Great Grandpa & Grandma and the NWAACC Tourney

**Once again, this blog post has been sitting for almost TWO weeks (gasp) without being finished. Maybe this is my lucky night...**

Matt's team made it to the NWAACC tournament again this year, and ironically placed 4th again! The girls played great and unfortunately they ended with merely 5 players on the bench due to sicknesses and injuries. I guess that's what 6 months of non-stop basketball will do to you. =( The kids and I were able to tag along for one last basketball trip and although I thought for a short period it was quite possibly the biggest mistake of my life... I'm happy to announce that we survived, and with lots of memories, some wonderful ones too.  

The short story is that Madi and I ended up horribly sick for about 24 hours while Emmitt screamed, whined or cried because he was so tired of being cooped up in an entirely too small hotel room. Saturday night ended with Emmitt sneaking out of the room and getting lost for over 10 minutes (unbeknownst to me). Madi and I were laying on the bed reading books and Emmitt was at the foot of the bed (or so I thought) eating crackers. Matt had left the room to get something from the car and then went straight to work on the scout. Evidently Emmitt had snuck out behind Matt (Em could open the door unless the very top latch was locked from inside. Obviously when Matt left he unlocked that part and I never re-locked it. Lesson learned.) Anyway, when we finished the book it was earily quiet and when I realized Emmitt was no where to be found Madi and I went screaming up and down the halls looking for him. We found his cracker pack down the hall in another wing at the top of a stairwell.  Sweet, huh?!?! 

Worst. Feeling. Ever. 

I started banging on doors until someone opened (a bunch of college guys) and I cry/screamed some sort of gibberish to them about a missing little boy. They seemed unfazed and said that they saw a lady walking door to door with him. Another person came out of their room and said that same lady had taken him to the front desk.  We went flying back to our room.  This hotel was NOT small and quite frankly I wasn't sure how to get to the front desk because we had gotten in fairly late the night before and since the hotel doesn't have elevators (Thank the Lord - who knows where Em would have been if he could have ridden an elevator!) we had parked near the closest side entrance to our room. 

I called the front desk and they said he was playing happily with a bunch of toys and that they'd bring him right up. NBD.

But it was a big deal. 

Madi and I waited in the door jam until the hotel staff brought him up, along with the lady who had found him and her husband.  Evidently she was a social work. Super cool, I know. She was clearly perturbed at the situation and was definitely trying to decide if my story was legit (barfing my brains out in the hotel room all day) or if I was just coming down from a high and looking for my next fix...  Unfortunately, I definitely fit the mold of the later.  She was lucky I had thrown pants on before I ran up and down the halls screaming my lost child's name (seriously).  She let me go without asking my name, so I assumed I wasn't reported.  We went back into the hotel so that I could barf my brains out some more, cry my eyes off and squeeze my 18 month old until he couldn't breathe, who by the way was completely unfazed by this whole phenomena!!! 

I'm sure he was a little annoyed he had to leave the toys behind at the front desk. And where were his crackers after all?!?

...and I was worried about this kid drowning...

I called Matt, who was scouting in the next room this whole time, and he came over to console me.

You can see now why I thought this trip was the biggest mistake of my life...

And that was only day ONE. 

Thank the LORD things only got better. Madi and I were the only ones that ever got sick, and in hindsight I'm pretty sure it was from food that the two of us had eaten the night before. :/ We were both totally fine all of Friday. Madi woke us up around 1:30 in the morning by crawling onto our bed and barfing on the pillow next to me (Amen for King beds, and Amen for not being used to a king bed so we only slept on half of it...). She continued to throw up about every 10-ish minutes for hours.  Poor Matt had to be up by 6 and had a game at 8 and had slept maybe 2 hours before she woke us up for the night.  I got up with a very rumbly stomach and made it til about 11:00 that morning before throwing in the towel.  I'll save ya'll from anyMORE details cause I think you've gotten enough of the picture.  But this definitely happened a lot...

Meanwhile, the weather was breathtakingly beautiful in Central Washington and we were quartining ourselves from all of my extended family that live just an hour away and Matt's Grandparents who live about 10 minutes from our hotel.  Totally not how I had planned out our weekend. 

I guess that's what I get for being a "planner"...

We mustered up the strength to make it to Matt's 2:00 game on Sunday and by Monday no one else had fallen ill and it was time to get serious and head to the laundromat... 

My kids had NO idea what a laundromat was, and they were, of course, quite intrigued by the giant washing machines! It's amazing the things we take for granted!

We were also able to swing by Grandpa and Grandma Olson's house and pick them up for a trip to the park in the SUNSHINE!!!

It was glorious and exactly what I'd hoped Saturday and Sunday would have been filled with...

"Gene, your pant leg is stuck in your boot!" ;)

Look at the fear in that duck's eyes. If he only knew...

These next few pictures melt my heart. Madi doesn't see her great grandparents very often (any of them, unfortunately, due to distance), but she sure knows how to pick up where she left off. Both of these girls were in heaven and I loved seeing them bond as they soaked in the rays. 

Great Grandmas will do anything for great grandchildren, including climb play sets and slide down. =)

Madi said, "I need to go first in case Grandma needs me to hold her hand." =)

Meanwhile, Emmitt beat Grandpa with a stick. 

Kind of...

They both thought it was silly and I swear it wasn't hard. 

And in all seriousness Emmitt is quite obsessed with all of his Grandpas. 

He may also think anyone over 60 with a mustache is Grandpa...

... and from here on our trip was only Instagramed...

This park was INCREDIBLE and made me completely sold on moving to Central Washington. Of course, the sunshine was helpful as well!

Enjoying some sugar-y goodness at Daddy's LAST game!

The kids and I drove home Tuesday evening and Matt got home at wee hours the next morning. The boys' team played in the championship game at 8:00 and ended up winning the tournament! It was a great season, indeed. 

Matt officially resigned as the assistant coach at CCC and he has been accepted into the Educational Leadership Program at PSU this fall.  In almost one year exactly he will be graduating. WOO HOO! And even more exciting, (possibly) we will be done PAYING for school for a LONG time (knocking on wood)...

So there ya have it. Our completely unpredictable trip to Kennewick. I think I'll miss these parts of Matt coaching, but I'm not too worried about it because I know we'll have plenty of other things keeping us occupied.  

Like this guy...

If only everybody found SO much joy in ice machines...

(And for the record, I started out with the mean-mom thing and forbid them to touch the ice machines. Of course I didn't want my kids to be THOSE kids, but after watching just how entertaining it was, I threw in the towel and we pretty much hunted the entire building for ice machines. I guess that's what living in a hotel for 5 days will do to you. I think we counted at least 7 machines just between our room and the lobby; and, yes, this excitement NEVER stopped. Every. Single. Time. he pushed the button! Oh how I love him!!!)

Goodbye, basketball season. Hello, SPRING!!!