embarrassing moment

Author's Note - This post is published with the permission of the embarrassed party.

We've all had our share of embarrassing moments. I sometimes think I've had more than my share. This past Wednesday was McKayla's turn.

Last weekend a picture was taken of her and Michael (the two of them like each other). I haven't seen it but McKayla says it is probably the worst picture she's ever seen of herself - way worse than her driver's license photo!

Of course, that's not the embarrassing part.

On Wednesday, 2nd period, she walked into her Health Occupations class only to have her teacher tell her that her track coach wanted to see her. McKayla walked across the hall to his classroom only to see the photo of Michael and her displayed on the projection screen. She made the classic-teenage-sound-of-disgust and walked out. She didn't realize her track coach followed her back to her classroom but she got back to health and her teacher told the class "Today we're watching a movie" and when she turned on the projection screen, there was the picture of Michael and McKayla. Her track coach started laughing and McKayla turned to him and said, "Oh, I hate you!" (though she was laughing)

Then comes 4th period Spanish and her teacher starts off class by turning on her projection screen to...you guessed it! Michael and McKayla! She had several students comment to her throughout the day so she was about ready to kill her coach.

(Please don't take me literally - that is NOT a death threat against a teacher! McKayla really was laughing as she told me all of this. Her coach just really enjoys giving her a hard time and she really is able to take it.)

Makes me laugh!

she did it!!!!!!

McKayla's track goal all year has been to get her name on the record board.

Riverton lists the top 5 all-time record holders in every track and field event on a board in the hallway at the high school. McKayla wanted very badly to get her name up on the board as a freshman.

She succeeded this past Saturday at the BYU Invitational with a mile time of 5:33.15 which is 7 1/2 seconds better than her previous PR.

That time puts her 4th on the all-time fastest board. She is pretty happy. Her feet are happy too because she got new sandals to celebrate!

update on McKayla's running

She is not the fastest runner ever but she's the fastest miler on the current RHS track team -- not bad for a freshman!

Her current PR is 5:40:89 which is about 22 seconds faster than the start of the season. However, she really wants to get below 5:34. She has the BYU Invitational this week and the Region Championship next week to try to reach her goal.

She has taken 1st place at 4 region track meets but some of the top runners haven't been there so she is excited for the Regional Championships so she can see how she really stacks up against some good competition.

Her biggest problem this year is that she has no one to push her either in the meets or in training.

I don't think McKayla absolutely loves running but she does love winning!

I have really enjoyed watching the track meets. They are never boring!

a possible end in sight?

This week has been insane for McKayla.

Monday - 1 hour of track, 2 hours of soccer practice
Tuesday - 1 hour of track, 2 hours of basketball practice
Wednesday - 1 hour of track, 1 soccer game
Thursday - 1 hour of track, 1 1/2 hours of soccer practice, 1 basketball game
Friday - 1 hour of track, 2 hours of soccer practice

Saturday will bring more soccer practice and more basketball games.

On top of that, we got the proposed soccer tournament schedule for the rest of the year:

March - Las Vegas
April - Temecula, CA
May - State Cup (here in Utah)
June - tournaments 3 weeks in a row in Colorado, Utah, then California
July- early October - high school play (no club soccer allowed)
October - Arizona
November - San Diego
December - indoor at BYU

Now for the good news:

One, basketball is officially over after Saturday. Two, McKayla is thinking that maybe her goals don't match up with her soccer club's goals so she is thinking about not playing for Utah Glory next year (which would mean she probably wouldn't play any tournaments from June on).

McKayla's club team is really focused on getting all of the players scholarships to play soccer in college. As much as she would like to play in college, McKayla won't play for any college that has games/practices on Sundays. That pretty much limits her to BYU, BYU-Hawaii, and Utah State. McKayla recognizes that the odds of her being able to play for one of those schools is extremely slim. A lot of the tournaments her club team is entering now require Sunday play and McKayla won't do that either.

As much as McKayla loves playing soccer, she is beginning to think that a non-premiere level team (doing fewer out-of-state tournaments) might be a better fit for her.

I'm just hoping her sports schedule slows down enough that I don't have to employ a full-time driver for her!

a popular nerd?

McKayla informed me that she is a finalist for National Junior Honor Society President. Apparently, the NJHS members were given a list of members and told to vote for a president. She received notice that she is one of the top 9 vote-getters. She was pretty excited about that. I'm kinda proud.

I'm a really slow learner

A little over 13 years ago I agreed to let Brakston try out for a competitive soccer team because I KNEW he was not good enough to make the team and I thought that would be a good life lesson for him. The joke was on me! That one tryout started our family out on the soccer life with 3 kids eventually being on competitive soccer teams. You'd think I would have learned something from all of that.

This week I agreed to let McKayla try out for the OHMS basketball team because I knew she wouldn't make it since the cumulative total of her basketball experience amounts to P.E., one season of Jr. Jazz coached by her best friend's older sister, and church ball. Again, I thought it would be a good life lesson.


