A Football Surprise

The football team took the field again on Friday night for quite a game.

For the first time ever, I served the team meal along with two other moms.  We faced a mighty opponent that night and while setting up for the boys, we discussed our concerns.  Our 2A school would face a 6A school.  While that is not unusual, it is early in the season, and we have never faced this particular school which happens to be the biggest in the state (and the one where I work).  We expressed our concerns to each other - hopes that our boys would not be humiliated and that no one would get hurt. A very different conversation occurred when dads got involved...it's good for them to play a bigger team, they will learn from it.  Okay, nobody learns much if a season ending injury ensues; hence the reason freshman do not typically play varsity games.  They are not as developed as the older boys in both the sport and stature.

Andy's mom and sister, Dianna, came from out of town to see the game and spend the night.  Our dentist came to watch Zach.  Tara, Tessa, and John all showed up to see the battle.  We never expected to witness history in the making that night.

Zach joined three other team captains for the toss to start the game.  I was thrilled for him as he took the field as a captain for the first time.  In our last two games, our team started slowly.  I do not like nail-biters.  Humor me while I repeat I. do. not. like. nail-biters.  These boys put my heart through too many of those over the years.  When we put a touchdown on the board early with a two-point conversion follow-up, I was happy to see a solid start for a change.  By the end of the game when we held the leading score at 36-19, I was so pumped that sleep would certainly allude me for a few hours.  Yes, you read that correctly,  our team shocked the parents and our city with this solid victory.  You can only imagine how excited we are for the rest of the season.  Of course challenges face these boys, and there are some teams that they need to work hard to beat, but this is a great confidence booster.

Zach likened it to God's 300 that he led through Gideon to destroy the Midianites.  Andy wrote the article for the school enews and used this analogy.  Had he known that a player on our opponent's team told one of our boys that they were Goliath, and we were David, Andy would have used that one.  Does this guy know how that story ended?  hmmm

I will post pictures later.

just a few more...

Senior Pics!

After two rainouts and numerous scheduling conflicts, Zach finally managed to get some outdoor senior pictures.  Here are some sneak peeks.

Definitely one of my favorites.

Zach's favorite.

another favorite of mine

This one has been very popular among my friends.

Thrilled, I am!  We are anxious to organize these and choose some prints.  This is just a small sampling.  The session was fun, and the result -priceless.

In other Zach news, he made the fantasy football team for Vype magazine.

Vype magazine August 2013

Remember that you can always click the pictures to see them bigger.

Friday Night Lights

The football season opener left us pleasantly surprised.  For the last two years, our boys settled this game at the very end- nail biter, my friends.  However, this year changed the game.  CAL settled the score with a solid 38 point victory while LCA left the field with 13 points.  Zach tackled the ball carrier 5 times throughout the course of the game. He managed this after sitting out of practice for a week because of an ankle injury.  He limped off the field after an early play in the game but held on for the entire battle, and left the field with an ice pack wrapped around that ankle when it was all over.

We will gladly take this solid victory to start the season!

Wyatt is the big man on campus

Wyatt started 5th grade today.  Last night, he stated his dismay over starting school when he started to head to bed and then said to us, "I have some final words."  You would have thought he was going to his execution.  We then learned just how upset he was about having to switch classes throughout the day.

Today, however, things must be better.  He has no homework and says switching classes was not so bad after all.  His favorite part of the day was lunch - no surprise there.

Wyattisms

Wyatt chimes in with great one-liners frequently.  Here are a few of my recent faves.

Andy: what do you want for lunch? 
Savannah: food (non-committal)
Andy: so, you want Chinese? (Savannah is not crazy about Chinese food)
Wyatt: if you want Chinese, don't eat me.
He cracks me up.


Julia has to take her medicine and is full drama mode. Wyatt commands, "Man up, Julia! I mean lady up!"



We are driving home from church and discussing how hard it is to reach out to those who are relationally challenged (not that I am not relationally challenged myself) when from the backseat we hear someone start to sing, "Help, I need somebody." Yep, it was Wyatt.

It's State Fair Time!

That means it is time to reveal our entries for the state fair this year.

Savannah

Savannah's piece is a drawing of her favorite things along with some of the tools she uses for her art.  I love it!  the scanner cut off her earbud on the right.

Wyatt

Julia

Tamara

Remember that clicking on the picture allows you to see it bigger.

Back to School

3/4 kids returned to school this week.

