Bringing Up Bates "Icing on the Cakes"
- Nathan, who has been down in Texas doing flight training with a program called ALERT, is back home for the first time in several weeks. He and Lawson and Trace drive over to the Bates' ranch to ride horses.
- Trace shares the results of his recent college basketball tryouts. He wasn’t chosen, but he made it to the final round and was one of four guys to be cut at the very end.
- “After getting cut from the team, of course I was a little disappointed just not making it,” says Trace. “I went and talked to the coach, and he was really nice to me. He said, ‘Look, you play hard and you have a really nice shot, but unfortunately, your lack of experience really hurt you.’” The coach gave him the title of team manager and is allowing him to practice with the team, in hopes that he will make the cut next year.
- Lawson and Nathan tell Trace about their recent humanitarian trip to Puerto Rico. It had been two weeks since the hurricane touched down, and they were the first ones to deliver food and water to people living in a certain remote mountain area.
- Kelly predicts that Trace will be the first of the three single guys to start a relationship, since Lawson and Nathan are so busy. “Trace is sitting in a prime position at college because is surrounded by very sweet, like-minded girls,” says the mom of 19. Gil protests, laughing: “He’s just a kid. That’s dangerous. We need to get him on a flight plan or something. Don’t you want to go do something, too?”
- Kelly assembles a wedding planning committee (sisters Kay and Kim, who do flowers and cakes professionally; wedding coordinator friend Kim; decorator Kathy; and friend Elijah, who will help assign workers to different tasks). Everyone meets at the church, Calvary Baptist.
- The aisles will be lined with trees, courtesy of Gil’s tree service company, painted white. “Hopefully it will look like a wedding, not a forest,” says Kelly.
- Tori and Bobby sit back while everyone else determines how many trees will be needed. “It’s kind of nice, everybody doing our wedding for us,” says Tori.
- Next on the agenda is figuring out the cake. Tori says she doesn’t care about the specifics, as long as it looks good. There are lots of decisions to make in a short period of time, and Tori isn't eager to make them. “Tori and focused, those are two words that don’t go together,” says Gil.
- “I’m very thankful for my mom and all of my family, pitching in so much,” says Tori.
- Later, Kelly travels down to Florida to babysit Allie Jane and Lexi while Alyssa and John go on vacation. She is bummed to have to miss Isaiah’s 13th birthday, so she plans him a fun laser tag party to make up for it. A family comes over to the house with a bunch of gear and transforms the yard into a laser tag war zone.
- Gil, the Bates boys, and a few friends have a blast. “These guys get really charged up about shooting each other,” says Gil. After the competition, they sit down to encourage Isaiah and discuss goals for his upcoming year.