We have returned!

The cruise was beyond Fabulous!

A short recap

I rode a horse. I don't like horses.
Michael disengaged from his Blackberry. Without the need for surgery or an anesthetic!
Ian ate everything from carpaccio to escargot (This is a big deal. The kid is NOT an adventurous eater)
Connor,the clingon baby, climbed all the way to the top of a ceremonial Mayan temple (those suckers are REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLY) high up!

the dark side

of high school sports in the private school arena (as overheard at the State Championship by DH)

This is just a random sampling and it breaks my heart and makes me want to vomit.

And pisses me off beyond measure.

"All five of their starters are colored."
Yes they used the word colored. Who the hell uses that term now days?

"The whole damn school is white but those five"
Uh yeah let me hand you our student directory. We have students from South Korea to Guatemala.

"That's nothing but recruiting pure and simple. No way those kids are going to graduate"
Oh they will graduate all right. And they will go on to college and excel. Because they have the support of peers and parents and faculty that KNOW them by name.

I could get all angry and righteous and in your face about the absurdity of this crap

But I won't, because I know this school and these kids and these teachers and coaches.

Seeing in black and white is a burden of the lower animal kingdoms

Humans are gifted with the ability to see a much wider range of light (ie color) in the spectrum

And it's just a damn shame when humans don't use the gifts given to them.

The Mighty Mustangs

are victorious!
Rolling to a 66 to 40 win on Saturday
They are the GISA state champions!
Which is just more affirmation of the honor bestowed on their coach who was named coach of the year for the GISA a month BEFORE they won the state title.
DH and I sucked it up and rode the fan bus with the kids both ways, two days for a total of 12 hours
Arriving back at the school at 1:30AM each night
And I wouldn't change a thing!

There are certain things that have stuck with me

The noise was deafening.
Our cheerleaders have either come up with or are on the edge of a new way to fire up the crowd with their megaphones because let's just say they are WAY more effective for beating out a tatoo on the metal bleachers than trying to yell through.

The family
Parents dancing with kids in the aisles pregame
The leading scorer catching his younger brother in a big bear hug and swinging him in the air after the win

I snapped lots of pics and three of them ended up on the school's homepage slideshow
I hope my kids look back on this day further on down the road and see it for all that it was and al that it can be.

I'm linking the school's website so you can see what I mean. My pixs are the last three in the slideshow.

Enjoy the show!

http://www.mvpschool.com/default.asp