Zach now drives the car that Andy bought when Zach was in 1st grade.  It was great to finally have a vehicle with air conditioning for the long commute to school.

As for the first day, things were not so great.  Zach overslept and did not participate in the Aloha Senior party that the class planned for that morning.  He was planning to swim in the back of a pickup in the school parking lot.  On the other hand, the morning temp dropped to a rare 53 degrees for this August morning, so it would have been a chilly swim.

Savannah's lunch schedule disappointed her prior to school starting. She landed in the one class that eats with the freshmen.  Then, they switched her lunch, but alas her friends ended up in the lunch with the freshmen.  

For Zach's senior year, he shares no classes with his closest buddies, so disappointment visited him too.

Julia, on the other hand, loves her teacher so much that I am not sure she cares who her classmates are.  All of her closest friends are in the other 4th grade class, but Julia gets along with just about everyone, so she should make new friends easily this year.

Julia's downer to the day arrived in the form of an antibiotic.  For three weeks now, she has coughed and coughed with no fever or really any other symptoms.  On the morning of the first day, that cough sounded more productive than it had, and we decided to throw up the white flag and seek medical intervention.  The doctor found no problems with her ears, nose, throat or lungs but felt that due to the length of time this has lasted, an antibiotic was in order.  He gave her a liquid, and she prefers a pill.  Julia took these pictures to show her feelings about this medicine deal. Believe me, she has been quite vocal about it too.

She insists it tastes like puke! Really?!

So we are out of the gates for Zach's senior year, Savannah's sophomore year, and Julia's 4th grade year.

Wyatt starts 5th grade next week.  

That's a Wrap

With the dawn of my first full week back at work looming in less than 10 hours and the kids' return to school just days away, I give you the summer recap.

She looks innocent, but she may very well be the most annoying dog ever!!! Summer held just a handful of days when I could actually sleep as long as my body said to. She yelped every single morning at 6:00 a.m. until I drug myself out of bed and walked down a flight of stairs to let her out of her crate.  I let her outside, and she yelped to come back in.  By the time we finished the process, there was no way I was going to get back to sleep.  She woke me every morning I could sleep late.  On the only morning I could attend an inservice, she did not make a peep, and I awoke 30 minutes prior to the start of the in service.  

On a day that we were trying to enjoy an amusement park, we faced storms.  We ditched the park and visited a nearby mall where Wyatt and Julia enjoyed this really cool two story carousal courtesy of Zach.

Julia filled my phone with selfies.

I mean she really filled my phone.

We spent precious few days with friends.

Andy and I celebrated 20 years in NYC.

We prepared for senior year.

We met a new family member.

Shiloh added her own brand of being ornery to the mix, so much so that many discussions have revolved around whether we can continue to keep her. We are working on her and seeing some positive changes. We have returned to what worked before and are getting a kick out of her love for her new toys.  She's like a kid with a security blanket carrying her latest stuffed toy everywhere.

Wyatt found something he could enjoy at an amusement park and insisted on numerous pictures of himself with the dinosaurs.

We enjoyed precious few days on thrill rides and in a water park.

Dad celebrated 70 years.

We enjoyed a great swim season with champion swimmers.

Work travel made fun days with Andy very precious and few.  He visited Texas, Seattle, and Buffalo in our few weeks of summer in addition to family trips.

We loved a new beach.

Our teens were challenged and had a blast at Bible and Beach.

We caught up with old friends and friends from far away.

We said goodbye to good friends as miles part us.

We faced our last summer of high school football practices.  We know the season will fly, and we will really, really miss this team.

This summer was our busiest ever.  We traveled more and spent less time with friends.  I am not sure the entire family was ever home for a full week at a time.  In many ways it was one of our best summers ever.  We celebrated marriage and connected with great friends who live away from us.  However, it was not the best for everyone.  I hardly managed to get Savannah together with her friends at all, and she really helped us through the travel.  She is training well to be a great mom and homemaker.  Zach worked so much that he rarely gathered with friends himself.  While Wyatt and Julia enjoyed more social experiences, our busy schedule even limited them.  It was definitely our fastest summer ever.

As usual, the summer projects did not happen.  Wyatt's room still needs to be painted.  Our living room still needs new flooring, and all our our indoor trim needs a fresh coat of paint.  Our basement and garage need lots of purging and organizing.  The Vacation Station workbooks went unfinished, and just two days before school starts, Zach has barely touched the summer assignments.  None of this is going away, so I guess we have some fall projects to tackle.

Please summer, don't go.