field practice five times a week. The kids practiced on M-W-F mornings at Heart Healthy Trail in Owasso, Tuesday evenings at the track in Claremore, and Saturday mornings at the track in Collinsville. They all truly enjoy going to practice and especially being with their friends!

Morning practice!
Brianna, Sadie, Caroline, Brecklyn, and Brooke

Brianna, Caroline, and Brooke

Adele, Bri, and Kyrie

Saturday practice - the girls are all holding ducks for Uncle Jeremy!
Brooke, Sadie, Brecklyn, Annabelle, and Caroline

More ducks!
Caroline, Annabelle, Sadie, Brecklyn, and Brooke

In addition to regular team practices, Chris would take our kids at least once a week to practice throwing (typically on Thursday evenings).

Brooke, Brecks, and Bri 

Not only did we have track & field practice five times a week, but we also kicked off meet season this month. I'll post in more detail about each meet later on, but I wanted to include a few photos from the meets in this post. If I didn't, I wouldn't have many photos in this round-up!

Our first meet was March 11th at Caney Valley. It was a junior high meet, so Brenson was the only one from our family who competed. As always, though, Brianna was there to help and socialize!

Bri, Sadie, and Kyrie

Hope, Adele, and Bri

Maci, Bri, Sadie, and Caroline

Meet number two was a high school meet in Glenpool. This meet was a mess! The wind was ferocious that day (like 60 mph wind gusts) and made everything difficult. Bri was the only one from our family competing, but Bren came along for fun and Gavon also rode with us. 

These kids are great at finding things to entertain themselves between events. In this photo they're playing an obnoxious game where they chant about bullfrogs on the bank of a river or something. I find it very irritating, but they're cute doing it!

The older boys generally want nothing to do with the game, but somehow Kyrie convinced several of them to join in. It was hilarious when the older boys were the only ones not eliminated!

Bren, Easton, and Gavon

In addition to the crazy wind, there were also wildfires all around the area that day. The air quality was lacking, at best! 

Hope, Bri, and Kyrie

While we were battling the wind at the meet, Chris sent me a photo of our roof (which we had just replaced in November) also battling the wind. Not good!!! Thankfully, the roofing crew came out and fixed it the next day.

On March 26th, Brooke and Brecklyn had their first meet of the season. They competed in a 5th and 6th grade meet (as 4th graders) in Porter. It was a great meet to get their feet wet and get some experience for the season!

Brecklyn running a 4 x 200 relay

Brooke throwing shot put

They both competed hard, but Brecklyn, especially, had a stacked schedule. She was worn smooth out on the way home!

The day after the Porter meet was a JH/HS meet in Oologah. Although this meet is long, it is one we really enjoy every year. Long meets equal lots of down time which equals lots of hanging out with teammates at the team tent!

Harper and Bri

Harper, Bri, Jaxen, Sam, Easton

Adele, Abby, Harper, Bri, Jaxen, Sam, Easton

Bren tried hurdles for the first time in a few years and did really well!

He also did great in discus!

Bri looked strong!

The mile runners had just finished up as the sun was setting.

And what a lovely sunset it was!

I always say that track & field is about a lot of things besides just running, jumping, and throwing. I'm grateful our kids are part of such a good team! They even choose to hang out together when they're not at practice or meets.

Harper and Bri

Bri, Harper, Adele, Kyrie, and Abby playing games at Abby's house

Bren also had the privilege of attending a throwing clinic for three days this month. It was a wonderful opportunity for him to really learn good discus technique and work with coaches who have a lot of experience and success!

Okay, so what we were doing when our schedule wasn't filled with track & field events? Well, Jeremy, Shawna, and Kaylee visited for a few days during spring break, and we got to spend some good time with them. 

Of course, Jeremy had to put Bren in his place a time or two!

The children also continued to spend most of their Fridays with Grampy and G-Jo. G-Jo and Brooke sewed a skirt together, and Brooke was thrilled with the outcome. She couldn't wait to wear it!

We "celebrated" St. Paddy's Day on March 17th by wearing green, 

and eating Lucky Charms with green milk. Fun and silly traditions!


We are currently planning and preparing for a vacation to North and South Dakota in May. I made us all vacation t-shirts for the trip!

I was able to have lunch with Angie one day during Spring Break. It was brief, but I'm so so grateful we were able to do it. They are going through it right now with family things, so she and I haven't been able to see each other much at all in the past year. She is such a light to my life, and even a quick lunch made my heart so full. 💓

Finally, we hosted our monthly youth devo (one of the few months I didn't take any photos) and our annual in-house lectureship during March. Both events are such a blessing, and I'm always thankful for opportunities to grow spiritually!




