Last year, with all of the tournaments our team had planned,
we tried to do as many as we could with just Trav, Garrett and Ty and myself.
We left Julia and Austin home with family for a few of them.
I never love doing that.
I like it better when we're able to bring the whole family,
however......that adds a lot to the cost and Sis and Austy don't love sitting through
that many games in a weekend, or the long drives that are usually part of the trip.
This year, with Garrett on the High School Basketball team,
Ty is really the only one playing out of State.
So.....when this Portland tournament came up and was going to be a week after
our Cancun trip, and Garrett was going to have High School games that weekend,
Trav and I started trying to figure out who would stay home,
and who would go to Portland with Ty.
Lisa Hamblin text me and it was looking like she was going to be going alone
with Bridger and Brev and was wondering if I would want to go with them.
It made more sense to do that.
So, we set up to drive our car with the 5 of us, split a room and gas
and head up on Friday, Feb. 12th.
We left at 6 in the morning and drove straight through.
We ended up bringing one of Brevin's teammates who needed a ride up.
Jaylen was a cute little kid and so well mannered.
It was fun to have him along with us.
I planned a few car games with some dollar store prizes that were super cheesy,
but actually turned out kind of fun and had us laughing and killing time!
We made really good time.....mostly for the fact that we didn't realize the speeds
through ALL of Oregon are 65 mph.
We set cruise control and 80 and off we went!
Phew! Not a cop in sight, thank heavens.
We quickly caught on to the speed difference on our way home though.....
which was Presidents Day, and 10 cops were seen on the road from Oregon to Utah!
Needless to say, it took us longer to get home!
On our way up, we forgot to pray before we started off!
It was super foggy that morning. The inversion had been horrible all week,
and was at it's worst that day.
The roads seemed just fine though, so I set cruise control at 80 and we were off.
Just as we started heading up the little windy mountain past Tremonton heading to Boise,
the fog became so thick it was hard to see 2 feet in front of us.
We quickly came upon a bridge and boy were we lucky!
Our car immediately started to slide and weave all over the road and because
we had luggage on top, we were so top heavy we were swaying at the the same time.
I have never been so white knuckled in my life!
We all went silent and I softly pushed on the breaks to gain more control and
somehow we made it just fine once we crossed the bridge.
Needless to say, I slowed WAY down through that mountain pass from then on
and we all took a massive deep breath!
That was a sickening feeling for a good 15 seconds!
We realized the error of our ways, and turned to prayer immediately for
safety for the rest of our trip!
We were definitely blessed that morning!
Brevin and Jaylen, Bridger and Ty, Me and Lisa
Columbia River Gorge
We stopped at the Beautiful Multnomah Falls.
I love it here....
Despite the fact that my hair changes shape within 2 seconds of getting out of the car!
We've stopped by every time we are up that way.
I love the smells, the sounds, the falls and the little cottage at the base!
We took some pics and walked around the gift shop,
before taking off to Hillsboro where our hotel was.
Jaylen had bought some gifts at the shop for his brother and sister,
and was very thoughtful in what he picked out.
When we took this pic, he set his bag down on the ground and when we got
to the hotel, we realized it wasn't in the car and figured he'd forgotten to pick it up.
He was so sad over that.
I called the gift shop and nothing had been turned in to them, I felt so horrible for him.
He stayed with someone else on Brevin's team and so we didn't see him again.
We got to the hotel and unloaded our luggage.....
we looked like we had 10 of us there!
Between all of our food and luggage.....we filled up the entire luggage cart!
Once we got everything settled, we took off to Panda Express for dinner.
We were so hungry and it felt so good to be out of the car!
We came back to the hotel to chill and get some sleep.
We had asked for a roll-away bed, which they originally acted like it wouldn't be any problem.
Once we got there and asked, we quickly learned there were only 4 rooms
in the entire hotel that could accommodate a roll-away.
Lisa had the idea to just have the three of them sleep cross ways on one bed.....
Holy cow! They did!
That only lasted one night! Ha ha!
The Hall's had reserved 2 rooms and had an extra bed.
They were very gracious in allowing us that bed.
So, the next 2 nights we were there, Ty went to Dallin's room
and Lisa and I shared one and Bridge and Brev had the other one.
That worked out lots better!
Ty entertained us with his hair and his shirt!
Yes, I'm extremely classless....Trav and I bought these for Garrett and Ty
in Playa Del Carmen......they loved them as much as we thought they would....
then we laid the law down that they never wear them in public! Ha ha!
Our first game was Saturday, Feb. 13 - at 9:05 vs. the West Coast All-Stars,
at the Nike Center For Self Enhancement, just east of Downtown Portland.