She made the team.

I'm not even sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I am very proud of my amazing, talented, athletic daughter. I am happy for her. I know this will be a boost to her self-esteem. It will probably be fun to watch something other than soccer. It will help keep her in tip-top shape.

On the other hand, her soccer coach is going to freak when this conflicts with soccer (which it will since she has 6 tournaments in the next 5 months plus indoor games and training). She is already incredibly busy. In fact, she attended the tryout meeting on Monday after school and by Tuesday morning had firmly decided she was NOT trying out because she didn't have time. Also, McKayla playing basketball is directly opposite of my simplification plan.

Regardless, I am not sure who learned the life lesson - oh yeah, that would be me. Quit thinking my kids won't make the team. They inherited Kevin's athletic ability not my own. Now I have to suck it up and get involved in the world of basketball. Yep, let's just get it over with and have STUPID tattooed across my forehead. Some people never learn.

Happy Birthday,McKayla!

My beautiful daughter is 15! Happy Birthday, Kaya!

I love you so much and feel so privileged to be your mother! You are a delightful daughter. Your smile lights up the room and I love to do things to see that smile. You are kind to others. You are so responsible and dependable and I love having a child I don't have to worry too much about.

You are incredibly talented! You play the piano well. You are very athletic and you are a very good student. You also have an amazing way with clothes and hair. You always look so "put together". I always have the feeling that there's nothing you can't do!

You have always been such a funny mix of tomboy and "girlie-girl". On the one hand, you love to have your nails painted and your hair fixed but on the other hand, you can sure bet you'll be doing hip-checks out on the soccer field. You can hold your own playing soccer or night games with the boys in the neighborhood but you also loves your new glitter gel toes and nail art kit.

You are a dream child! I love you and am glad you're my daughter!

14-year-old boys are STUPID

That's stupid with a capital S!!!

I think some of the neighborhood boys may be trying to impress McKayla. They've done things like move our trampoline to the front porch and then won't go away until she sees it. (Like that's going to impress her.)

Last night she and I were the only ones home so I was enjoying a rare moment of peace and quiet when my front door opened and a duck call went off so loudly that I truly jumped through the roof. They closed the door and then stood outside ringing the bell. McKayla didn't want anything to do with them so we locked the door and ignored them.

They honestly spent 25 minutes blowing the duck call, ringing the doorbell, pounding on the windows, honking my car horn, and yelling. (So much for peace and quiet)

McKayla finally got so mad that she yelled, "Holy crap, guys! Go away!"

Do boys really think this is the attention they want from her?

like mother, like daughter

McKayla and I both received our Young Womanhood Recognition Awards yesterday!

Pretty exciting stuff.

This is actually the third time I've earned my medallion - once as a Young Woman, once when I was YW President, and now again as a YW leader. The program has been different every time so it's been good for me to go through it over and over. This time was especially fun since Shanley and McKayla were also working on it at the same time.

McKayla was highly motivated to work on hers because we won't allow our girls to drive until they've received it (our boys must have their Eagles). I also promised McKayla glitter toes if she earned it before her birthday (Nov. 1st).

I am a big believer in bribery rewards.

Rapid City silliness

What do you get when you mix a relaxing vacation with two teens and a couple of blue coconut slushes from Sonic?

RHS soccer victory

Parents should probably not get this excited about a soccer game. After all, it is "JUST a game". Isn't that what we tell our kids?

Still, I am still pretty pumped from the Riverton High soccer 3-0 win against Bingham (our biggest rivals).

One, McKayla saw her most varsity playing time ever (well over half the game) and played well. This is especially nice since 11 members of her club team play for Bingham.
Two, there were some amazing, acrobatic saves by our keeper giving her her 7th shutout in a row! She is outstanding!
Three, it was nice to overcome in a game where the ref made 29 calls for Bingham for every one for us (even ignored a blatant red card offense by the other team). I try not to complain about the refs too much but this game was so out of control that 2 of our players had to be carried off the field. Scary!
Four, this win clinched the Regional Title for Riverton! This means a higher seed in the state playoff brackets.
Five, this win should mean Riverton goes unbeaten in region play (always the chance that they could fall apart).

GO SILVERWOLVES!!!

handy gal

Kevin spent the weekend installing a surround sound system to go with our new projection TV. I don't think he could have done it without McKayla's help. She hung all the speakers herself.Yep, she's a keeper!

sounds like a promising start

McKayla has been at a soccer camp in St. George at Dixie State College all week with the Riverton High soccer team. The coach took enough players to make 2 teams so he formed a varsity team with most of the players who were on the high school team last year and a JV team with the incoming freshman and other newbies.

McKayla scored two goals (the only JV player to even score) before being switched to defense for her last couple of games.

Then the coach had 3 of the JV girls dress for the last varsity game. McKayla was one of them.

To me, that sounds like a promising start to her high school career. Hopefully, it bodes well for her when high school tryouts start one month from today.