Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Junior Olympics '24

Driving home from the CA Bay Area, where we’ve spent the last five days with Grant at the USA Water Polo Junior Olympics with his Blue Crush club team. They went 4 and 4, which exceeded our expectations, as this was his team’s first JO tournament, and we expected to get trounced in most of the games. They did so well! They learned a ton and improved so much from day one to day four. They won a close game in a shootout, and they won their last game 15-11, after being down by four goals. Grant had a very cool backhand goal and three others in that game. I screamed and cheered so much, my voice was hoarse afterwards.

There was one rough game in the middle that wasn’t as fun, but we expected some of that. Lots of learning opportunities in those four days, and their coach did such a great job teaching and coaching them through it. The boys soaked it all in like sponges.
Grant is becoming a good water polo player! It was a joy to watch him play the sport he loves and have success with his team. Greg and I enjoyed getting to know the other families and enjoyed the time with old friends, too. Both teams—14u and 18u—stayed at the same hotel and cheered each other on when it worked with the game schedules—great community.
It was weird having just one kid with us. Felt so easy! I kept thinking we were forgetting someone. I’m thankful we were able to be there with Grant and experience it all with him. Such a fun time! We very likely have many more JO’s in our future.

Our hotel was only 20 minutes from where Jane and her family live in Livermore. The day we arrived, we were able to meet up with them for ice cream at Meadowlark Dairy and visited in a park across the street while we enjoyed our soft serve. It was great to see them and so kind of them to drive over for us.










































































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