It's Fall, It's Time for...Volleyball?

S. and R. are ready to receive the serve...

For the first time in many years, our family is not playing soccer or football this fall.  Instead, we're playing volleyball.  I'm not sure why I'm so surprised by that.  But volleyball is not typically the sport I think of when the leaves start to turn colors and the days start to shorten.

Love you, Nueve!

My sister was an incredible college volleyball player and I'll never forget the year that I got to travel all over the country to see her team play.  Her team had an incredible, magical season.  I was there when the season started in Iowa and I saw her team play that season in such "exotic" locales as Washington state, New Mexico, Las Vegas, Utah, and California.  I always brought the team fresh Sprinkles cupcakes for every match and I'd like to think that that was a fun tradition for my sister and the team that year.

So I was supportive when I heard that S. and R. wanted to play volleyball this fall.  I had little idea of how "supportive" I'd actually have to be, however.  Neither one had a coach for their team, so I got "volunteered."

The only problem is that I don't really have any qualifications for coaching volleyball.  I never played on a real volleyball team as a kid (I don't count church volleyball).  My only claim to fame is that I've watched dozens, if not hundreds, of my sisters' volleyball games over the years, so maybe I manged to pick up something of the claim through the process of osmosis.

Our first practice was last Saturday.  As you can see, our practices our outside.  There is essentially no shade.  The practice was an hour and a half long and the mercury hit over 100 degrees!  Yikes!

This week was a little better.  It was only in the low 80s temperature wise, but we had another marathon practice session of 1.5 hours.  I'm looking forward to next Saturday when the practice will only be an hour!

My main duty as the coach seems to be shagging a lot of errant volleyballs.  That's okay, because I can do that.  I also get to cheer for and encourage the kids quite a bit.  Luckily, they are pretty good.  Heaven help them if they had to rely solely on me

Maybe the best part was that after practice, the boys and I got to hit up McDonald's for a beverage and make a trip to Costco for some food and treats.

R. took the pic and his photography skills are getting really good!

I hope everyone had a great Saturday!