Homeschool Basketball Tournament

Dawson and the Huntsville Mavericks attended the Homeschool Regional Basketball Tournament in Fort Worth.  It was incredible to see so many athletic homeschool kids out there playing basketball.  (Who knew this competitive, sporty subculture of homeschoolers existed?)

In the 14U division (the team Dawson was on), the Mavericks placed 6th in Division 2 (which included 16 teams) and 18th overall (including all 46 of the 14U teams).  The younger 12U team placed 6th out of 22 teams.  So overall, both teams did incredibly well.  But the best part of the tournament was getting to spend time with so many sweet homeschool families.  We all stayed at the same hotel so the boys spent time together at the pool, playing cards in the lobby, and hanging out in each other's rooms.  We had a great time and are looking forward to going again next year.

Texas A&M Merit Badge Day

While Dawson was at his basketball tournament, Brady attended a Merit Badge University at Texas A&M.  He earned his first Boy Scout merit badges - Art, Robotics, & Citizenship in the World.  He was most looking forward to Robotics and really enjoyed the last half of the class when they got to build and program the Lego Mindstrom robots.  He thought Art was pretty boring because it was mostly talking about art methods with very little time doing art projects.  He was sure that Citizenship in the World would be extremely boring, but it ended up being his favorite merit badge class.  He especially liked learning about North Korea and said that the class made him thankful to be a citizen of the United States.  :-)

Flashback

In honor of Dawson's birthday, a few pictures from when he was just a little guy:

14 Years Old

Dawson is now FOURTEEN!  And not just an average 14 year old, but an amazing 14 year old!  We're so proud of him and are looking forward to seeing all the great things he accomplishes this year.

Dawson's Birthday

Dawson had lots of celebrations for his birthday this year.  He had a couple of friends sleepover and they watched Avengers movies, played football and basketball, card games, and video games.  He had a family celebration and enjoyed having the day off from school, opening gifts, and just relaxing at home.  Then he had his favorite celebration of all - a big flag football game with friends.  He said it was his best birthday ever.

Friend Sleepover:

Seth & Ben came over for a sleepover, but this is the only picture that I managed to get of their time together - our stop at Bahama Bucks before taking them home.

Family Birthday:

Present time - a couple of video games.

I don't remember what was going on here, but I love the expression on Brady's face.

He got some basketball clothes.

Dawson let Brady open one of his presents.

The big one was last.

A Bluetooth chair.

Look at all those candles!

Flag Football Party:

A great group of guys came to play football.  The game ended in a tie.  They even played an overtime quarter, but that too ended in a tie.  So everyone was a winner!  :-)

Basketball Lessons

Dawson has been taking extra basketball lessons to improve his skills and help his team.  He has a great coach, has been enjoying the lessons, and is getting better at basketball.

First College Class

Dawson starting his first college class.

(Not a very exciting picture, as it's an online class.)