We played this same team at Nationals last summer in North Carolina....
this was the team who was down with just seconds left in the game.
One mother couldn't handle that their team was losing to a bunch of White boys from Utah
(I know that sounds horrible.....but it's true!)
She began yelling....."You didn't lose to THESE boys! You lost to the refs!"
Well, with just one second left in the game, one of their players jacked up a 3 from clear
across the court and made it! Luckiest shot of his life!
They beat us by 1 at the buzzer!
Before I knew it.....she was standing in front of me, pointing her finger in my face and said,
"It Ain't over til the buzza Beeps! Remember that!"
What lady???? Two seconds before you were giving up the fight!
Anyway.....I had to chuckle a little when I saw that was our very first game in this tournament.
I quickly scoured the gym when we walked in looking for my "friend"
only to find she didn't come with the team to this tournament! Bummer!
That could have made for more fun!
Our team played great against them!
We were up the entire game and finished 59-33!
We went outside and made our lunches for the day,
then Lisa drove us 3 miles to Jefferson High School,
which was were our next 2 games would be played.
We played here last year......little sketchy of a neighborhood.
All the windows on the High School have bars attached to them,
and someone was outside last year slashing tires on the cars parked at the game!
So.....I was glad Lisa was driving my car back to Portland to the YMCA,
and my car wouldn't be parked outside the high school all day!
We played our second game at 12:20 vs. Elite Sports Elite Sports Academy.
Again, our team played awesome and won 71-40!
We had one game left for the day and that was vs. Splash City from the Seattle Area
at 2:30 p.m. there at Jefferson High School.
The boys walked over to the other gym to watch the
Oakland Soldiers play in between games.
They came back saying that game was a total Dunk Fest.
They enjoyed watching them play.
Our game vs. Splash City was a little more difficult.
It was a pretty close game the entire time.
We had one ref that would NOT call anything for us.
At one point the foul ratio was 7-1.
The other ref finally walked over to him and even said,
"Ref! You've got to start calling something for this team! You've just got to!"
That's how bad it was!
The boys battled and we won that one 68-61.
That night we met Trent and Amber Whiting and their family at
Chipotle for dinner.
Ty, Amari Whiting, Brev Hamblin, Bridge Hamblin, Jace Whiting
When we got back to the hotel, the boys all came in to our room looking for playing cards.
They love to play games together when we're on these trips
and not one of us showed up with cards this round.
Lisa, Nicole Hall and myself all took off in the rain to Target to buy the boys some cards.
They stayed in our room and played BS and Scum for a couple of hours!
They had us laughing so hard! They are so fun to have around!
Mason Falslev, Bridger Hamblin, Ty, Dallin Hall, Hayden Hall, Jake Sampson,
Trevin Leonhardt and Brevin Hamblin
They were all called to bed around 11 p.m. so we could be up
and ready for church in the morning.
Hillsboro was part of a large Regional Conference via satellite from Salt Lake.
Elder Redland, one of the new members of the Quorum of the 12 spoke
as well as a few others from the General Board.
I was really hoping to run in to Sister Anna Hoffman, (CaMarie's daughter),
who is serving her mission there,
but she was at a different church building in the area. Bummer!
(Trevin Leonhardt, Malin Hall, Jace Whiting, Baylor Harrop, Trent Whiting, Drew Sampson,
Mason Falslev, Trevin Leonhardt's Brother, Jake Sampson, Amari Whiting, Hayden Hall, Ty,
Dallin Hall, Baylor Harrop's Sister, Ken Hall)
Hillsboro, Oregon Stake Center Regional Conference
This past summer our family had some difficult things happen.
As we spoke one night with our Bishop,
he encouraged us to think of things in our life that needed to be changed,
and then change it.
He encouraged us to truly change something that would be a sacrifice to change.
Something hard to do.
He then promised if we would do this, we would be blessed greatly.
As we thought, talked and prayed.....one of those changes we had come to mind
was that of playing basketball on Sundays.
The church and our Stake especially, have really hit that topic hard this past year.....
keeping the Sabbath Day Holy.
We have never thought much of playing Basketball on Sunday.
Sure we knew we shouldn't, if we could really help it......
but every out of state tournament is played over Sunday's, so we partly justified it,
thinking we only played about 4 Sunday's a year and only when out of State.
But as we had been taught, and had been thinking of
what our Bishop had challenged us to do, we quickly realized,
that was something we needed to change for our family.
That was something that would be a sacrifice and would definitely be extremely hard to do.
