The Big Easy
7-26-05
Good God. We're home. Exhausted, but home. We've spent the last 6 days in New Orleans and though it was quite fun, I was miserable. You see, I can't stand being sweaty. I live in Texas, where it's always hot, but nothing could be worse than the absolute sauna of New Orleans. It was only 88 degrees there, but I felt gross the entire time, so our hotel room froze everyone out when they came in. Just ask Jamie, I like my house COLD. She always asks me where I'm hiding the body. LOL I can't stand having that sticky feeling, so it's not uncommon for me to take two or three showers a day, and I NEVER, EVER got to bed without showering. Can't stand it. Ugh! So, needless to say, it was challenging.
Ok, so we roll into New Orleans about 10pm Thursday night and her first game of pool play was Friday at 9am. She's typically horrible in morning games, but she did ok even though we lost, right out of the shoot. Not a good sign. We were able to go back to the hotel after that and then she played again that afternoon and came out swinging. The coach's oldest daughter, Niqky Hughes, has verbally committed to the Univ of Texas (she'll be a sr this year at Waxahachie) but his youngest daughter is Ryan's age and they're the babies on the team. But when Jody Conrad, head basketball coach of UT comes into the gym and sits down the in the front row of the coach's section, it seems to light a fire under their butts... and we won the game. As well as the next one. That sent us into bracket play in the second spot.... meaning we had to play the winner of another pool. Again, Coach Conrad was there and again they won. Ryan actually had two really good games Saturday. I don't know if it's because Coach Conrad was there or not (along with about 20 other coaches including Texas Tech, where she's considering) but whatever it was, it was good. She had the highest shooting percentage, highest free throw percentage, most blocks, most steals, and was second in rebounding. A very good time for all those coaches to be sitting there.
Craig and I had gotten up early on Saturday and went to the Camilia Grill, 
just off Bourbon St and had a FABULOUS breakfast. I couldn't even eat half of mine, but Craig tore his up. This place, if you don't know about it, only seats about 25 people. You sit at the bar and they cook the food right behind it. Ricky, our waiter/entertainer, would have made the meal memorable even if the food had been bad (which it wasn't). We got back to the hotel with enough time to lay back down before leaving for Ryan's game. Someone stepped on her foot during the last game on Saturday so by Sunday morning she was reaaaaaaaaaaaally hurting. (She's got surgery scheduled for this Friday to remove a bone fragment that broke off the sesimoid bone in the ball of her foot, and has lodged itself in the tendon. She refused to have surgery earlier this year, wanting to wait until summer basketball was done). The site trainer taped her foot and padded it, but she was miserable. We still won all our games, and were set for the semi-final game on Monday morning.
I made Craig take me to a cemetary there and he was really confused as to WHY... until he saw it. If you're not familiar with it, cemetaries in New Orleans have crypts 
that are above ground because there is so much water moving underground that caskets can end up in places they shouldn't. We went to the Metairie Cemetary and as I walked around Craig drove the car following me, getting out ocassionally to look. But Ryan was asleep in the back seat, so he had to keep the car moving. I collect angels and was almost overwhelmed at the sheer number of them hovering over the crypts there
. This one
, found in the shade of a large tree, started my tears flowing. I'm fairly certain this was Craig's worst fear because he tried really hard to keep my in the car after that, but there were so many interesting things that I just had to keep going.
Monday morning, getting ready for the semi-final game, Ryan couldn't walk on her left foot at all. I was prepared to tell her I'd reached the point where I was no longer willing to let her have a say in it, but we would have only had 6 girls to play and that wouldn't be fair to the rest of the team, so I told the coach how she was feeling and the two of them worked it out. She started the semi-final game (as usual) and did pretty good in it for the first half. The second half wasn't too good, but they won and were scheduled to play New York Exodus for the Championship at 1. Keep in mind, this team has the #1 and #2 players in the Nation playing for their top team, so we weren't too optimistic.
The game started and we kept it pretty much tied for the first half. Ryan got to the point where she was hobbling, so I stepped in and said, "enough." She still started the game, and started again at halftime, but didn't play too much... just came in to give the other girl a breather. She still had 9 points, but we lost the game. However, in THIS tournament (Basketball on the Bayou) 2nd is pretty damn good.
Oh yeah! We were driving around and stumbled upon THIS 
guy. Craig got all excited and I couldn't figure out why. Evidently, this thing used to be at a golf course (used to be holding a golf club in his hands) and it got sold off. Supposedly, there is a website that tracks where he ends up at different places across the country. Exciting, huh? Yeah, I thought so.
We got home around midnight last night, and I was so tired I litterally fell asleep sitting up. Craig was unconscious, so Ryan came in and made me lay back. I'm glad this summer is over. It was fun, but exhausting. Because we ran all over the freakin' country this summer, the "brand new car" has 15 thousand miles on it. Guess it's not so brand new anymore. I'm just tired, and a bit disoritented. Ryan's volleyball starts Monday, so we went up to the school today to let the new coach know about her surgery. She'll be going to practice, but the doc says the first two weeks she is to stay off it. I'm putting my foot down on this. She can go, but can NOT practice.
I'm hoping the time we put into this pays off. As an 8th grader last summer, she got about 30 college letters. We've already got them rolling in again, so hopefully she's making a name for herself. As long as all this is fun for her we'll do everything we can to help her make it. If she wants to stop tomorrow, that's ok, too.
I got all the financial stuff done for Austin's college tuition. Oh, joy. I must love writing checks.
Kyra's birthday is in two days, but she won't be home until the 7th of August, so we've decided to wait and give her the presents then, instead of sending them to California. She says shes having fun, and we're really hoping the break will do her some good.
If I wasn't mortified at the state of affairs of my bedroom, I'd take a picture to show what all of our animals are doing right now. I've lifted the mini blinds above my bed so both of the cats are asleep in the window, with half of their bodies hanging off. Both of my dogs are sprawled out, one in each corner of my bed. Even though it's a king size, they are so long their back legs are still touching even though both of them are hanging their heads off the end! LOL God, they're cute.
Alright, I'm exhausted and have yet another full day of doctor appointments for the kids tomorrow. I swear I've spent $800 just this month on co payments for hospital visits, meds and doctors. Blah.