At the Lake

We just got back from the last tournament of the season for Jake’s high school teams. For this particular tournament a family in the Kingdom Hoops program, The Prewitt’s, have opened up their lake house for the past 2 years for us and the players to stay at; their lake house is near where the tournament is held in Kansas City. This saves our Foundation about $4000 on hotel costs for our scholarship players, and of course gives the added bonus of some fun in the sun and on the water! Last year at Christmas dinner Justice told us that our time at the lake house was his favorite thing that we did all year! No doubt, my kids may be growing fins as we speak – they LOVE the water, and especially have enjoyed getting to experience ‘lake life’! Some pictures of our fun….

Little lakesters...

 

Loved watching Justice's expressions while he was on the tube!  Pure joy!

 

Jayla opted to take it easy on the boat! :)

 

This year the Prewitt’s introduced us to one of their favorite summer activities: Tie dye! JJ was really into it!

 

And here’s how our shirts turned out! Pretty cool!

Heading out on the boat to take the high school boys tubing.

 

Since we got home Jayla has been crying because she “has no one to play with”. She and her bestie Chloe spent every moment together the entire time we were at the lake - they were inseparable! :)

 

It’s been so good for me to see how much Jayla really desires friendships with girls, because I think that will help her with the transition of Jennifer and Florence coming home. I keep reminding her that soon she will have two sisters to play with!

Weekend in Pictures

This is Jake’s busiest time of year now with tournaments on the weekends as the next few weeks are what is called the ‘live period’. This is what his high school kids have worked hard for all year long – they now get the opportunity to play in front of college coaches and earn their way into a scholarship!

For 8 years now our family has traveled alongside Jake and his teams and made the weekend tournaments a family affair. Our kids of course LOVE getting to travel to different places, and especially enjoy the part of getting to stay in hotels. :) JJ and Justice are quite popular among the high school players and are treated just as if they were the players’ little brothers. Jayla has her own fun in the stands hanging out with the players’ younger siblings and making many trips to the concession stand for her beloved popcorn! Most of all, we soak up the family time together that we work so hard to get to all week!

Some pictures from this weekend at the NY2LA Spring Extravaganza tournament in Hopkins, MN….

See any college coaches that you know?

Imagine the pressure of playing with all those coaches lined up about 2 feet from you along the baseline with a potential scholarship offer hanging in the balance!

Jake’s says, “You’ve got to love that pressure and let it ignite you so much that when you step on the court you are ready to rip someone’s head off!” Yikes! :)

Jayla with her friend Javaria (who has two older brothers in Jake’s program) – now you can see what I mean about the creativity that goes into styling hair that I take notice of at these tournaments!

Thanks to http://www.chocolatehairvanillacare.com/ I actually know how to do this style (Wa-hooo!) – these are called box braids, but I won't be able to do these until our girls' hair gets longer. Javaria’s mom let me pick her brain about their styling and hair care routine for her girls and tracked me down later on to give me her phone number in case I have any questions along the way. :) So nice and helpful!

Jayla soaks up all of daddy’s attention in between games!

And I was able to sneak in taking this video on my phone without Jayla knowing. She was in a FULL conversation with her baby doll - I have yet to be able to catch this on camera until now. Hard to hear exactly what she is saying, but you can sure read her face! She always reminds me of the little girl, Bonnie, on the movie Toy Story 3! :)



Coaching is intense!

But all the hard work was worth it - 17U Platinum Bracket (the TOP bracket play) CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!

Kingdom Hoops Season Kick-off & Fundraising Event

On Friday night we held our first-ever Kingdom Hoops Kick-off event which also doubled as an in-house fundraiser! It was a major hit! A few of our Kingdom Cares International board members organized the entire night which included shooting contests to raise money - half-court shot, hot shot, and a free-throw contest against Jake in which players had gathered pledges the past few months. The player who raised the most pledges won an IPAD2! There were also raffles, teambuilding activities like team-knockout, unveiling of the new uniforms designed by one of the players (Brady Elder), unveiling of the Kingdom Hoops spirit wear website via partnership with Sports Page (go to www.sportspageteam.com, click on team, then select Kingdom Hoops to order), team pictures, shirt order fundraiser, and a chunk of time for Jake to share his vision for the 2011-2012 season in addition to briefing the parents and players on our Ghana projects. The entire night was set to the back-drop of a dj who played all the latest hits, and there was lots of dancing going on! These kids may be basketball players, but they’ve got some mad dancing skills too! There was also a special surprise for the night that we knew the kids would love…..we got a fog machine and balloon arch and had the dj announce each player and team individually, just like they do in the NBA all-star game! You can imagine how much fun they had with it!

All in all the event cost us about $1500 to put on, but we raised a smidge over $12,000 (and that doesn’t even include the money we will make on the shirt orders that were also a huge hit)!!!!! Not too shabby for the first ever in-house fundraiser! This event kicks off the season for the 3rd through 8th grade teams as the high schoolers will be tied up with their school teams through March. Some of the high-schoolers that were at the event for their younger siblings were begging Jake to hold the kick-off event for their teams come spring!

I was busy gabbing most of the night so I got off track on capturing all the moments I had hoped to, but here are a few!

Some of the players show off the new uniforms and Jake & Alex sport the shirt we are selling as a fundraiser.

My kids and our Rosebud girls had SO MUCH fun hanging with friends and dancing!

Half-court shot contest......

The fog machine............................................................

