A Weekend Full of Hoops

We took a little weekend get-a-way to Spokane, Washington this weekend. It was a fun little vacation for all of us. Mike, his two brother Jason and Ryan and a good friend of ours, Reuben were involved in the BIG Hoopfest Tournament. Now, when I say BIG, I'm not joking . . . . I believe the numbers I heard were4,600 teams, 24,000 participants, then throw in the fans there to watch them! The tournament was 3 on 3 half court basketball. They blocked off many blocks in the downtown riverfront park area and had courts set up all over. The crowds were crazy!! No motel was vacant in a 30 mile radius.






The kids enjoyed the motel. We had a great place with lots of little extras. They loved to swim with there friends, Ethan, Kate and cousin, Logan.


My girls crack me up. The love to show off for the camera . . . can't you just hear that Madonna song playing . . . "Strike a pose there's nothing to it, Vogue . . ." In this picture we were just getting ready to leave for our first day of Hoop Fest and they are showing off there new clothes.


















Grace just adores her friend, Kate. Kate LOVES shoes and I think that is starting to rub off on Grace, of course never could she compare to Kate. At some point during the morning, the girls decided to switch shoes and wear each others shoes for the day. They are so cute!


















The men were kind enough to let me snap a picture as they were shooting around and warming up . . . although it was around 100 degrees so I don't know how they could of gotten much warmer. ;)





Now, this picture is missing Ryan . . . . he hadn't arrived yet and later on in the morning, my camera decided it had had enough and threw a little hissy and stopped working, so I didn't get to catch many pictures.



Like I had said before, it was very hot, so I let my kids take advantage of the beautiful fountains that the riverfront area has to offer. It was a relief to them to cool down. Although I would like to note two things;


1.) Hoopfest was AWESOME!!! They were always giving my kids FREE Otter pops to help them stay hydrated and cool down. THANK YOU HOOPFEST!!!


2.) Reece brought only one pair of shoes to WA., his water shoes (you know those special shoes that are all meshy and have soles). He must of known that his mom would let him run around in a fountain and he would need those shoes. Way to be prepared Reece!

Even Maddie got into the fountain . . . . there is a long story behind that, but I think I'll just keep that for another time.



Hmmm . . . . I wonder how many kids peed in that fountain . . . . EWE!

Monica bought the kids these huge shaved ice cones. They LOVED them! It was too cute too because we were short a spoon so my girls kept taking turns feeding there little cousin Logan bites. Such little mom's in training.
Can you see this kid's little red hot faces?
I kept spraying them up with sunscreen so they wouldn't burn. Note - not a great idea to spray kids with sunscreen in the park when other kids are running around and making dust clouds. The dirt just comes at you like a magnet and sticks there for days after.


It was a super fun weekend! Many fun memories and new jokes to share. I even got to live a little live Mario Kart. . . . . my years in training served me well. ;)
We ended up leaving a day earlier than originally planned. Of course our trip home turned into a little adventure. I missed a interchange and didn't realize that till we were 60 miles down the road. Thankfully, I always keep my big map book in the trunk so after a few minutes, Mike and I plotted out a new route to get home. It was actually a lot of fun because we got to see a beautiful part of Washington and we only tacked on an extra 30 minutes to our drive. Our car drive consisted of many movies for the kids, lots of car dancing (oh yes, I busted out some moves while driving) to my happy songs, and a bunch of talking. Car trips ROCK!
I wish I could of taken more pictures and gotten some of everybody! We are all planning on doing it again next year, in fact, we have all booked our rooms today for Hoopfest 2009!