The Girls Go To Cozumel

This past summer, we took our girls on their first plane trip to Cozumel, Mexico.  My wife and I have made a point of going to an all-inclusive resort at least once a year in the summer time.  A year ago, we went to Jamaica, and previously, we spent our Honeymoon in Punta Cana, DR.

While we love, cherish, and covet our ‘grown-up’ time, when the opportunity came to take our two oldest daughters with us for 5 days, it was an opportunity that we couldn’t pass up!

We spent the night before at my dad's house so that Alyssa's dad could take us to the airport the next morning.  The airport was an adventure by itself!  The girls personality's were in full-effect from the start.  They had a good time hanging out before the flight.  All three girls (Alyssa included) were nervous on take-off, and London-Mila kept saying 'her ears hurt.'  But we arrived safely and ready to explore the beach.

 We did some really cool things, like take a boat out for scuba-diving, snorkeling, and renting a jeep for a day and travelling around the island, exploring some of the beaches.

 We even made sure that they had the Warriors/Cavs finals game on in the bar! 

It was a great trip that only could have been better if there wasn’t a tropical storm the week before we arrived, making the waters choppy and less transparent.  Though we had a tougher time seeing all the fish and coral life of one of the biggest reefs in the world, the memories we made were priceless!  

Below are some videos from our trip!

Our First Day In Cozumel

Our Second Day In Cozumel

Our Third Day In Cozumel

Alexa's First Basketball Game

Anybody that knows my family knows how important basketball is to us, and that love and importance has definitely been passed down to our kids.  Our oldest daughter Alexa had her first basketball game this past weekend, something that she has been begging for us to let her do for at least a couple of years now.  I told her from the time that she could dribble that I would let her play when she could consistently make a basket on the league's 8 foot goal.   This summer, she proved to me that she could do that, so we signed her up!

She has been talking about this game for a couple of months now, patiently (or not so much) waiting for January when we told her that her league would start up.  She has been around basketball her entire life!  She even cheers and gets excited at my high school games.  In the video below, you can see her in the very bottom left getting excited at a penetrate kick action by our high school girls!

You can see her in the bottom right jump up as soon as she sees we are going to get an open look.

The morning before her first game when we woke her up for school, the first thing she said was, 'Daddy, guess what tomorrow is ...'  

When we were getting ready for the game that Saturday morning, you could feel the excitement and nerves in our house.  Lex was visibly nervous, and she even admitted that she was scared and nervous to play.  We re-assured her that she had been practicing a lot for this moment, and that it was all about having fun and doing her best, and that if she did those two things, everything else would work out fine.  She had some really good practices leading up to the first game.  The video below is from the first play, of her first scrimmage, of her first practice:

Below are some pre-game pictures that I took.

Sitting with teammates before the game.

Pre-game talk with coach.

Well, she came out early and did very well!  Her team got the win 16 - 12 and she scored 10 of their points!  She had to get used to the rules of only guarding your wrist band, but she tried to do everything we talked about: play good defense and take the ball, dribble down and make your layups, and get all the rebounds.

We see now that we have to work on keeping her man in front, grabbing rebounds with 2 hands, and keeping her eyes up so the other team can't take the ball away from her and so that you can see her open teammates, but we were so proud watching her run around the court having fun!

I am never prouder than when I get to watch my girls run and around with confidence and joy, having fun in their activities, especially when they share the passions that we have as her parents, like basketball.

Below is her full video of her first game!