Hoop Dreams

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... I KNOW this is like the third post that involves basketball. But when you have a sports-crazed dad and a finally mobile daughter, this is what you get.

Actually, it's all timing. When we bought the house last year it had a REALLY NICE $1200 in-ground basketball goal in the driveway. Unfortunately for me, the ONLY thing they specifically wrote in to the contract when selling the house was that the basketball goal was going with them. Rats. After a tortuous year of staring at where the goal used to reside, I finally got a goal to replace it.

HOWEVER, the replacement is NOT a $1200 basketball goal. I'm not that insane. But because it wasn't the exact model my father-in-law had to draw up some plans and have a steel piece fabricated that would allow my goal to fit on the pad and screws that were left from the previous owner. By the time we got the piece of steel, our basement started flooding from some heavy Spring rains (that story to come in a few days) and we were forced into an unforeseen home improvement project that pushed putting my basketball goal back a few weeks.

But now it's up and I love it. The only problem is that it only goes down to 7.5 feet at its lowest setting. Megan's good, but she's not ready for that. Soooo, within two days of the goal being up, I raced down to Meijer and picked up a hoop for Megan too.

Within minutes of Megan's hoop being snapped into place, it emitted a siren song only heard to a few of my neighbor's kids. They're 6 and 3 and have been over about five times to hang out whenever Megan and I are shooting. The irony is they have their own basketball goal.

So far there's been no casualties from Megan being hit in the head from one of my bricked jumpshots, but I know it's coming. I did run over the neighbor kid trying to stop a ball from bounding off into Megan, which caused a few tears but hey, he wasn't set. That's not charging. If he wants to get the call, his feet need to be planted. Maybe he's just using the hoop as a ruse to weasel his way closer to Megan. Hmm...

(Is he checking her out?)

Anyway, the hoop is up and we're all loving being outside. Well, Jillian is tolerating it. The other day my quick trip to take the trash out turned into an impromptu ten-minute shooting session. I think I can only get away with that move once or twice more. Wish me luck.