Catching Up, Part 2!

July:  My sweet friend Candice got married.  I met Candice the summer after my ninth grade year, and we played AAU ball together for the next four summers.  Her dad, Ron, coached us all of those years.  They are such a neat family, and their friendship has and always will be precious to us.

 

Dad with her “little” brother, Ronnie:

When we first met them, Ronnie used to sit on the bench with us in games and I remember him walking around bouncing a tennis ball everywhere he went.  He was just a kid then, and now he is all grown up and plays in the NBA.

Here we are with Ron and my other coach, Lance.  I can’t tell you how many wonderful memories our teams had over the years!  It was the best!

Here’s a picture from the first year I played with this team in Shreveport, LA:

Here we are in Indianapolis the summer after my tenth grade year:

This next picture was taken in Cleveland when we went to Junior Olympics the summer after my junior year:

And here are Candice and I at all-star week just before we went off to college:

It’s still hard for me to believe sometimes that we are approaching our thirties…yikes!  Some of us are married with kids of our own and pretty much all of us have careers.  One of the girls in the photos is no longer here, and I still think of her often with so many questions.  It blows me away at how fast the years trickle by…sitting at her ceremony definitely stirred up my emotions.  I couldn’t hold back tears as someone sang “I Believe in You and Me.”  Mario’s sister picked that song to sing at our own wedding exactly three months to the day before we would lose her unexpectedly.  I watched Mario and my parents wrestle my sweet babies next to me as they crawled in and out of our laps.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of their little faces thinking about how quickly they were growing up…I thought about life and all of the twists and turns, joy and pain, loss and gain, disappointments and excitement.  Don’t get me wrong…it was a happy day and a great occasion!!!  That’s the great part, that you are standing in front of someone and vowing to love them through all of LIFE, no matter what you face together.  I am SO grateful for Mario and it always makes me happy to see two people that truly love one another join their lives together for good!

Also in July, my other “son” came for a visit!  We call Joe our son, because seriously, he seemed like he was for a long time.  I love this kid too death.  I knew the day would come when he would get too grown up for us, and it eventually happened.  He still stays in touch though, and we were SO happy when he came to see us one Saturday morning!  I made a big breakfast and we caught up!

 

J was ecstatic!!!!!! For the first three years of her life, Joe was pretty much like  a big brother to her!  He and Breylin went everywhere with us.  At church one time, a lady saw us loading (and yelling at…ha!)  all the kids in the car—and she said, “Wow!  You guys run a tight ship!! How do you do it?!” Ha! And all the time when we were out in public they would call us mom and dad in front of people to be funny. 

This is a picture of Joe & Brey from the summer of 2003, about a year and a half after I met both of them:

AUGUST:  Just had to share this cute photo Dad took of J when she stayed with them one weekend…

 

Just before school started, I finally got to meet one of Mario’s first cousins that I had never met before.   I had heard so much about her, and I knew that she was an amazing woman with a compelling story.  Don’t underestimate that last statement, you can click here and here to see for yourself!

Jaiden and Jeryn acted as if they had known her all their lives and put on their best show :)  I think Nikki was equally excited to see them!

 

Uncle Ike had no trouble keeping their attention…he is Danny’s brother—can you see a resemblance??

Nikki was wanting her picture made with Jeryn so badly…he wouldn’t look at the camera for anything but after about 500 attempts, we managed to have one or two where he was actually looking :)  And I love that they are rockin the twinkie look with their blonde hair!

That’s one thing I love about Mario’s family…even if it’s family you don’t get to see often, when you do get together, you can count on some good fellowship!

This completes my “Catching Up” Posts.  I hereby promise to refrain from having four page posts with ten thousand pictures in the future.