ISST Basketball Tournament

Our very own March Madness at St. John's 11-14 March, 2015! Our school was the jots this year and welcomed 8 schools to the D2 men's basketball championship. St.Johns has a young team and it is the proverbial "building year" for the Varsity squad. The JV looks loaded and will look to do some damage in 2016, meanwhile, StJ ended the tournament in 4th place. A bit of history..

Although some interschool competition did exist prior to 1968, the first real championship was held in Zurich in 1968 in soccer for boys and volleyball for girls. The organization now boasts a membership of twenty three (23) international schools consisting of both full member and sport member schools.

The ISST is fundamentally a Varsity athletic organization which governs competitive athletic championships for its 23 member schools. The ISST currently sanctions 12 sports annually across two divisions for 22 Varsity championships in soccer, volleyball, field hockey, cross country, rugby, swimming, basketball, softball, baseball, tennis, golf and track and field plus three (3) Junior championships in the sports of cross country, swimming and track and field.

Men's volleyball is very popular here, so Danny may end up trying that sport while here ( Hannah Bedner-he may need some tips this summer!)

The teams rolled in on Wednesday and we were there to greet them. families of athletes are asked to take on "housers" and we got two great boys from Hillingdon, a school in London. Jacob's dad works for Costco in Iceland and the UK ( who knew?!)  and Cedric's dad is with Allergan. They are both freshman and their whole team is freshman and sophomores...all 8 of them! The poor guys, they came in last, they didn't win a single game:(

But are they nice! Very polite, ate everything I fed them, didn't mention when the hot water ran out, and left us a lovely box of chocolates. They enjoyed their stay I think. On Thursday Jerry and Danny walked them down to the Chausse and they had durums at the Turkish place and then went and shot pool at the sports bar.

Danny, Jacob and Cedric at Touchdown

Both Thursday and Friday were filled with games, with Molly cheering for anyone and everyone! We had a bunch of shifts at concessions, including manning the grill to do American Hamburgers--a best seller. Loads of laughter, comraderie and bagging of popcorn. We even helped sell the awesome tshirts they had to commemorate the event, here is Charlotte modeling it after a run..

So our first experience as a host family went well, though I overbought on the snack foods (I know you are not surprised!) and we look forward to having more housers as the baseball season begins.

Danny has made the high school Varsity team!!

Molly's Birthday!

Well I can't blog about charlottes day and NOT about Molly's can I? I might scar them for life, cause them to not get along....oh wait, they already don't get along!! Okay, sorry, back to it...

Molly loves a party, as you know, and she had an exceptional week of them. We started on Saturday 28 February, so Jerry could celebrate before heading out to the US for the week. We sang, we played UNO, we gave gifts, we had cake and Molly loved it. Moving along, we had church on Sunday and she informed Father Lobo that her birthday was Thursday and he said he would pray for her...now that is a nice gift! Monday at concessions our friends, Keri and Kathy, wished her a good week. Tuesday we went to IKEA for a birthday lunch and stroll. Wednesday we went out to lunch in Waterloo with our friend Susannah whose birthday was Tuesday. Susannah took us to a special gourmet cupcake shop after lunch and had us each choose a cupcake to celebrate with on Thursday. That evening we attended the Dance showcase at St Johns and Molly told her many friends that "my birthday is tomorrow!" And of course they all wished her well. And the dancing was wonderful! Finally Thursday is here, her actual birthday, not that we are getting sick of it or anything :) we head to Bible Study, where Kathy has brought candles for the cupcakes and the whole beautiful group of women sing to Molly and pray for her. She is beaming! Then we have homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner and our fancy cupcakes for desert. And we give more gifts, some sent all the way from NJ. Friday morning a whipped down all the birthday signs and banners and said, in no uncertain terms, Now Your Birthday Is Over...see you next year!!