Southwestern Hoop Fest

After 2 days of class - Ryan and I headed to Keene, TX with the basketball teams for the yearly basketball tournament with academies from across the US. We barely knew any names to begin with - I think I know them all now. I now have a much greater respect for the academy faculty that supervised trips when I was in academy! Teenagers have a lot of energy. It's a lot of work and there are never any breaks!

Here are a few shots from the long weekend. It was interesting trying to get good shots in gym lighting! You'll get to see the gyms of the SDA schools we saw in the area too!

First game against GAAA at Chisholm Trail Academy

SWAU gym - first guys game against GAAA
The SWAU gym has nice elevated seating which is great for pictures - I sat on the stairs in the bottom left of this picture to take shots a lot.
Folks in this area pronounce SWAU like a word (SWA-oo) which seemed different to me - no more S-A-U :-(

Jeremy looking to pass

The other great thing about this trip was seeing people from all over the country that we knew!

Guess who's shooting this freethrow: Patrick O'Brien, Hollie's cousin
We also saw Chadd Moffit (former boy's dean at MPA), some people from Bass, Ryan's cooperating teachers from FLA and their team, and lots of people from Collegedale that reminded us of home.

Here's our girls taking on CAYA from Collegedale with Matt Nafie - they beat us soundly.
It was always fun to watch CAYA's cheering section as they were quite boisterous and we knew most of them. This game was in Burton Academy's gym.

Sam goes for 3 at Burton

Most of our cheering section - other parents filtered in and out over the weekend

Raquel goes up against a particularly agressive player from CTA - Chisholm Trail

Back at SWAU - you can see the elevated seating in this picture.

The tournament ended at 1 AM Saturday night. We intently watched the big school girls and guys finals between CAYA girls and Spring Valley girls, and FLA guys and GAAA guys. FLA and SVA won. Ryan was cheering so loud for his guys from FLA that he lost his voice. That game was especially fast and they looked like their legs were spring loaded!

Now we're back at home - Ryan's in the throws of teaching and I'm waiting to start my new job in the local ER. We had a big ice storm yesterday - hope ya'll out east survive it cause its coming your way!