It would put our team in a pinch, we were taking a chance that
maybe the team wouldn't want us for out of state tournaments anymore,
it would be somewhat embarrassing to tell everyone
we weren't playing anymore on Sunday's,
and we definitely didn't want to look like we thought we were better than the team
because we weren't playing Sunday's.
We weren't sure how it would be perceived,
but we were willing to take the hit, because we knew this
was what was right for our family and what our Heavenly Father expected of us.
We contacted our coach over the summer,
so he would know of our plans and would have a chance to decide
if he still wanted Ty to be a part of the team.
While it came as a shock to him, he was extremely gracious in
understanding where we were coming from and allowing us to remain on the team.
Any of those on the team that we spoke with about it,
were just as kind in their reception of the news.
We were so grateful to know that they would still want Ty,
and were willing to work with us in order to still have him on the team.
As Ty and I sat in that Conference at the Hillsboro Stake Center,
I wondered what he was thinking and feeling.
His team would be leaving to the Sunday afternoon game after Conference,
and would be playing without him.
It was also going to be the Quarter Final game. If we lost, we were done.
If we won, we'd be playing for the Semi-Final Game Monday morning.
I leaned over to Ty and Said,
"How you feeling today Bud? You feel ok about not playing?"
Without hesitation, he said, "I feel ok Mom. It's the right thing to do."
I was really proud of Ty in that moment.
After conference, we went back to the hotel and Ty and I had a great time,
watching TV and playing War with our cards.
My little Valentine that day!
Dallin and Mason stopped in to play cards with Ty for a few minutes before they left for the game.
When Ty opened the door to our room, he and Mason died
laughing when they saw they were in the exact same hoodie!
We had gone to Walmart the night before and bought TV dinners with the Hamblins
so we wouldn't have to break the Sabbath and buy any meals.
When they got back from Brevin and Bridger's games,
we went down to the Lobby and heated up our dinners in the microwave
and laughed as we did so! That was a fun memory!
Lisa with her "Hungry Man!"
Nothing beats that Valentine's Dinner!
As we ate dinner, the rest of the team was just getting back.
They stopped to tell us all about the game and how much they missed Ty.
That made Ty feel good, and we were relieved to see how kind they were to us....
as they lost that game and could have used Ty.
The boys all met back up in our room later to pick up where they left off with cards!
I jumped in for a round of BS.
I told them how good I was at that game and quickly found out I wasn't!
I had almost the whole deck in my hand at one point!
We had so much fun and laughed til our sides hurt!
We woke up early the next morning, ate breakfast, packed up and hit the road.
We made a quick stop back to the falls,
to see if we could find Jaylen's sack of gifts for his family.
Still nothing had been turned in, so Lisa and I put our money together
and re-bought the gifts he had gotten his family because we felt so bad.
When we got home, they took his gifts over to him......I'm sure he was so surprised!
We took a couple more quick pics and were on our way home!
The boys watched their Mini-Bowl win in football this year for part of the drive!
We had rain most of the way to Idaho, but didn't have any problems on the road!
On the way home, Garrett kept texting us hilarious videos and FaceTimed with us,
he had us rolling! If I didn't know better.....I'd say he missed us something fierce!
It was so fun to travel with the Hamblin's. The time flew by!
Lisa and I talked the whole 12 hours up and the whole 12 hours back
and the boys all kept each other entertained! It really made the trip go fast!
I loved having this one on one time with Ty.
I love any time I get like that with any of my kids.
He is such a good, good kid.
I am so proud of him and the friend he is to those around him.
Trav took all the kids to the cabin with Jake Godfrey and they had fun
snowmobiling and playing on the 4 wheelers.
All in all it was a wonderful Valentine's weekend!
Chipotle for dinner.
When we got back to the hotel, the boys all came in to our room looking for playing cards.
They love to play games together when we're on these trips
and not one of us showed up with cards this round.
Lisa, Nicole Hall and myself all took off in the rain to Target to buy the boys some cards.
They stayed in our room and played BS and Scum for a couple of hours!
They had us laughing so hard! They are so fun to have around!
Trevin Leonhardt and Brevin Hamblin
They were all called to bed around 11 p.m. so we could be up
and ready for church in the morning.
Hillsboro was part of a large Regional Conference via satellite from Salt Lake.
Elder Redland, one of the new members of the Quorum of the 12 spoke
as well as a few others from the General Board.
I was really hoping to run in to Sister Anna Hoffman, (CaMarie's daughter),
who is serving her mission there,
but she was at a different church building in the area. Bummer!
