SOMEWHAT CONTROLLED CHAOS: Club Volleyball

Club Volleyball......sigh...now may not be a great time to blog about club volleyball because we are on extreme volleyball burnout at the moment! This is Ashleys second year for club volleyball so we knew what we were getting into. But man, throw two girls into the mix and it gets a little complicated at times. Brandi begged to be able to play this year too and of course we caved and allowed them both to play. Tryouts and practice started in December but the actual tournament season started in January. We had several weekends where Bob and I had to divide and conquer! The thing about club volleyball is it's not just a game or two, or a simple couple hour tournament, it's a very loooong drawn out affair. A typical tournament day starts out with us having to leave home anywhere between 5:30-6:30 in the morning. We return home anywhere between 5:30-9:00pm That means a whole days worth of food needs to be packed up for every member of the family. Tyler & Kendra have to sit in a gym for hours and hours....although to be honest they both handle it very very well! The club season lasts from January-March and consists of about 6-8 tournaments EACH. That's a lot of weekends gone! And don't get me wrong, I LOVE watching them play! It does get a little hard though when there's always so much stuff to be done at home and a very limited amount of time that Bob has to help with that. There have been a couple of times when the tournaments were a couple of hours away so we would pack up the camper and head up the night before and spend the night sleeping in the school parking lot. This coming weekend Ashley has a tournament in Leavenworth and Brandi a tournament in Burbank. Burbank is an hour east of home and Leavenworth 3 hours west! Because Ashley has to be there by 7am we will be heading up the night before and getting a hotel. Bob will stay home and bring Brandi to her tournament in Burbank. So while that's all a lot of fun, it's also all a lot of expense!! The girls are very good though about pitching in to make it happen. They knew going into this that it would be a huge sacrifice for the rest of the family when it came to both money and time so they are pitching in to help cover the costs. It is a great experience and they do have a lot of fun but I don't know how many years we would continue to do it. At some point you have to pick and choose and between school sports, jobs, homework and raising sheep for fairs it stretches things a little thin. One of the dads on Ashleys team has been great about taking pics so I have some of hers. I'll have to ask around though to see if I can get some from Brandi's team!