Volleyballs And Girl Scout Cookies...That Was Our February

Oh my goodness, it has been a long time since I've blogged! This last month and a half has been packed full of kids' activities, sports, races, personal injuries, and unexpected out-of-state trips. In order to get all caught up before March slips away, I've got to crank out a few blog posts, hopefully tackling everything in a somewhat coherent fashion.

I will start out my catching-up with the girls' extracurricular activities, since they were both new experiences for our family. They also filled up most of our January and February. I am referring to two things:

Volleyball...

...and Girl Scout cookies! Celeste, of course, was involved in both of these things, so this has been a very busy couple of months for our darling middle child.

Let's talk volleyball first (and observe how adorable both girls look in their uniforms!). Way back in November, we had a friend send out an announcement on Facebook, seeing if any seven- to nine-year-old girls were interested in forming a volleyball team in Sahuarita. That announcement caught my eye for a couple of reasons. One, I have started playing a little volleyball in my spare time, and while I am no expert, I have been reminded of what a fun, social sport it is to play. Secondly, I thought that since the girls would both be on the same team, we would be able to send them both to practices without messing up our current schedule too badly. And last but not least, Lorelai (our "sporty" girl) is always interested in learning how to play new sports, and Celeste has never been in any organized sport! So we decided to sign up both our older girls, and see how they liked things.

There were eight girls on the team, only one of which had played volleyball before. There was a steep learning curve, and a fair amount of frustration and complaining from both girls in the early going. Lorelai (who is quietly a very competitive person) got particularly frustrated in the early going when her serves weren't working out. Celeste, as befits her more easy-going nature, was more relaxed about her (lack of) skill, but she was the youngest girl on the team by more than a year, and she was clearly physically way behind everyone else!

All the girls on the team (they named themselves the Phoenix Flyers) were excited and enthusiastic about playing. However, all the girls came from families who were very busy and had a lot of other activities being coordinated at the same time. There was a lot of schedule juggling involved for our family (for example, much of the time, Lorelai could only make one of the two weekly practices due to band practice). Games were held every Saturday for eight weeks straight, and all the games were far away in either north Tucson or Vail. Lately, our Saturdays have involved lots of driving. Since there aren't a lot of indoor volleyball facilities in Sahuarita, the girls had to hold most of their practices at a beach volleyball court in a nearby park. They often got so distracted drawing in the sand they forgot to listen to their coach! Coach Aubrey was herself a busy mom of three young boys, and she had many family crises arrive that took her away from practices or games (when she couldn't make it, another team mom, Heather, graciously took over and also did a wonderful job).

In light of everything, it's a minor miracle that the season turned out as well as it did. Did the girls' team win a lot of games? In a word...no. In fact, the first week or two of games were fairly one-sided defeats, with our girls often looking a bit lost or nervous. However, as the weeks went on, we saw steady improvement in both the girls as individual players, and as a team. In the end, Lorelai didn't ace one hundred percent of her serves, but she managed to reliably get them over the net. In fact, she also managed to return a few serves for points over the course of the season!

Probably my favorite moment of the season occurred in a game near the season's halfway point. Celeste, bless her heart, had still never managed to get the ball over the net for a single serve. She tried over and over and over again, and always the ball would fly off listlessly to the side, or else hit the net and bounce right back to her. And then the team found themselves in one of their closest games to date; they had traded the lead back and forth throughout, and now found themselves facing game point for the other team. If the Flyers blew their serve, then the other team would automatically win. And as luck(?) would have it, it was Celeste's turn to serve.

Nathan and I (and many of the other team parents) often remarked on how tiny and vulnerable Celeste looked out on the court every time she stepped up to play. Standing there, preparing to serve that day, she looked very small indeed, and she probably felt very nervous as well. However, Coach Aubrey whispered some encouraging words to her, insisting that she could get that ball over the net. It was a brave prediction, considering Celeste hadn't gotten it over once yet, not even in practice! However, she had two tries, per the rules. Her first try, the ball bounced into the net and back towards her.

But on her second try, Celeste lined herself up carefully, took her time, concentrated really hard...and got the ball over the net! Which the other team promptly returned, and our team missed. Game over; the opposing team won. But you'd never know it from the reactions of the Flyers, Coach Aubrey, and all the parents. The girls were jumping, screaming, and dancing. Everyone crowded around Celeste, high-fiving her and giving her hugs. I think they even tried to lift her onto their shoulders at one point! It was such a great moment that made me so proud; I loved that the girls focused not on the final score of the game, but on the achievement of one of their teammates. It was nice to see everyone's hearts in the right place.

Go Phoenix Flyers!

