My Hard Working Man

Ryder usually does a pretty good job of stealing all the attention on this blog so this one is completely dedicated to my wonderful husband! Since before we even got to Arizona he has made such a great effort to find some extra work to bring in a little extra income to our household. He always works in the offseason, but I just assumed with him having to do his rehab that it just wouldn't happen this year. After countless hours on the computer, phone calls, meetings, and more phone calls it seems to all really be coming together. Derrik seems to have been able to put together three part time jobs during our nine month stay here. This is on top of his rehab which he does Monday-Friday from around 8am until about 2pm.

Job #1: Starts today... Derrik found a place that does kids basketball from about 9am-9pm on Saturdays. They said they could get him games every Saturday when he was interested. Today is his sort of "trial day" to see what hes got. He is doing the 9, 10, and 11 o'clock game. Hopefully he will do a great job and be able to do this on Saturdays! This job and the second one are what allows him to wear that nice outfit from the picture up above! LOL

Job #2: November-February... This is for high school basketball. Derrik has to get AIA (I think that is the letters) certified to be able to do these games. It is a small fee and he has to pass a test. I think this job is Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at the JV level. If he can do a really good job then he will be able to do Varsity games too!

Job #3: Starts October 24th... We are most excited for this job because of the opportunity it could bring our way. Through Derrik's many e-mails a couple months back he somehow stumbled upon a guy who owns a non-profit organization called Athletes for Awareness. The founder is a stage IV cancer survivor and wants to bring awareness of health and disease to kids through sports. He is big into basketball but has been looking for a good candidate to branch out to other sports. He is using Derrik as his baseball spokes person, and we are so excited! He will be hosting a baseball clinic on October 24th and through that should get some good baseball lessons! The legistics of how he gets paid and what is non-profit and what isn't is very confusing, but it should be a great opportunity for Derrik!

You can check out the website at AthletesforAwareness.org

We miss Derrik a lot while he is gone during the day, but are use to him being gone when he is on the road for baseball. We are excited we at least get him at home for dinner at night, and he's never too far from home!