Sharks vs Hurricanes

Brett had the early game on the first day of Giants camp, the Sharks are playing a home game less than an hour away in San Jose, and there are lower bowl tickets available for under $50 each against the first place in the East Carolina Hurricanes.  Of course, that was the logical decision to make!

Sharks goalie, James Reimer, celebrates the victory.

Sharks win, 2-1 in overtime!

Great views of face-offs.

The Sharks enter the ice.

Recalling our prior trips to the Shark Tank together.

Lower bowl tickets!  Score!

Early enough to watch warmups while we eat dinner.

 

Play Time

A massive Lego Star Wars battle, a three-team X-Wing miniatures game, a Spec-Ops outdoor laser tag experience, and dressing up as the Mandalorian were fun times had this month.

Bryce sets up his Lego base.

Griffin arms his forces for battle.

Garrett and Brett's forces meet on the bar table.

X-Wing battle taking up two tables.

Griffin was one of the final survivalists in the elimination Laser Tag game.

Griffin checks out his gun as Jake (the birthday boy) laughs next to him.

Bryce listens to instructions too; he would end up teaming up with Brett on missions.

The Mandalorian visited our house.

Q'ira wonders who the new guy in the house is.

Garrett wanted a picture with the celebrity.

 

Earth Science Lab

Griffin works on the science lab simulating volcanoes.

Bryce works with his partner on doing the measurements for the experiment.

Griffin drew this Brawl Stars character for a card he was designing.

 

Soccer Season Ends

It was an interesting soccer season for all three of our boys.  Bryce had his season ended early due to his broken arm and he worried that his team would miss his encouraging words while he was gone.  Garrett's team had no goalie, so each week they would draw names out of a hat for who would play each half of the game.  One week, Garrett's name was drawn for both halves!  He played well enough to give his team a chance to win, allowing only two goals in his first full game in goal.  He ended up playing a half earlier in the season too.  He remembered why he doesn't volunteer for goalie when he took a knee to the chest on a contested ball that knocked him down and knocked the wind out of him, the offending player got a yellow card--a small consolation.  During the regular season, his team did not win a game, but tied two games.  When it came time for the end of the season tournament, his team pulled out a 2-1 victory in their second to last game!  Garrett played defense the entire season and did a great job getting in shooting lanes and sticking with the forward he was assigned to stop, which included a number of former teammates from years past.  Griffin began the season primarily as a defender playing the left side to take advantage of his being left-footed.  He actually got a few opportunities to play in goal which included the second half of a 2-1 game that they played against a team that was in third place at the time.  Griffin made some amazing diving saves and relished the action.  In the end of the season tournament, Griffin proved to be quite versatile as he played forward, scoring his first goal of the season; goalie where he mopped up a 4-1 victory; and primarily defense, where he played lockdown defense on some of the best forwards who are a head taller than him.  In the end, his team, the Money, won the championship with a breathtaking goal in the final two minutes to beat the only team they had lost to during the regular season.  This was Griffin's first championship for all of the sports teams he had played on.

Garrett in goal.

Griffin was back to playing goalie.

Garrett's team photo:  Ty, Garrett, Farad, Aiden, Christian, Coach Frank
Ezekiel, Fernando, Hana, Israel, and Chris (not pictured, joined the team late)

 

Garrett playing defense amidst the fog.

Griffin playing lockdown defense, nothing gets by him on the left side.

Watching Griffin's game from the sidelines:  Joy and Garrett.

Garrett plays defense against his former teammate, Adam.

Championship picture:   Noah, Coach Dominic, Luke, Barrett, Griffin, Rodriguez, Brian,
Oscar, Ryan, Alan, Nico, Noah, Coach Billy, David, Ethan, Elias, Alex

My first championship trophy

Taking a brother's soccer picture.

We are the champions!

Garrett steps up into traffic to intercept the ball in the box.

Garrett, as goalie, goes up high to block the shot.

Griffin playing forward, gets ready to center the ball to Rodriguez who is making his run for the goal.

All three brothers were still playing the week Grammy and Poppy came to watch.

Griffin hustles out to take on the attacker, 1:1.  He would go on to slide and block the shot.

Diving stop at the goal line by Griffin in goal.

Drop kicking the ball away from danger.

Griffin takes a shot straight on, catching it.

Griffin makes another diving stop in goal.

First Piano Recital Since COVID

Griffin and Garrett participated in the Suzuki Piano Recital at Covenant Church.  This was the first recital since the shutdown in March 2020.  Bryce was unable to participate since he had been unable to play piano for the 5 weeks leading up to the recital since his left arm was in a position not amenable to piano playing.  Griffin played a spectacular version of "Sonatina in C Major."  Garrett was the finale, performing "Bumble Boogie."  

Griffin was focused but had felt very distracted by all the other pieces played beforehand.  He wasn't sure he was going to remember his piece, but he nailed it.

Garrett played the lively version of his song and got much applause at the end.

 

Griffin's 8th Grade Service Projects

As an eighth-grader, Griffin has a service project requirement for graduation.  He selected two projects.  The first being to help World Relief on Love Modesto day, by going shopping with Brett for needed hygiene products that are typically needed by the refugees being housed by World Relief.  We then took the items to a drop off location.  The second project was a little more involved.  He rollerbladed around our neighborhood and delivered 150 grocery bags with instructions that we would stop by and pick the bags up a week later and take them to our friend's house where they were collecting the items.  Then a few days later, he went over to their house and helped load the moving truck with all the canned and non-perishable items to take them to the Gospel Mission.

The loaded moving van.

All of the participants in the food drive.

Picking up many of the bags that we had left the week before, Griffin was assisted by Bryce.

Loading up our car with all that we picked up in our neighborhood.

 

World Relief hygiene kits.

Rollerblading around and delivering bags for the Gospel Mission.