Playoff fever hits the Kroeker house!

It's playoff time! Oilers are still in it, about to play Game 4 and HOPEFULLY go up 3-1 on the Kings in the series, but only time will tell if that actually happens. Such a rollercoaster ride - so exciting to win, sooo disappointing to lose. I'm always a bit jealous of people that don't care because they don't have to worry about these ups and downs, but then I think about all the fun they are missing as well:-D. Go Oilers!

Okay, the Reno weekend! It actually went relatively well considering the circumstances. A real bummer that Lynsey wasn't there, but it was a bit easier for me in a way because I was able to mentally just completely turn off what plans were being made for the girls while we weren't playing. Not an efficient setup? Who cares, does not affect me. I knew she was home, healing her ankle and working on homework. Our team lost as I thought we would. We did play 17 Blue, the eastside version of our team that we have played many times, and got really close in one set. We actually won a set on the last day, but sadly fell apart after that one and lost sets 2 and 3. I got the 5:25pm flight out on Monday and was happy to be home - I survived the weekend! There wasn't a lot of drama with the head coach, other than the last day where I said to her totally not sarcastically but just happily, "Yay we won a set!" after we won our first set in several weeks. She snapped at me that the girls wouldn't hear that very well, totally stunning me. I didn't say it to the girls, and they wouldn't have heard me, but I don't think that it would be a problem even if they did. The interaction didn't improve as I said, "well they don't listen to me anyway" and she snaps back, "that's why they don't listen". That statement doesn't even make sense, either they listen to me or they don't. I am so tired of her criticizing everything I do. I literally cannot do anything right. I am just trying to survive until the end of the season, I never imagined it would go this way. I was so looking forward to this season at the start. One. More. Month.

We had another power league tournament the following Saturday, and Lynsey's ankle was much better so she played a bit. She wasn't at 100% but she played pretty well considering. Wish she could have played more but I understood the decision not to push things too far. We ended up winning the last two matches of the day which was really nice for morale. I mean they were teams we definitely should beat, but we have lost to teams we should beat before so it was still a victory. Lynsey's ankle has been improving every day and she's pretty close to 100% by now. We have our Regionals tournament this weekend and I'm hoping we can put up a decent showing!

Life at home has just been plugging along, Brian continues to pick away at some home projects and we have been watching a lot of hockey of course. Today we went to church in Bellevue and headed over to the mall afterwards for a bit which was fun. It's nice that our family is at this stage, we can do these spontaneous outings and the kids love it. Adam likes getting out so we really should try and do it more often.

There was a bit of drama yesterday as Lynsey got her first speeding ticket:-(. It was a spot where the speed limit changed from 45 to 25 and she didn't notice. It's her responsibility to notice and pay attention to her surroundings (we told her if there are houses, slow down to 25) but it was an understandable mistake. She was pretty upset and I feel like she understands the gravity of getting a speeding ticket so we tried not to come down too hard on her. I will call the insurance company tomorrow and see what the rate increase will be, I think we might get one of those speed monitors for the Civic to help mitigate the increase in premium this ticket will trigger. It feels like a decent natural consequence for her to now have some additional accountability, this time all that happened was a speeding ticket but next time she speeds she could hurt someone in an accident. If she gets one more ticket before she turns 18 she will lose her license for 6 months. There's another natural consequence that will be hanging over her head! Tough situation, never fun to get a ticket. Thankfully the cop was relatively compassionate to her and knocked the ticket down a bit for her as well.

 

Fun times in Calgary, celebrating 20 years together!

We are back from our trip to Calgary! It was a great long weekend with lots of family and friends. Steve and Andrea came as well so it was the first time since Christmas of 2021 that the Kroeker family had all been together. There was so swimming, lots of games, walks, some shopping and even snowman building thanks to a lovely Spring snow Calgary received right before we got there. Unfortunately, it wasn't a totally smooth weekend for Steve and Andrea, who had been sick leading up to the weekend and still had some lingering effects. On Sunday, Norah started feeling feverish and spent most of the day resting. They were scheduled to leave first thing Monday morning, and as they were getting ready to go to the airport, she threw up - and there was blood:-(. So, they had to change their flights to the next day and take her to Urgent Care. Thankfully it wasn't anything serious, apparently it is fairly common to have blood in vomit when you have a cold (who knew!). I had already made plans with Larissa to go for a walk, and then see Bobbi for lunch so I did that - great catching up with them! 

We went to Three Hills in the afternoon and visited with Dave (Mary was in Ireland) and then went over to Gert's house where she had made a delicious supper for everyone. Had a great evening visiting with a small contingent of my family! Jana brought her daughter Ruby over, who we hadn't met yet - Nathan was quite fascinated by her. Tuesday, I did some laundry and some shopping for some Canadian items to take home, and then Brian and I were off to Banff to celebrate our anniversary! Our room was lovely with a gorgeous mountain view, and we had a fantastic dinner in town at The Bison. The Bison tomahawk was to die for! In the morning we had a great breakfast at the Primrose right in the Rimrock where we were staying, and then we headed back to Calgary. Such a nice getaway! Great way to celebrate 20 years together. 

