Beach Time

The last weekend in July was crazy. Saturday was Evan's birthday party, his cousin James' birthday, and the stake Pioneer Picnic. Ev's actual birthday was Sunday. Monday was my Mom's birthday and Tuesday was Uncle B's birthday. Tuesday evening we dropped off the kids at my parent's house for a couple days so Reed could play in a 6 man beach volleyball tourney. Picked up the kids Thursday evening and then Reed's parents flew in at midnight. Friday we went to Sea World. It was Reed's Mom's birthday on Saturday. Then they flew out Sunday. It was all really fun, but it was a lot! Reed and his Dad were planning on going on a ward ocean fishing trip early Saturday, but it was too much. So we've definitely been having a few recovery days here at our house.

Reed and I had a lot of fun at the volleyball tourney. Reed got to play volleyball with some of his buddies and I got to sit on the beach all day without having to chase a single kid out of the ocean! Reed played on a team made up of guys that either played at BYU or have some kind of connection to someone who did. It was fun to see some of those guys again! The team had a corporate sponsor, so we didn't have to pay for our hotel or any of our meals! It was pretty nice. 

Unfortunately, there were like 20 something guys on the team. The first day was pool play and everyone pretty much got equal playing time. So yeah, Reed split time with 3 other setters. Kind of lame. But it was really cool because they had some current and past pro beach and indoor players on the team, including 2 time Olympian Jake Gibb! It was pretty cool. Gibb and his current beach partner, Casey Patterson (who was also on the team), are currently ranked in the top 3 in the world!
Reed setting

The guy in the white hat is Phil Dalhausser, aka The Beijing Beast! We also saw Sean "Rosie" Rosenthal (who was actually in disguise the whole time) and former USC quarterback Matt Leinart (who knew he played beach volleyball on the side?!)

 Reed saying hi to Jake Gibb (in the black)

The second day was elimination day. The team had a few amazing comebacks to stay in the tourney, but ended up taking 7th. Pretty disappointing, but that just goes to show how much competition was there. They pretty much played the same 10 guys that whole day, excluding Reed. Super lame. They probably would have had a better finish if they would have let him play. Oh well.

 Maybe next year...