Brains & Brawn

We got to participate in our first "Brains & Brawn" tournament today. Very interesting, entertaining and exciting. In fact, the fun is still continuing -- but since it is already Sunday, I am going to bed!

The tournament features 8th-graders from 9 Catholic middle schools in the La Crosse Diocese. The "Brains" part features a co-ed academic team and is sort of like the old "High School Quiz Bowl" that used to be on TV. The "Brawn" part features boys and girls basketball teams. Assumption Middle School had a team competing in all three.

As much as I think of Carter as a Brain sometimes, he was on the Brawny hoops team. They played at 8 a.m. and noon. The first game was a close one but we lost 39-34. The second game was not even close. Wausau Newman -- who beats us regularly -- killed us by 40 points. Not kidding. So we were done playing after 2 games.

Our 8th-grade girls team, on the other hand, was dominating and ended up winning the championship! How fun to finally sit and watch them. They are pretty aggressive! I can't wait to see them play in high school.

Our Brains team made it to the finals but ended up finishing 4th. I sat in on a little bit of that competition between games. I was happy I could answer a lot of the questions -- to myself -- but no, I am not smarter than an 8th-grader!

The day wrapped up with a special Mass with the bishop and awards announcement. Turns out our 8th-grade boys team got the coveted Sportsmanship Award for the tournament. Very cool! Jim went with all the other families to the service, but Carter and I stayed at the hotel (a different one from last night). I didn't feel that great after my longest "outing" of 2012. Very long day so I laid down for 2 hours. I got my second wind when everyone got back.

Everyone else did, too. The kids all found places to hang out and so did the grownups. Since it's almost 1 a.m. I am getting Carter to bed and me, too. Carter thinks he's going to get up at 5:30 a.m. so he can get into the pool right at 6 a.m.

Really, Carter?? Now you know why he wasn't in the "brains" competition.