Ever since Ian was born in 2003 that particular racquetball event has always been on the chopping block. It's for the love of the sport, and the love of the camaraderie that we continued going. This year however, we decided to hand the torch off to someone else.
A few reasons came into play. Ian and Lexi were a huge reason. It's kind of tough to expect them to contain themselves while we are working on things, and I can't expect them to sit quietly in the tower. Willie and I never got paid monetarily (though it was nice to have a room paid for and food paid for), and always used vacation time to go "work" somewhere else. If that makes sense. Now with the kids our desire to go off and do other things with them has increased, and that was also a reason. Plus with the addition of them into our family, a rental car is completely necessary, I'm not going to chance terrible weather walking blocks to the club with the kids in a stroller freezing, so that was an added expense.
It's going to be tough this year. We've provided coverage for that event for seven years. Willies been at the open since its inaugural year (first as a player than as employee). It's always been something that we look forward too, and it will be greatly missed on our agenda.