Mason Falslev, Trevin Leonhardt's Brother, Jake Sampson, Amari Whiting, Hayden Hall, Ty,
Dallin Hall, Baylor Harrop's Sister, Ken Hall)
Hillsboro, Oregon Stake Center Regional Conference
This past summer our family had some difficult things happen.
As we spoke one night with our Bishop,
he encouraged us to think of things in our life that needed to be changed,
and then change it.
He encouraged us to truly change something that would be a sacrifice to change.
Something hard to do.
He then promised if we would do this, we would be blessed greatly.
As we thought, talked and prayed.....one of those changes we had come to mind
was that of playing basketball on Sundays.
The church and our Stake especially, have really hit that topic hard this past year.....
keeping the Sabbath Day Holy.
We have never thought much of playing Basketball on Sunday.
Sure we knew we shouldn't, if we could really help it......
but every out of state tournament is played over Sunday's, so we partly justified it,
thinking we only played about 4 Sunday's a year and only when out of State.
But as we had been taught, and had been thinking of
what our Bishop had challenged us to do, we quickly realized,
that was something we needed to change for our family.
That was something that would be a sacrifice and would definitely be extremely hard to do.
It would put our team in a pinch, we were taking a chance that
maybe the team wouldn't want us for out of state tournaments anymore,
it would be somewhat embarrassing to tell everyone
we weren't playing anymore on Sunday's,
and we definitely didn't want to look like we thought we were better than the team
because we weren't playing Sunday's.
We weren't sure how it would be perceived,
but we were willing to take the hit, because we knew this
was what was right for our family and what our Heavenly Father expected of us.
We contacted our coach over the summer,
so he would know of our plans and would have a chance to decide
if he still wanted Ty to be a part of the team.
While it came as a shock to him, he was extremely gracious in
understanding where we were coming from and allowing us to remain on the team.
Any of those on the team that we spoke with about it,
were just as kind in their reception of the news.
We were so grateful to know that they would still want Ty,
and were willing to work with us in order to still have him on the team.
As Ty and I sat in that Conference at the Hillsboro Stake Center,
I wondered what he was thinking and feeling.
His team would be leaving to the Sunday afternoon game after Conference,
and would be playing without him.
It was also going to be the Quarter Final game. If we lost, we were done.
If we won, we'd be playing for the Semi-Final Game Monday morning.
I leaned over to Ty and Said,
"How you feeling today Bud? You feel ok about not playing?"
Without hesitation, he said, "I feel ok Mom. It's the right thing to do."
I was really proud of Ty in that moment.
After conference, we went back to the hotel and Ty and I had a great time,
watching TV and playing War with our cards.
Dallin and Mason stopped in to play cards with Ty for a few minutes before they left for the game.
When Ty opened the door to our room, he and Mason died
laughing when they saw they were in the exact same hoodie!
We had gone to Walmart the night before and bought TV dinners with the Hamblins
so we wouldn't have to break the Sabbath and buy any meals.
When they got back from Brevin and Bridger's games,
we went down to the Lobby and heated up our dinners in the microwave
and laughed as we did so! That was a fun memory!
Lisa with her "Hungry Man!"
Nothing beats that Valentine's Dinner!
As we ate dinner, the rest of the team was just getting back.
They stopped to tell us all about the game and how much they missed Ty.
That made Ty feel good, and we were relieved to see how kind they were to us....
as they lost that game and could have used Ty.
The boys all met back up in our room later to pick up where they left off with cards!
I jumped in for a round of BS.
I told them how good I was at that game and quickly found out I wasn't!
I had almost the whole deck in my hand at one point!
We had so much fun and laughed til our sides hurt!
We made a quick stop back to the falls,
to see if we could find Jaylen's sack of gifts for his family.
Still nothing had been turned in, so Lisa and I put our money together
and re-bought the gifts he had gotten his family because we felt so bad.
When we got home, they took his gifts over to him......I'm sure he was so surprised!
We took a couple more quick pics and were on our way home!
We had rain most of the way to Idaho, but didn't have any problems on the road!
On the way home, Garrett kept texting us hilarious videos and FaceTimed with us,
he had us rolling! If I didn't know better.....I'd say he missed us something fierce!
It was so fun to travel with the Hamblin's. The time flew by!
Lisa and I talked the whole 12 hours up and the whole 12 hours back
and the boys all kept each other entertained! It really made the trip go fast!
I loved having this one on one time with Ty.
I love any time I get like that with any of my kids.
He is such a good, good kid.
I am so proud of him and the friend he is to those around him.
Trav took all the kids to the cabin with Jake Godfrey and they had fun
snowmobiling and playing on the 4 wheelers.
All in all it was a wonderful Valentine's weekend!
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