We came back Wednesday night, and I spent yesterday getting ready to go on our trip to Reno for volleyball. Lynsey and I went to a volleyball open gym at the Redmond Mormon church, which was fun, until Lynsey rolled her ankle:-(. Such a bummer! The last 20 hours or so have been quite the frantic re-imagining of this weekend, having to wait to see how her ankle would be when she woke up, if she would be able to play this weekend. We figured out it was highly unlikely she would be able to play this weekend, it was just too fresh of an injury. Thankfully, it doesn't look like it's too serious and will hopefully heal quickly, but we made the difficult decision to keep her at home this weekend so she can rest and heal up. We have another tournament coming up next Saturday that we are hoping she will be able to play in. Thankfully Alaska Airlines has been great with all the changes, first I had to change our flight there to be this evening instead of this morning (I did this last night when we weren't sure yet if Lynsey would be able to go) and then I had to cancel Lynsey's flight altogether and I moved my departure flight on Monday to be earlier. Turns out the last game of the tournament is being played at 1pm, and I didn't want to wait around Reno by myself until 8:20 when our original flight left. 

So, definitely disappointing and not how we wanted this weekend to go, but I am choosing to try and make the most of what it is. I will be wearing just my coach hat this weekend, and I'm going to try and focus on learning more about coaching and how I can do that better, now that I will have no parenting duties at all. Honestly, I think it will probably mean less friction for me and Heidi and will probably be a good thing. I'm obviously bummed that I won't get to watch Lynsey play, but like I said, I can have an unconflicted view of just coaching the team with no potential bias. 

 

Volleyball weekend in Spokane, off to Calgary!

So we survived the weekend in Spokane! Sometimes you come back from somewhere you were dreading going, and it turns out you were worried for nothing. This was absolutely not the case for us. I was nervous about going, and it was about as bad as I thought it would be. We got there Thursday evening, good drive with no issues. I definitely prefer the drive to eastern Washington to driving south through Tacoma, Olympia and Portland. So much prettier, higher speed limit, less traffic, all good things (as long as there are no issues through Snoqualmie Pass which there were not thankfully). Friday morning, we got to the gym nice and early (earlier than I would have but I don't make the decisions) and we played two games that day, both were three sets to 25 because we were in a three team pool. It was a blood bath. That first team we played, in our first set, the only points we got were when they missed a serve (which happened 4 times so we lost 25-4). We did get a few of our own points in the second and third sets, but it was just ugly. Hard to really know how to encourage the team when you get blown out like that, they were just out of our league. The second game was a bit better, I think we got into the double digits points wise in all three sets which was good. Tough day for sure. That evening we had a team dinner at the hotel and turned in pretty early. 

Saturday we had a bit of a better day volleyball-wise, played some teams that were better than us, but not so outrageously better that we could not make any of our own points. Still lost all three games we played 2-0. That evening there was axe throwing planned for the girls so I went to that. On Sunday, we weren't scheduled to play until 1pm so we had some time in the morning to have breakfast and get checked out. We played two games and once again, did not win a single set. Definitely had a chance at both of those teams, though. For some reason, we just couldn't finish but we got very close. At least it was nice for the girls to make a game of it. 

I am still so frustrated that we were playing in this division. There is a whole other division below Liberty where we played (and unfortunately will play again in Reno next weekend, ugh). There is absolutely no question that the lowest division (American) is where we belong. We were dead last in Liberty and did not win a single set. I'm trying to stay positive but I am really struggling this year. Coaching has been so hard, and for completely different reasons than last year. Last year wasn't perfect by any means, but I felt some ownership of the team and that they had some respect for me as a coach. Not so this year. The head coach holds onto the team pretty tightly and it's been extremely challenging. I knew it would be tough to break in because she has been alone for so long without an assistant, but I don't think I could have guessed it would be this bad. I know I am still learning and have made a ton of mistakes, but it's her lack of self awareness for how she might be contributing to some of the issues that is making this even harder to navigate. It's not a two way street whatsoever. And she is very controlling on travel tournaments. Lynsey had a ton of homework because she missed a day of school for this tournament, but she was not allowed to stay back at the hotel Friday afternoon and do homework because the rest of the team wanted to go to the mall. They had already done swimming together as a team and were going to be eating together as a team for dinner, but this mall trip could not be missed. Not even for homework that she had due to a day of school missed for this tournament. I cannot tell you how much I had to bite my tongue on that one (and I still said a lot, but I kept it much more civil than I wanted to, believe me!). It is her way or the highway, get on board, team and parents. And any input from me that tries to solve a problem or make something more efficient is not welcome. I called the hotel the week before we went to see if they could open breakfast a bit early because we wanted to be in cars on the way to the venue by 6:30 when the breakfast opened. They were accommodating and agreed to open at 6:15 which I thought was pretty nice of them. I told her that they would do this, but apparently because she was not in control of this operation she didn't trust it and had the parent chaperone go out and buy bagels, cream cheese and fruit just in case they weren't open. Surprise surprise, the morning rolls around and they were open just as they said they would be, so the parent spent the money for nothing (unless she put the cost into the group dinner which she might have done, but in any case the coach wasn't the one footing the bill for her own paranoia). I know I am not handling all these things that come up perfectly, but it's never a conversation when something comes up - it's just her putting me in my place.

Anyway, I don't need to vent about this any more but it has been very difficult to say the least. One more travel tournament, I can make it! I am going to do my level best to just keep my mouth shut and go with the flow. I will do only what I am asked to do and take no initiative whatsoever. I know that sounds insane and like it's a betrayal to myself which it 100% is, but we are now 4 months in and I have finally caught the hint that this is what my role is on this team. I will learn as much as I can about coaching and things I do and do not want to do when I get my own team, and continue to be there for Lynsey. It makes me sad that it's come to this because I was excited about this year, but that's life sometimes. 

Before the dreaded trip to Reno, we get a family trip to Calgary this weekend! We are flying out tomorrow afternoon and staying until Wednesday. I'm looking forward to being back in Alberta and seeing some family and friends!