Strayer Family Badminton Tourney

Today, Phil, Luke, and I drove up to Casa Grande for the 1st Annual Family Badminton Tournament at Dave and Denise's house. It was a blast, and I've titled it "1st Annual" because I'm hoping we do it again every year... just maybe a little later in the Fall. Even though we're in late September, it was 100 degrees outside!

First, we all ate a yummy potluck lunch that included fried chicken from somewhere heavenly (I am starting to believe that they just make fried chicken better in Casa Grande... it was so juicy and crispy and the pieces were huge!... okay enough preggo food talk), these delicious croissants that were buttery and in the shape of muffins, and mac and cheese from Cracker Barrel. YUM! Our contribution was homemade cupcakes in honor of Dominic's 3rd birthday this past Friday. They were cream cheese filled carrot cake cupcakes, and they were mighty good if I say so myself. I added pinapple and coconut to the recipe, a little trick I learned when we made a carrot cake at Rita's a few weeks ago. Very moist, very tasty, and probably a diet buster. Sorry, ladies!

After we filled ourselves up, we began the badminton portion of the afternoon. The teams were Ross/Cindy, Phil/Jess, Dave/Denise, Laura/Michael, Greg/Shannon, Courtney/Vicki, Brittany/Frank, Rhiannon/Sean, and Richard/Frances. Even though our team was wearing nifty skeleton uniforms courtesy of the Halloween section of Wal-mart, Phil and I went down early in the first round, 11-15, to Dave and Denise! You could blame it on the wind, the fact that we only practiced twice before our big day, our lack of warm up, or lack of general coordination... either way they kicked our butts! Laura and Michael, also wearing cute black/white uniforms, were the eventual Couples champions and won a really cool wall clock. After the couples bracket, we re-paired up into girls and boys teams, and Laura and I won that. We had a little help when 3 teams forfeited because they had to head back up to Phoenix (ha ha suckers!), but I still won a digital photo keychain. Yeah!


Dominic (3), Gabriel (2), and Luke (1) were little wild boys all afternoon. It was so fun to see them really playing together. They played cars and wrestled together, all while discussing Presidential politics and the best way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. However, their favorite was to run in circles around the house, squealing with delight. I was so impressed with how Luke kept up with them, he had a blast! Even though he is a year younger than Gabe, and about a year and a half younger than Dom, the age diference doesn't seem so big anymore. They are getting big fast!

When we weren't playing badminton, we ate, watched football, played trucks with Grandma V, and played Uno. It was a great afternoon and so much fun to see all the Strayers.