Braxten's turn for his mission call opening! Braxten tried to get Eli to open his call and sneak and peek for him, but he was at practice so he reached Jake and Jake had to let him know if he was going out of the country or not! Then Eli took a peek too! They asked Eli to give the opening prayer and then he opened his call and we are so excited for him to go and serve the people of Chile! Bonus: we ran into Brylee there! Love seeing cousins with mutual friends!
These 3 things I want to remember forever....1. Eli trying to sweet talk Mr Rogers into giving him an A for the 1st sememster and the 2 of them signing a contract together and I had to agree to it! 2. Going through an old school notebook I found these cute little drawings of people...I miss the kids drawing bodies like this with no torsos - ha ha! 3. The last couple of years of high school I will get random notes and texts from Eli during school and he is always thanking me for being a good parent, or loving him, etc! He's the best!
I got to open his call first, print it and order him a flag! It was hard to keep it a secret and not crack! They tried to break me, but I wouldn't let them! While we were waiting for him to open it the Sister missionaries showed up to watch him open his call and then one of them look at Brooklyn Varvel and said she looked familiar...fast forward a couple minutes later and they realized that Brooklyn taught her while Brooklyn was on her mission and she was 14 years old. Brooklyn didn't get to baptize her and here she was standing in the same room on her mission!! Then 2 minutes later...Austin opens his call and it's to the exact same mission that Brooklyn served and where this sister missionary was from. That was for sure a sign of God's hands in everything. It was so surprising and beautiful! Jared and I got the chills all night thinking about it. We are so grateful for Austin and how much he loved on the twins! Grateful our boys get to be on some pretty awesome sports teams at school!
Tory came out and captured pictures of the moms with their players! Tender moments for sure!
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Last year I tried to do a baseball game to honor BK...I wanted to do it at the game against ALA Gilbert North since he played there his freshman year....then Matt kind of blew me off saying he wanted to do something and then I asked about doing it at the Senior night game....and got the same response, "no, I am going to do something". So I let it all go.
This year we got Coach DL Brewer and before the season started he told me that Tayden wanted to honor BK some how on a hat....so I suggested the #LLBK embroidered on the back and Brewer was all in for that. I then asked him if we could do an honorary #LLBK game and he was all in for that as long as Tanya was....so I called Tanya and she was all about it! This was a beautiful game to honor BK with his family and these boys and gave the boys some good closure as well.
Here is the post I wrote:
We go back far with this family and what started with the twins and Jack on a soccer field together led to years of ELi and Braden on many baseball fields together! Yesterday we got to do the game I was hoping for...a game honoring BK! Tanya and Eli warmed up together for the first pitch before the game started, we had a 16 second moment of silence, we played BK, Jack and Drew's walk up songs and songs for in between the innnings...but the best part....the best part was knowing that Braden was up there cheering these boys, you could feel it! Jared mentioned he has never felt the spirit so strong before at a baseball game as he did yesterday. He got a firm confirmation that Braden is not only cheering these boys on in the game on baseball but also in life. Love you Kimballs!
Tyson was eating smores pie and got it all over his face...it doesn't seem that funny...except we were making fun of him obviously...and I love his face when he is legitamately sincerely laughing so I had to capture it!
Eli's baseball senior night was ALAQC VS Combs HS! All 6 seniors got to start and Eli started out in leftfield but then ended up pitching the last few innings! He was amazing! It was such a great game for these guys watching them all play together on the field, loving every minute and winning! Even better was all the fans that came out to support them! Eli had both sets of grandparents there plus Nashy! I can't believe since playing his first game of t-ball at age 5 that we are here now, wrapping up his baseball career! Eli made us fall in love with the sport! Watching him out on the field is one of our favorite things to do! Eli's Career stats at ALAQC: .369 BA, 4 Home runs, 2.8 ERA, 66 stikeouts!
