Birthday Boys

We had a special evening with the Austin side of the family celebrating my stepson Clay's 18th birthday (from October) and my father-in-law's birthday (earlier this week). But first we had the birth of Carter's basketball career -- which was as painful as births are known to be.

As things turned out, the 7th-grade Assumption Boys team had their first game of the season after a week of no practices since their coaches were both out of town. So yes, they were a little rusty and yes, the "new guy" was really rusty!

Their opponent, Pittsville, was already onto their 3rd game of the year and that showed. They had a commanding lead of 1-0 (you read that correctly) for almost all of the first quarter. Eventually they expanded that quite a bit but the Royals rallied in the second half to finally score some buckets -- and ended up losing only 37-19. One of those baskets for Pittsville was scored by one of our guys (thankfully no one you know) scoring on the wrong end of the court.

It couldn't have been Carter anyway because he did not make any baskets tonight. And actually, did not shoot any either. The first few times he was out there, he seemed at a loss what to do once he got the ball. He -- and all of his teammates -- seemed to get their confidence up as the game went on, so hopefully they'll carry that into next week. We already have games Monday and Tuesday so the boys won't get a chance to practice before their next game.

Just like in baseball, though, I look forward to watching the improvement over the course of the season!

Carter did have the largest cheering section there for his debut (not counting the girls from his class who may have been there to cheer on all the boys). Jim's parents and his sister and her family were there, along with Clay, who we picked up on the way.

Afterwards, we went out to eat at Anchor Bay on the Wisconsin River to celebrate the birthdays. Great food as usual. We were all so full but went back to my in-laws' and had some ice cream cake dessert thing my mother-in-law makes. We were still so full but it's one of those yummy desserts you just can't turn down!

It was great to see Clay again and spend time with family. We were talking about our next big meal together -- Thanksgiving -- and realizing it's less than 2 weeks away already. Guess there's always something to celebrate if you look for it!