Weekend in Review

Busy weekend. Nate got home from Phoenix, drove through terrible weather. Dinner with friends, Steve's birthday party, church, laundry, housework, and Whitney's volleyball tournament, took first place. Aren't they cute?

The writing on the legs is in honor of their teammate, Regan who was in an accident and died Thursday night.
I actually posted about that, but I did it from my phone and it disappeared. Which means I somehow deleted it because my smart phone is smarter than I am. Anyway, Thursday night they took Regan off life support and we have had a very sad group of girls. I know the family is grieving the loss of this sweet little girl, but I write about my feelings and experiences so I understand they are going through much worse than we are. I watched 8 young teenagers deal with this loss in different ways. But at this tournament Saturday without their teammate, they showed remarkable maturity and pulled themselves together and played. They had moments of brilliance and moments where we wondered as parents if we should have let them play. There coach is the young lady standing behind them in jeans. Sweet 26 year old high school teacher. I ask her before the tournament how she was doing and she looked at me with the most horrific expression and said, "I don't know what to say to them". I didn't answer with my first thought "Neither do we, as parents". Anyway, Regan's older sister also plays volleyball and her coach brought beautiful long pink and blue hair ribbons for the girls hair, Regan's favorite colors. They tattood themselves with "we love you, Regan", "#2 you are always in our hearts", etc. *Side note* I'm going to Hobby Lobby looking for press on number 2's for their jerseys so we can put away the sharpies at the tournaments. One of the girls on the team was in Florida with school friends that don't know Regan and when she got the message and sat down and cried, her two friends sat and cried with her. Those are real friends. And at the end of the tournament when they won first place, for the first time, I looked over at Whitney sobbing, shoulders heaving (she's her mother's girl after all) and Alexx holding her while she cried.
The tournament is this week, out of town, and the memorial is Thursday afternoon. The girls above are listed in the program as honorary pallbearers. Regan was a sweet little thing. Outgoing, happy, funny, and always in the middle of what was going on. We will all miss having her around. I would appreciate prayers for Whitney and the family and friends of Regan this week.