 

The girls may not have won that day, but they did end up winning a handful of games throughout the season. In addition, their games became increasingly more competitive over time; even when the Flyers weren't winning, they were hanging tough with teams that often had more players, more experience, and more professional equipment (besides their shirts, our team didn't have any "official" shorts, knee-pads, or shoes. One mom tried to make cute headbands for the girls, but none of them really wore them much!). In the end, all the girls had fun, got along well, and improved throughout the season. It's hard to ask for more than that! Lorelai and Celeste both seemed interested in playing volleyball again next winter; we will see if the schedule allows, but this was a very positive experience for all of us, so maybe we can make it happen!

The other "first-time" activity for Celeste (and our family!) this winter was selling Girl Scout cookies. When Celeste joined a Girl Scout troop last summer, we knew we'd be expected to sell cookies, but we were always a little afraid to do so. My whole life, I have never been good at selling anything. Whenever our school had a fundraiser, I'd always go to maybe two doors and then give up! I had trouble with the door-to-door aspect of missionary work as well; I wasn't even that good at "selling" the gospel, which I love! Nathan felt the same way, as he has also had very little sales experience in his life. But we vowed to suck it up for Celeste's sake, and be supportive of her sales efforts. We would do our best to give her good advice and suggestions, and of course help her manage the money too.

As it turned out, Celeste's troop leader Carolina was right; Girl Scout cookies sell themselves! Even though they're kind of overpriced (seriously, Keebler has a few "imitation Girl Scout cookie" varieties that taste good and cost half as much), the Girl Scout cookies have an almost cult-like following. It's sort of Pavlovian; all you have to do is mention you have boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas, and Tagalongs in your house, and people's mouths start watering and they reach for their wallets. When our troop initially told us we should try to sell around 50 boxes, I broke into a cold sweat. Yet we managed to sell 50 boxes in just over a week, without a whole lot of effort. By the time cookie sales concluded (in the last week of February), Celeste had sold 126 boxes!

We received our cookies on Saturday, January 17th, and immediately got selling. Celeste did a little door-to-door work, but we had more success broadcasting our wares online, and then delivering them by car. It was fun for Celeste to pull around a wagon full of cookies for an afternoon, though.

Grandma Barrett also purchased a few boxes for herself and her friends; however, we didn't make as many sales in Green Valley as we'd hoped. Apparently, those retirees can't handle that much sugar! However, we did have a lot of success when we brought a box of cookies to the girl's volleyball games. After the game was over, we'd stand up and loudly ask if anyone wanted cookies. It worked every time! Hooray; we were able to multi-task and blend our extracurricular activities seamlessly!

Of course, our family contributed to the cookie sales total as well. Normally, we only buy one or two boxes of cookies, but since we were selling this year, we decided to splurge and try out every variety of cookie available..."to better pitch them to our customers," we rationalized as we stuffed our faces. In the process, I discovered to my surprise that I actually loved the Trefoil cookies (the shortbread variety). I'd never tried them before, but I couldn't stop eating them. They tasted fantastic dipped in hot cocoa! I was more hesitant to try the gluten-free Toffee-Tastic cookies, but those were quite delicious as well (and also good with hot cocoa). But at the end of the day, I will always be a Thin Mint devotee. There's an unopened box sitting in our freezer, waiting for that day when I can no longer control myself.

Besides doing personal sales, Celeste was required to work at least one of the troop's cookie booths, which occurred almost every weekend. Because of our hectic volleyball schedule, she was only able to work one booth:

She had a lot of fun working with the older girls. Since Celeste has no filter, she would yell loudly at customers as they came in and out of the store. She offered them the sign she was holding ("ONLY TEN DOLLARS!"), and as sales slowed down, her cries became more plaintive ("PLEASE buy our cookies, so we can EAT!"). Eventually, the troop mom bought her a snack which cheered her up (and quieted her down, at least for a while). In the end, though, Celeste's attention span was no match for the two and a half hour booth assignment. By the last half hour, she was dancing gaily around us, singing and joking and paying very little attention to the booth. We tried, though!

I think that, while Celeste may have been a bit young for some of these experiences (particularly volleyball), they were very important for her to have. She is slowly transitioning from being a "little girl" to a "big girl," and it has been good for her to have opportunities to learn about hard work, responsibility, and teamwork. I hope some of those experiences will do her good in school, church, and family life, as well as in other extracurricular activities. We don't know yet if Girl Scouts will be something we continue with next year, but at least it has been a positive experience for us this year.

And best of all...no more cookie sales for the rest of the year! Yahoo! Perhaps our Saturdays will be a little less crazy for a while (yeah, right!).