Happy 15th Birthday Julia!

Happy Birthday to our favorite daughter!  We love you Julia Rose!

She is getting her ears double pierced for her birthday

and she'll get her learner's permit so she can do her driving for driver's ed which will be followed by her school permit to help out this summer and next year!

State Wrestling- High School

Thomas was super excited to make it to state again as a senior!  Unfortunately I seem to have deleted all my pictures of him wrestling there.  I was transferring pictures from my phone and thought they were on the computer but they aren't.  And they aren't in the recycle bin (although camp pictures from 2016 are...why those and not the ones I deleted yesterday?!) and they aren't in the recently deleted on my phone. Jeremy didn't take many since I was taking lots.  I'm sorry Thomas.

Here's the qualifiers ready to go.

Raleen had a couple she sent me!

Thomas won his first match at State and then lost his next two.  He was disappointed not to make it further in the tournament but still enjoyed being there.  Especially because the team was Runner Up for Class C!  We had 7 guys go to state and 5 medaled.  It was really great to watch.  We came in 2nd (over the third place team) by one point.  Thomas earned two team points from his first round win.  Once again every wrestler, every win counts! 

I managed not to delete the team pictures.

The seniors.  Adam, Max, Cade, Thomas, Aaron.

With Coach Thompson, who I think was the push Thomas needed last year and this year to make it to state!

We were the last team on the floor after awards.  Security was shepherding us out.  But it was so great to celebrate an amazing season, the five seniors' great year and to soak it all in.  So many years went into this victory and I'm so proud of Thomas for his part in it!

Congratulations on all the accomplishments you made in your wrestling career, Thomas!  It wasn't always easy and there were some hard years but you keep going, worked hard and ended on an incredible note!

District Wrestling- High School

Districts are always intense but after last year (when one teammate got medically disqualified, one got a concussion, Thomas wrestled a guy with the stomach flu who literally puked in the trash can in the middle of their match and Samuel wrestled a guy who had was just back from a serious injury) this year seemed much less stressful!

Neumann had an amazing showing at districts.  We took 8 guys and 7 of them qualified for state, including Thomas and all four of the other seniors!  Thomas took 3rd place after losing one match.  It was so fun to see all the hard work the boys put in over the years and especially this season pay off.  With 7 qualifiers we took runner up at districts!  There was no way we were going to be able to beat Battle Creek's full roster for first.

Thomas had a good cheering section.  Sam came too but only on Saturday and this is Friday.

Father was right up close and got this awesome picture of the match Thomas won to get to State.  Last year's picture of him from Districts will always be my favorite though.

3rd place!

Runners up!

I don't seem to have a qualifiers picture from that day but since one of our freshmen stayed home sick and one of our sophomores decided not to wrestle at districts, it was all but one of these kids.  That kid wrestled his heart out during the meet though and did win one match.  That earns 3 team points.  Guess how much we won runner up by?  2 points.  Every wrestler, every win, counts.

Here are the qualifiers later in the week at the pep rally.  Thomas, Adam, Aaron, Max, Landon, Cade and Trent. 5 seniors, 1 junior, 1 freshman.

There was extra stuff going on Friday as well.  Unbeknownst to us, since Philip was with us at districts, he was missing a terrible day of 7th grade wrestling practice that ended up with their coach fired the following week.  I am so grateful the wasn't in class.  On the other hand, the great news of the day was my friend Jenny got engaged!!!!!   She texted right as we were leaving for the meet.  Jeremy did not really appreciate that I stopped everything to celebrate or that I brought it up as much as I could for the rest of the day.  But it's soooooo exciting!

The Overlap

We are solidly in the overlap of wrestling.  Thomas and high school started in November, then Nicholas and Cavalry club wrestling start practicing in December but don't compete until January.  And this year we have Philip wrestling Cavalry and junior high for Neumann as well.  That started up last week.  All I've done this month is teach, make dinner and watch wrestling.  At least it feels that way.

The high schoolers have been cleaning up earning several runner up trophies at their tournaments, including coming in 2nd at Conference.  It's especially impressive because we have four open weight brackets.  Thomas has continued to medal at every meet and has wrestled in the championship match twice.  No 1st places yet but he's super happy with 2nd!  We also won our duel with Public which is noteworthy because we've only won one other year in my memory.  Districts are next week and then state!

Philip has had some tough opponents because they match up the boys not only by weight but also experience and he's one of the more experienced 7th graders.  There's lots of boys who try out wrestling for the first time in 7th grade because practice is during PE and there's only a handful of meets.  Oops, that's Thomas on the top right.  You can tell because of the yellow head gear.  Not fixing it right now.

Coach Welsch showed up at at home meet and stepped in to coach the student managers because he knows them.  Philip helped him out.  :)  The high school boys came to that meet too and I loved how they cheered and coached their student managers.  Wrestling at Neumann has always been great that way, the older more experienced boys helping out the younger ones.

Nick's had a good start too.  Lots of pins and some tough matches.  He's been pretty happy so far.

Nick got a haircut after this meet!

Win or learn, everyone's improving as we go!