Ian's first basketball game

Today Nadia began her third season of Upward basketball and Ian had his very first game. The games last Saturday were cancelled due to snow so today was the first day of games for the 2016 season. It was fun watching Ian. He sure got his exercise running around the court. Sometimes I thought he looked like he was playing a game of tag with the child he was guarding. He doesn't understand the difference between offense and defense. He was guarding his player on both sides of the court. Oops! He did dribble and make some good passes. He never made any attempts at getting a basket. He was all smiles though. It did my heart good to watch him because he was having SO much fun out there, even if he was one weakest players on the court. His game was at 11:00, but when we arrived at 10:45 they were only having half-time for the 10:00 games. The rest of the games they had a very short half-time, but they were still running 30 minutes late when we left the gym at 2:30. Nadia's game was supposed to begin at 1:00. I took the boys over to the play land at our church for about 25 minutes in between the two games. Paul and his parents watched one of the 12:00 games. Oliver did pretty well considering we were there for three hours altogether, especially since he also missed his nap (which has been at least two hours long lately).

Although this was Nadia's third season, it was her first game playing on a 2nd/3rd grade team. There are some differences with the rules for those games compared to the K/1st grade games. For one thing they do keep score. I had the impression her team was being slaughtered by the other team, but actually they only lost by 4 points (28-32). The basketball hoop is higher, there are foul shots, the defense is allowed to steal the ball when someone is dribbling (not allowed for the K/1st grade games), and in general the referee enforces a lot more rules than they do with the youngest kids. It is still a co-ed team playing on a half court. Starting in fourth grade the kids play on a full court and the teams are not co-ed. We have yet to experience seeing one of our kids make a basket during a game. Maybe this will be the year? We shall see. I hope that both of them improve in their skills, show good sportsmanship, and have fun.

I didn't realize until today that I hadn't touched my camera in a little more than a month. The last time I took a picture was December 28. That is by far the longest I ever went without using a camera in the past 7 1/2 years. Since Nadia and Ian's uniforms this year are navy blue and yellow, I had Oliver wear a sweater sporting those same colors. He asked me to take his picture, and I was happy to oblige. I don't want him to feel left out even though he's not old enough to be on the basketball court yet.

Paul's parents met us at the church for the games and then came over and spent a few hours at our house (and treated us to pizza for dinner). So all around it was a special day.