This past weekend, Emily and I made it into Boise very early on a Saturday morning to watch Payton & Presley's extra-curricular activities: basketball and cheerleading.
They play/cheer for "Upward", it is a part of the Idaho Sports Foundation. It's Christian based, the teams line up at half-court prior to the start of the game (which doesn't start with a tip-off, I've seen them start by picking a number and whoever gets closest to the ref's number wins, and of course with the classic rock, paper, scissors) for a prayer. At half-time of each game, someone also shares their personal testimony. It is a very positive experience for all the participants! Something else I really like about the organization is that there is an award ceremony after each game and each person is awarded a star (with snack time, as well, because you can't play youth sports without a great snack afterwards!) For Payton, they get ironed on her jersey's undershirt, and they go on Presley's megaphone. In basketball, you could get a star for best offense, defense, sportsmanship, etc... In basketball, best spirit, knowing the cheers the best, etc...And for both there are "Christ-like" starts.
The morning started at Payton's basketball game at 9am! Marcel and I had been to her game 2 weeks ago and it was so awesome to see how much she had improved in that short amount of time. She had 4 rebounds, and went 2-3 in shooting! Also, this is her first time in the sport. Marcel is currently in a Human Development class so he is documenting her athleticism, among other things, so we've been videoing (is that a word?) everything. Too bad for us we only have the recorder on my digital camera, so the quality isn't great and there isn't a way to zoom in.
In case you can't tell who we were watching...she's the tall one with glasses!
And don't mind all the commentary; we were having conversation through the whole game, knowing Marcel would be able to mute it for his presentation.
After the basketball game (I don't know how many they have had, but the season is almost over and they've only lost their first game), we headed home for a quick bite and for an uniform change. Presley had to start cheering for a little boy's game at 12pm. She is a very good cheerleader and seems to have a lot of fun with it. She was very excited to do the dance (in the video below) because only 1 of her coaches has been working with them on it and because she too is currently a cheerleader she's had competitions and hasn't been able to be at all the Upward games.
There are only 3 girls in the screen, but many more cheerleaders on the squad. We like the one in the middle!
In the spring, they are both going to be playing softball, something I'm really excited to watch! Maybe Emily and I will go help them practice, as it too is something they've never tried before.
No comments:
Post a Comment