I grabbed a cute video of Justice being announced with his team (he's playing with the 3rd grade boys this year). :)


Raquel Dickerson, player on the 7th grade girl's team, raised the most pledges for the free-throw fundraiser coming in at $1309! In the week leading up to the event all the players who participated in gathering pledges got to have a shoot out for the chance to take Jake on in one minute of free-throw shooting at the event. Lauren Riggs (pictured below), 7th grade girls team, and Collin Lister, 5th grade boys team, made the most free-throws in the team shootout and got to take on Jake. In one minute Lauren made 16 free-throws, but she couldn't catch Jake who made 24 free-throws! Collin came so close, making 21 free-throws, but Jake edged him out by making 22 free-throws. :) This part of the night was a fan favorite!!!!!

3rd through 8th grade boys and girls teams...................

So our first kick-off event/fundraiser was a definite success, and I only see this getting better and better each year!

Day 2 at the Lake

Yesterday I had to prove to my kids that even momma has skills!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah baby, I still got it!!!

Our host Nikki also took us out on the big tube as a family! The only way Jayla said she would go is if we went really slowwwww. :) She was so scared, but she did it!

We also got the wave runner fired up and Justice and JJ took their first ever ride (and Jake and I got to cruise around the lake on it a few times too)!

JJ and Justice have not been out of the water for more than 5 minutes since we’ve been here, except to eat! JJ also loves going on the boat while all the KH boys go tubing, wakeboarding, and skiing. Justice told us yesterday that being here is his favorite thing that we have done all summer! I believe it....that boy LOVES the water! JJ too. Other than the water sports the boys have had fun jumping off the dock, floating around on the air mattresses, and just swimming around with all the Kingdom Hoops guys.

And here is our big group….serious pose….

Crazy pose…..

Today games start up again, so it’s back to business!

Have I mentioned how much I love being at the lake?

♥

Jake's Kingdom Hoops Facility Updates

I haven’t posted about Jake’s Kingdom Hoops facility in Ankeny for awhile! There have been a lot of additions since I last put up pictures when they were laying down the new courts!

For starters, a mezzanine was built in the center of the facility that divides the courts into two sets of 3. The mezzanine was built to provide structured spaces for lease. Here is a picture of it as it was being built (it is the concrete barrier/balcony behind the hoops)…

And here is a picture of it all finished...

Jake has helped the owner of the building lease out these spaces. So far, Acceleration Iowa has set up house in one of the bottom rentals:

Acceleration Iowa is a speed and agility training program for athletic enhancement. Here is a peek inside the action:

Elite Sports Performance has also leased a space on top of the mezzanine (under the hanging flags).

Elite Sports Performance is a strength (weight) training program for elite athletes as well as personal training.

A few other potential groups are interested in leasing out the other spaces in the mezzanine so I’ll have to keep you updated on who sets up shop in there next! The mezzanine also holds a set of restrooms and drinking fountains for the players that utilize the far courts.

The Kingdom Hoops facility has also started renting out court space/gym time. Shortly after all the courts were put down, a Kingdom Volleyball program was started by Amy Farber-Knowles (former ISU assistant vb coach, former Drake head vb coach, and vb All-American while playing at the University of Oklahoma). The Kingdom Volleyball teams practice regularly alongside Jake’s teams, and compete in regional and national tournaments. They have an awesome program going!

Jayla and JJ LOVE to play with the volleyballs…..I think because they had never seen one before until this program started! Jayla gets a little mad when the volleyballs don’t cooperate with her plans (like when she tries to pick up two at a time)...

Other than the volleyball program, other groups that rent court time are the Iowa Rush Soccer Academy, men’s recreational leagues, high school bball teams(saw a lot of this the past two weeks as teams competing in the state tournament wanted to practice on a college sized court to prepare for playing in Wells Fargo Arena), and even a gymnastics group! I snapped a picture of a gymnastics meet being held in the gym a few months ago because it looked so different with all the gymnastics equipment in there (this was at the time when they were building the mezzanine as well).

Since I last posted, the concessions area/café has also been finished.

A family in the KH program had always wanted to start a little café like this, and they took their idea and went for it! I got to help come up with names for the café and they chose the one I thought of: The Huddle. Pretty catchy, right?!?! :) JJ is a frequent customer as they keep The Huddle open during practices as well as hosted tournaments. His usual buys are Gatorade, starbursts, and ice cream sandwiches!

Of course the facility has also gotten into the Ghana spirit! A mom in the program came up with the idea to sell these awesome bracelet kits (Ghana flag colors) that can be woven into a really cool wristband.

All proceeds from sales go to Project:Ghana.

Shoes are also being collected for us to take to Ghana on our next trip.

And that is sort of the scoop on all the updates. Future renovations are in the works to hopefully come up with a student learning center inside the gym complete with computers. A lot of kids come straight to the KH facility after school and do their homework on the bleachers!!!! They really need a more fitting/comfortable place to study. Jake is also hopeful to eventually house a fitness center in the facility (something like Anytime Fitness) and I believe renovations for the outside of the building will start this summer. I don’t have a current picture of the outside, but from the looks of it you would never guess that there was a fully-functioning athletic complex on the inside! On the outside it just looks like an old warehouse.

I am sure you can tell by my regular blogging pictures that we are at the gym A LOT! In the winter, it is SO NICE to be able to take the kids there to run around at nighttime. Jake practices his teams after school, so we usually head there after dinner and JJ and Jayla get some good gym time to hang out and be part of it all! My favorite part of going to the gym is getting to see JJ and Jayla interact with all the players. JJ is naturally a very shy kid, but when he is at the gym, his demeanor COMPLETELY changes! He gets so much social interaction there because all the players know him by name! Over the past year, he has really come out of his shell, and I think this is largely due to being around the older kids who love to play with him and talk to him when they see him. Kingdom Hoops is a F A M I L Y all in itself, and we LOVE IT!