Monday, March 3, 2025

NOAH Jaguars Basketball 2025

Another basketball season is in the books for Bren, and what a season it was! Brenson played with a new club this year, and it was definitely a season full of ups and downs.

I've probably said on here before that one of the best things about homeschooling is that we get to make all the decisions regarding academics and extra-curriculars for our kids. At the same time, this is also one of the most difficult things about homeschooling. For the past two years, Brenson has played basketball through the Claremore Rec League in the INBC. While those experiences have been okay and have fit our needs for the time, now that Bren is in 7th grade we wanted to find him a team he could really grow with and, *hopefully* continue to play with through high school.

After a lot of research, talking to other people, and discussions within our family, we decided to have Brenson play with NOAH Basketball this year. NOAH (Northeast Oklahoma Association of Homeschools) is known in the Tulsa area as being the "premier" homeschool sports club. We have competed with NOAH in cross country and track & field for several years. Their programs are well-established and have a *mostly* good reputation. Even though we knew it meant committing to practices and games in Tulsa and Broken Arrow, we were excited to be part of a program like NOAH.

Brenson, playing for the NOAH Jaguars, sporting number 31 this year!



The 12U boys team . . . the 6th graders are on the left and the 7th graders are on the right

Practices and scrimmages began in November. Bren practiced on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, with most games being on Saturday.

The way the teams were split up was a bit confusing. NOAH was part of the INBC, and Bren was part of the 7th grade boys team for all their league games. For all their games against other homeschool clubs (and for Regionals and Nationals), the 6th and 7th grade teams were combined into one 12U boys team. This was often difficult as they didn't typically practice together, they weren't being coached the same, and more often than not the 6th graders didn't get much (if any) play time. 

Brooke's volleyball practices were also on Tuesday evenings with games on Saturdays, so I didn't attend any practices with Bren and missed a good number of his games. Brecklyn would often go with Chris and Bren, and she was a great little spectator. 

Bren's team had a good bit of experience and talent, but they struggled to play together for most of the season.

The coach also tended to really play favorites, and Bren wasn't on his list. Although Bren played most of the minutes of most of the {27} games, there were some games where he sat on the bench nearly the entire time with no explanation.


Unfortunately, we found his coach to be temperamental and unpredictable. He lost his cool during several games, and we hated the way he would scream and tantrum at the boys. 

At the same time, practices were often canceled (or coach wasn't there), and they often didn't seem beneficial when they were held. We spent much of the season frustrated with how things were not conducted with intentionality. 

However, we tried to keep a somewhat positive attitude and cheer our boy on!

We had known from before the season began that NOAH planned to take teams to the Regional Homeschool Tournament in Lawrence, Kansas and to the National Homeschool Tournament in Springfield, Missouri. We planned to go to both tournaments and had even reserved lodging for both places. Sadly, communication from the club was lacking at best. We asked questions, but no one seemed to want to give us answers. There were several games where our coach was absent, and no one bothered to communicate that to us or anyone else. The complete breakdown of communication in addition to the struggle with the coaching had us questioning whether we wanted to travel out of town to represent this club.


Ultimately, we decided that Bren would play in the Regional tournament in Lawrence, but not the week-long Nationals tournament. It was a tough decision, and one we wrestled with greatly. In the end though, it came down to us not wanting to prolong the season by committing to a week of frustrations, poor behavior from the coach, lack of communication, and unjust treatment. We felt relieved once we made the decision and have no regrets about it. 

Regionals was a three day tournament (Thursday, Friday, Saturday - February 20-21), and Chris took Brenson while I stayed home with the girls. I had decided to stay back in order for the girls to not miss track & field practice, as well as a few other activities we had going on. However, it turned out that we had ice and snow on the ground - as well as frigid temps - during this time and all other activities were canceled anyhow. 

One of Bren's teammates, Daniel, rode to the tournament with Chris and Bren. Their first game was at 10:05am on Thursday, so they left our house at 5:30am to get there in time. Chris sent me this photo after about an hour on the road :-).

While there were 15 boys on the 12U team, only 5 boys ended up going to Regionals. This was in large part because other families were feeling much of the same things we were about the poor coaching and lack of communication. On the way to Lawrence Thursday morning, Isaac's family's vehicle broke down. Chris was in a town nearby when Isaac's dad sent the message that they would not make it for the first game. Chris turned around, backtracked just a bit to pick up Isaac, and got all three boys (Brenson, Daniel, and Isaac) to Lawrence in time for their first game. Isaac was the only 6th grader who travelled to Regionals, and he did a great job playing with the other boys.


