Ockey Family Adventures: February Festivities

February was snowy and chilly, but we still had a lot of fun things happening! We were busy with basketball season, but found time for adventures, too.

We were invited to check out Dipped Haus--a new strawberry dipping business. It turned out to be super fun. We all tried a bunch of flavors and toppings, and the boys did great. It was definitely a success!

Decorating strawberries was super fun!

We loved this activity.

Dad always has parent teacher conferences in February, so on those late nights Mom lets the boys pick their favorite restaurant and we go pick up food. Then we come home and we all enjoy the food we wanted to eat. It works great because Dad would never do all those drive-thrus!

Of course!

Mom gave half her pizza to Dad!

Mark's favorite!

Dax changes it up, but this year he wanted Cafe Rio.

The Super Bowl happened in February and it was a fun family get together. Although the Bills didn't make it, we still supported our team. Mom had to leave early for a church meeting near the Saratoga Springs temple, and it was so beautiful she had to take a pic.

Go Bills!

Our new temple opens in August!

The boys hit during the winter with Taylor Snyder who is a great hitting coach. We took lessons from him last year and he is so kind and patient. We had a lot of fun and wish him the best of luck with the White Sox organization this year.

One day Taylor will be famous and we know him!

Basketball Seasons:

Mark played Junior Jazz with a bunch of his friends and they had a great time. They played well and only lost two games (to the same team). Most importantly they had fun playing together. Mark's team, the Drop Shot, ended up being the number one seed heading into the tournament, but the bad news was they had to play the team they lost to twice in the semi-final. Unfortunately, they lost again, but they all had a great season. Toward the middle of the second half, Mark went down with an injury. Someone's knee slammed into his thigh and it hurt a ton. He came out for a bit, but went back in to try and pull his team to victory. We could tell he was hurt since he wasn't running as well down the court. By the time we got home, it was hurting and swollen. Then, as you can see from the picture below, it was swollen to twice the size of his other leg the next morning. Now, about a month later, he is still struggling with it. It just gets tight after he moves around a lot. We are doing all we can to get it better before baseball season.

Drop Shot

This leg injury has not been good.

Dax is in the years of basketball where they draft instead of let you request friends, so we created a Bantam team with his friends. Some of these friends had never played basketball before, but they are a great group of boys. Dax was the clear leader of the team leading them to a 6-4 season, which was amazing since they played some really tough teams. It was awesome to watch them learn and grow together. They all said they wanted to play together next year, so we are excited for another Bantam Season.

Lehi Bantam Team

Seth played in the 4th grade Junior Jazz league and was a super star. He was a great shooter, but we were really proud when he was able to get everyone to score during the season. Seth worked hard to help everyone get shots. He was a good sport and leader for his team.

Seth's Team

Mark and Dax have also been playing church ball, and Seth got to fill in one week. He did amazing, but I loved how big the jersey was on him!

Dad coached all three of these teams! And he survived!

Here are a few other fun things that happened this February:

Mom heading out to shovel some snow. There were a few weeks that were FREEZING!!!

We stayed inside and played a lot of games.

There was a snow day! Look at those drifts.

We had about 8 inches, but some places had up to 30 inches.

It was really an online day, so we all got to be home.

We bought a new coffee table, and the box became a little store for a week.

Dax performed in Federation and earned a Superior (the highest rating).

We made potato patties in honor of Grandma Ockey's birthday.

The final February adventure was after Mark's leg was not healing well. He stayed home from school because he had a cold, and could barely walk. So Mom took him for a long drive to Farmington Bay to get enough miles on the blue van to pass emissions, and to get him out of the house. We saw a lot of great birds and Mark took half of the pictures. He did doing really well with the long lens.