Leading the Way

Preliminary results of the NCAUSBCA Youth Tournament

The preliminary results of Maddy's tournament came in this morning and Maddy is in first place in his division! The final results will be released in a couple of weeks (why does it take so long?). Any prize money will be deposited into a SMART scholarship account in his name. Woohoo Maddy!

Bowling Prodigy

Maddy got an award patch for a 450 series last weekend

He then proceeded to score a league record 222 game

Maddy in action during the NCAUSBCA tournament

Maddy is turning out to be quite the bowling talent. At the tender young age of 9, he is bowling well above his age group, so much so that coaches and house professionals have remarked that "he is the best left handed talent they have ever seen in his age group for a very long time".

Maddy took part in his first solo USBC sanctioned youth tournament last weekend. The NCAUSBCA (Nation's Capital Area United States Bowling Congress Association) Youth Championship tournament features bowlers from DC, Northern Virginia and Maryland who qualify from their local programs. Maddy qualified first in his Champs division (9-11 years of age).

In his first tournament, he had games of 202, 202 & 157 for a 561 scratch series (853 handicap series) which was more than 240 pins over his average. He has a great chance to win his age group! The results will be released next weekend, we can't to see how he did!

Outsmarting His Old Man

Last week, Maddy found out that one of his bowling friends, Charles, got a dollar for every strike and 50 cents for every spare he got during league games and practice as an incentive. It didn't take him long to ask me if we could do the same because we did something similar during the basketball season.

I thought it would be a good way for him to continue to learn the value of money and earn some extra pocket money during the summer so I agreed. Maddy is a miser when it comes to his money. He has no problem spending our money though. I told him if we were going to do this, he would use his own money to buy the things he wanted, like video games, Beyblades, Pokemon cards etc. With visions of the new video games he was about to afford to buy, he quickly agreed.

There was one twist though. I told him that he would owe me 50 cents for every gutter ball he threw.

Our first outing was a practice last week where he threw 5 strikes, 1 spare and 12 gutter balls. It was an 'off' day for him and he wasn't too thrilled when I told him he owed me 50 cents.

Without missing a beat, he walked over to the table, pulled 2 quarters from my wallet and handed them to me saying, "Here you go, Dad".

Happy 9th Birthday Maddy!

We threw a birthday party for Maddy and his friends yesterday at our local bowling center. Most of his friends that weren't away on summer vacation came to have a few games, eat pizza & cupcakes and sing one of the worst renditions of 'Happy Birthday' that I'd ever heard. We managed to sing it in 3 different octaves and with 2 different tempos.

The party was organized chaos. Rach did a great job of controlling things despite the other adult at the party (I plead the 5th Amendment for fear of incriminating myself) going off script.

We capped off the day with a Sakura Japanese restaurant dinner where we all ate too much.

Why a bowling birthday party? So he can showcase his form, of course

!

These are the boys Rach and I had to chase after during the party

Horsing around with Lars

Showing his friends how to enter their names in the computer

New High

Maddy, Rach and Dad's scores from yesterday

Maddy took his game to new heights yesterday during practice, scoring a 190 game. His new personal best featured a 5-bagger, or for those of you who are unfamiliar with bowling jargon, 5 strikes in a row.

He was giddy from excitement to beat both mom and dad in the same game.

Unfortunately for him though, his string of luck didn't carry over to his other games. Maddy and his mom had a friendly wager going and while Maddy was up 1-zip after the first game, mommy came back and beat him in the final 2 games.

He did not handle the disappointment of losing well. He got progressively worse after each poor shot and it snowballed from there. Mom's gloating didn't help matters much either!

I told my 8 year old boy that we learn more about ourselves in defeat and that we should be gracious in defeat as well as in victory. I don't know how much he will take from practice yesterday but I think losing to mommy will only serve to make him more determined the next time.

In the meantime, I hope to teach him that the way he plays the game and conducts himself is more important than the results. 

Farewell Winter, Hello Springtime!

Rach and I were talking about the changing seasons yesterday and came to the realization that we have been in the U.S. for almost 4 years now. Where did all the time go? Has it really been that long? It doesn't seem that long but here we are, Maddy is in 2nd grade, almost eight years old and he has 2 new cousins named Micah and Isla that he didn't have when we moved here in 2006. Wow.

The weather has been great this week. The sun has been out for four straight days now and all the snow on the ground has disappeared. Maddy will be starting his 3rd season of soccer soon and he can't wait to get out there and run around with his friends after being cooped up all winter.

This weekend will be a busy one for the DC Branch. We have bowling league tonight followed by Maddy's school annual Fun Fair tomorrow morning. We might try and have a little BBQ afterward and then there's the Sunday bowling league where we are in 2nd place (after finishing the first 2 parts of the season in last place). If we have time we might try and squeeze a father/son haircut in there somewhere too.

The pics are from Maddy's end of season basketball party where he got a trophy for being the best rebounder and most aggressive on the team. That's my boy!