"Montclair rules, El Toro Drools..."

Gracie came up with the title for this blog.  She was chanting that on the way home from the game and suggested we use it!  

 

No matter whether we won or not, I knew this was going to be our last home game of the season.  Here is one last shot of all of them in the bleachers at Montclair for this season.

 Bill always does a great job in making a slide show to start each home game that highlights some of the best plays from previous games.  We really enjoyed seeing clips from the Colony game including David's cross the court shot!

Luke was still not feeling great but really wanted to be at the game.  He spent most of the time on my lap or laying down on the coats in front of us.  Here Caleb is trying to console him with some nice strong pats on the back.

 We were behind most of the way, until the last three minutes of the game.  It was hard for me to watch so Dylan and Gracie did all of the cheering for me.

The last minute of the game was filled with lots of free throws, which we kept making.  I think it was because of Gracie's magic fingers!

 Here we are, at the end of the game, and Bill has now reached the quarter finals for the first time ever in his coaching career.  This team has more wins than any other Montclair basketball team in recent history.

 What was so amazing is that the players really did believe they could beat this team, who was ranked higher and were much bigger and stronger.

 So many people came up to hug Bill that I couldn't get pictures of most of them!  There were many fellow teachers and former players.  I was talking to one of the teachers and she was saying that there was more than 20 teachers in the stands that night.  I said, "Wow, that is so nice of them to stay after work!"  She said, "Well, you know why they did it, because they love Bill and want to support him."  I loved that.

 Bill and his dad

 The "Cav Crazies" came out again for the game, this one of them wearing a taco hat!  They made a difference in the game, being just as loud as all of the fans from El Toro.

 Bill and his brother Bob

 What a night!  I was so glad that we could all be there as a family to see Bill's special night.  His last home game of the season.  I told the kids to put this fun night into their memory banks and remember how much fun they had cheering for his team and being together.  Now we have to go to Loyola High School in Los Angeles on Tuesday.  They are the #1 team in our division, so it will be a tough game, but it doesn't matter, because this has been a great season.

tales of iphones and "I love you's"

 Bill ordered his iphone at midnight on the first night they were available through Verizon.  He has been waiting a long time for Verizon to finally start selling them!  Here we are at Taco King, and everyone is interested in what Daddy has on his phone!  I was jealous after playing with it, and a week later, Bill went to the apple store to get me one too!  I love the scrabble app the most so far!

 We were supposed to have the kids in our homeschool group over for a valentine's party, but since Caleb and Luke were sick, we had to cancel.  The kids were bummed, but I made them a special lunch with heart shaped grilled cheese sandwiches and strawberries.

 You can see here that Caleb is still not feeling all that great, but he did perk up when we had cookies!

 Sweet Lukey wasn't feeling good either, but had a great attitude.

I read one of my favorite books to them that I used to read every Valentine's Day when I was a teacher.  Dylan is standing in the background on his chair retelling part of the story!

The Dynasty is Over!

First Montclair basketball game for Rod.  I guess he couldn't have picked a better one to come to!

 Bill told me that his suit would need to be dry cleaned from all of the sweaty boys hugging him! This is Jonathan, one of his senior players.

I am not sure who made this sign, but I thought it was sooo perfect! Here are the some of the comments from the game:

Great win - many peeps talking about how good the game was last 

nite... Awesome, also, to get to 20 wins - great job!!

Congrats and good luck in CIF... Go far!
BM

Congrats Bill!  Should we send Colony a sympathy card?

Fabian

I attended your game last night; I cannot recall seeing a more 

spirited team effort where every player was determined to win. 

Regardless of the game situation, the players worked together 

and fought like champions from the opening tip off. Please

extend my respect and compliments to your athletes 

for a well deserved victory. Good luck in the play offs.

Go Cavs

BB

I wasn't able to go to the last game of league play, but it was a win at Chaffey.

Sadly, Ontario lost to Colony by one point last night, so we don't get to share

a league championship this season but we came closer than ever before! 

I wasn't too sad, because the dynasty is still over! 

I've got a feeling, that tonight's going to be a good night!

 We won!!!!  After six long years, Montclair was finally able to beat Colony!  We were the last team to do it back in 2005, and the only team to do it since then!  Bill worked so hard, I had to wait patiently for him to answer questions from the Daily Bulletin reporter before we could all hug him!

 I think Dylan is going to be making a lot of t-shirts in the future!

You don't see these two hug very often, so this was an extra special moment.  No one understands the depth of what this win means more than Chris!  We were there to support him during his monumental wins over Colony in football and I was so glad he could be there to share in the fun of this win!

Beat Colony! Go Cavs!

 Dylan decided to make t-shirts for the big game.  At first he just made them for him and Gracie because Luke had sweetly offered to stay home with a sick Caleb.  But after Luke saw the shirts, Dylan could see how sad he was and ran back upstairs to secretly make one for Luke also.  He happily wore his at home and rooted for the team from text messages sent back and forth between me and Grammy.

 Dylan had to add Bill's philosophy of IAO:Improvise, Adapt, Overcome!  The phrase has been used quite a bit in our house over the years.

 I was SHOCKED at all of the people that came to the game! There are many of our usual crowd, but a few came for the first time.

 I can always count on Lori to come anytime we play Colony.  She loves rooting against them, and understands how frustrating it is to continue to lose to them year after year!

 Matt and Sarah have been at almost every game this year!  Gracie and Sarah have perfected the free throw finger power!

 Don't know how well you can see them, but the Montclair students brought "tacos" with them to the game.  For more info on that, see my previous post titled, "We want tacos!"

 The ref explaining to Bill and the Colony coach that they are going to put 2 seconds back on the clock, after the ball was knocked out of bounds.  2 seconds!?!?!?

 It was so agonizing waiting for the final two seconds to be played out!

When life hands you lemons...

 We celebrated Delaney's birthday last Sunday at Pat and Oscars in Buena Park.  We topped off dinner with a chocolate cake shake at Portillo's.  They are right next door to each other after all!  We changed at the church building before we left to go and I snuck a picture while the boys were talking.

 Our lemon tree has TONS of lemons this year, so we enjoyed having Abby help us make fresh squeezed lemonade.  Everyone seemed to have fun, and after adding LOTS of sugar, we enjoyed some all-natural (no dyes for Luke) lemonade.

Bill lost his game to Ontario on Wednesday night, and pretty much any chance to win a league championship.  Life goes on, as he prepared for Chino on Friday night.  Gracie went to be with her friends at Laurie's house and we adopted an extra Caleb for the night.  Chino had only won one game in league so far, so we were hoping for a fun relaxing game.  It was anything but that!  Another overtime win, and another tired coach.  Caleb D. told me it was his first basketball game, so I am glad it was an exciting one.