August 2026

August was the start of school and everything that comes with it, which includes our final year at CKS and a sport just about every evening for both girls. 

 

            Sarah started her final year at CKS and her class decided to greet all of the other students on the first day with signs and cheering them as they walked into the gym.  A few parents organized a pool party to let the kids get together and reacquainted before the year started.  As of the end of August, Sarah is involved in 4 sports.  Her kickball regular season ended last week and they went 4-2 which qualifies them for the playoffs.  In all my years at CKS, we haven’t ever had a successful kickball season, so this has been fun.  She continues to play basketball with the Jr. Trojans and they have had games for the last 3 weekends.  Her softball team has started back up and they have had a few practices and are playing games already on Sundays along with a few tournaments scheduled this fall.  Finally, her volleyball team has had one practice and she is looking forward to that season which has games start in late September. 

 

            Allison made the JV volleyball team and was voted a captain.  She also was asked to lead the JV & Freshman teams in cheers during the varsity games.  She is doing a good job being a leader on the basketball and volleyball teams to the incoming freshman.  Their JV season is off to a decent start and the volleyball is a lot more fun to watch than last year.  For the first day of school for the freshman, Allison was there at 7AM bright and early to welcome them with signs and cheers.  I think she lost her voice with some of the incoming CKS kids along with the volleyball and basketball freshman. 

 

Sarah’s Things of the Month

            Sarah’s year is off to a good start…but she is probably over-scheduled.  The good news is that this is the final year of being able to play so many different things with high school starting next year. 

 

Allison’s Thing of the Month

             Allison is doing well with her school work and balancing it with the volleyball schedule.  Her social calendar can be spontaneous but she is able to find a ride most of the time so it isn’t like we are always being asked to drive her somewhere. 

 

A few more items from this month:

• I participated in a half-Hyrox doubles event with Jeremy in Carmel.  It was pretty challenging and we survived and then went and had a few beers to celebrate being some of the oldest people there. 
• Allison and I went downtown to a CAAMP concert the last week of the month. 

July 2036

July had us traveling to Bluefield, WV and St. Joseph, MI for our summer family reunions.  We also had plenty of things going on including the girls’ activities and a few fun things nearby. 

 

We left on Thursday the 16th for Bluefield and arrived around 3PM.  After hanging out for a few hours we went to the baseball field to enjoy the evening.  After the game, we went back to Chuck & Heather’s to have a few beers before heading to our hotel.  Sarah stayed in their RV with Nana, Julie, Olivia and Ava.  The next morning, the girls and I went off-roading with a larger group while Deb had coffee with Barbs and Wiz and then lunch with George.  After we had our check-in, we rode the vehicles to Bramwell and had breakfast before hitting the trails.  After riding for about 3 hours, we went back to Bramwell for lunch before heading back.  We cleaned up, had dinner at Chucks and left on Saturday at 8AM to get back to town.  We left early as Sarah needed to be back for CYO camp. 

 

            The next weekend, Allison and I went up to Michigan on the 23rd to meet up with everyone at the hotel for Beachmo.  We had dinner at Coach’s and played some euchre.  The next day, we went to Jean Klock beach and enjoyed some volleyball in and out of the water.  Debbie got to spend her birthday driving to CYO camp and then up to Michigan, so I made sure to have a Spotted Cow ready for her. It was also Matt’s birthday, so we had a cake ready to celebrate.  The next day, we went to Warren Dunes, ordered pizza and played some more cards. This was our 36th year in a row with this tradition and it is a highlight every summer. 

 

            During the last week of July, I took a few days off to do a few fun things with the girls.  We drove up to West Lafayette to see Purdue’s campus.  We stopped for breakfast, parked at the fraternity and walked the entire campus.  We saw all the highlights and took a tour to see a dorm room in Owen, where me and my sisters all stayed our freshman year.  We then walked through the CoRec, circled back around Purdue West, came up Waldren to Ross-Ade, then had lunch and grabbed a drink at the Discount Den.  The highlight of the trip was our tour of Mackey Arena, where we were able to walk on the court and into the locker rooms.  The next day, we went up north to Skylake Adventures, which was a new park that opened this year that has an inflatable obstacle course and water slides.  We had fun the first 2 hours, but once it got really busy, we decided to head home.  I had both of those things on my list of things to do with the girls and both had great weather and they seemed to enjoy. 

 

Sarah’s Things of the Month

            Sarah’s softball team had one more tournament in July before taking a break until the fall.  She has enjoyed this group of girls and is looking forward to next year.  She has continued her work at Genesis along with having some individual workouts with some college girls that went to Chatard.  She has started some kickball practices, but that season will pickup in August.  She was very excited for CYO camp and had a great time.  She hasn’t decided if she will be going next year or not, as the summer before freshman year is very busy, as she saw last year with Allison.  

 

Allison’s Thing of the Month

             Allison continued her summer workouts for basketball and volleyball.  She passed drivers ed and is doing pretty good at driving around town.  The basketball team had a fun “day at the lake” where they went tubing and Allison got thrown off so badly that she bit her tongue and was talking funny for a few days. 

 

A few more items from this month:

• I was able to get a suite for the Indians game again this year.  We had a different crew this year, but we had a great time and Allison caught a foul ball. 
• I played my annual round of golf with the dads from church this year.  We played at the Fort and I was teamed up with Sechrist, Wenc & Persic. 
• Debbie found out she has cataracts and scheduled the surgeries for mid-September.