The boys won their first game and played a second game later that afternoon. 

They won their second game, as well! Not bad for a team who only had 5 players!

Daniel was staying with some family friends from Omaha during the tournament, but traveling to and from games with Chris and Bren. At some point on Thursday, the family friend invited Daniel, Chris, Bren, and Isaac to join their team (the Omaha Roadrunners) to take a tour of Allen Fieldhouse at KU. The boys played a game Friday morning (which they lost), then went on the tour.

Brenson, Isaac, Daniel

Bren, Isaac, Daniel

Chris and Bren

Daniel, Isaac, and Brenson

💙💛

Chris, Bren, and Isaac grabbed lunch after the tour, then dropped Isaac off with his dad. Bren was tuckered out on the way back to the hotel!

On Saturday morning, the tournament was held at the Hyvee Arena in Kansas City. 

It was quite the facility and definitely unlike anywhere Bren has played before!

The boys held their own for a the first half of the Saturday game, but did not win. 

Chris said they were just gassed from not having any subs during the tournament. 

However, they finished 4th overall (out of 14 teams) in the tournament. We were happy for that!

After a weekend of hard ball, Bren was ready to head home!

Having Daniel ride with Chris and Bren was really nice for Bren because he and Daniel got along great. They talked and joked the entire time, and it was just a good experience for them both. They have a similar personality and were definitely leaders on the team. 

Daniel and Bren . . . the "tall boys"

The guys got home from Regionals around 6:30pm on Saturday, just in time to continue the INBC post-season tournament on Sunday (February 23). They had played their first post-season tournament game the Saturday before Regionals. Bren did not play as we had already planned to be in KC that weekend, and the team lost that game. There were two games scheduled on Sunday at 12:00pm and 3:00pm, but Bren only played in the 3:00pm game due to church services. They won both games, which meant they played again on Monday evening. The boys easily won that game and advanced to the post-season semi-finals!

The semi-final game was on Friday evening (February 27) in Broken Arrow. None of the girls wanted to go to the game, so we let them stay home while Chris and I took Bren. The game ended up being pretty crazy, and I was glad the girls weren't there! The entire game was rough and dirty. There were so many fouls called and many, many sneaky things that were missed. Bren really started to lose his cool during the first quarter, and coach pulled him out to collect himself and calm down. Thankfully, Bren got himself under control, and when he went back in the game he played really solid. The other team's coach received two technicals and was ejected from the game, which got the crowd in an uproar. I told Chris that the game couldn't end fast enough! After all that, our boys won 26-6!

On Saturday (March 1), we had a game against another homeschool club scheduled for 1:00pm. After that, our boys played in the INBC championship game at 3:30pm. Coach was very mindful about resting our starters during the first game to preserve their energy for the championship game. Bren and Daniel were pretty much never out of a game at the same time all season, so it was funny to me to see them on the bench together during the first game. 

They talked and cut-up and were thoroughly enjoying themselves!

After the boys {easily} won their 1:00pm game in Tulsa, we drove straight to Collinsville for the INBC championship game. Daniel rode with us. We arrived at the gym about an hour early, then game start was delayed 45 minutes. The boys had energy to spare . . . they were geared up to play!

Our boys did fantastic during the first half of the championship game. We ended the half up 26-6, but things quickly fell apart in the 3rd quarter. Bren ended up not playing at all during the 3rd quarter and only played a few minutes in the 4th. We have no idea why. What we do know is that it was an intense game that we came very close to losing after such a solid start! We won with a final score of 34-31.

INBC 7th Grade Boys Champions!
Cris, Aiden, Brenson, Ryder, Daniel, Clive, Coach

The final 10 days of the season were intense, but we were thrilled with a championship win!

The boys' overall record for the season was 17-10, with a 5-3 INBC regular season record. Bren worked extremely hard this season and overcame more adversity than he should have had to deal with. It was nice to end our season on a positive note after so much frustration and disappointment with how many things were handled. 

With that said, our hope going into this season was that we would find a club and team where we could stay and Bren could grow. It is very unlikely that it will be this club, although we aren't slamming the door on it completely. There are a few players that we would really like to see Bren play with again, so we will see what happens. No matter what, we are proud of Bren for how he handled things this season, and we look forward to his continued growth as a person and as a player.