Soccer Season

Soccer season is coming to an end. It's been a lot of fun. We are lucky enough that practices for both kids are all at the local Elementary school, so it didn't involve a whole lot of commuting.

Alaina plays on a competitive team with several neighbors. It has been fun to watch her progress. She scored several times this year and helped her team move from Division C up to Division B in the spring.

Alaina on her new comp team

Ryan also plays on a team with a bunch of his neighborhood friends. This boy has skills. He is very entertaining to watch. When he is sweeper, the other team can't get the ball past the center line. He is also the leading scorer on his team. 

Not only do we have two awesome soccer players, we now have
two soccer refs! Grant and Jacob took a certification course to be able to ref recreation soccer. They have refereed quite a few games now and they are really loving it.

Mending Fences

We live very close to the boys' school. In fact, all they have to do is hop the fence in the backyard and they are at school. They were so excited to go to Jr. High so they could hop the fence. They talked about it for months. The time finally came for Jr. High, and sure enough, they hopped the fence. J would often joke the he was sure to get hurt hopping the fence at least once.

I love that they can get to school so easily. It saves me hours in the car each week. They literally leave for school with two minutes to spare. Their friends come over after school just for a quick stop over, or to hang out. They sometimes wait here for their parents to pick them up because it's more comfortable than the school.

If you can imagine, when two or more kids are hopping a fence multiple times a day, it will bend over quite a bit. It was really nice, actually. It made it so easy to get over. I admit that on occasion I have been known to hop over to get to sporting events. (I feel really silly doing this, but hopefully others just think I'm young at heart.)

Fast forward one year and two months . . . their second year in Jr. High. Everything was going so great. The fence is their main pathway to and from school. One day in late September, G and J came into the house fuming mad. Someone had repaired the fence! They put a cross support beam through the middle and a support beam across the top. The fence is taller now, and much harder to climb.

This was mind boggling to us. Obviously the school fixed the fence, but was it really necessary? They didn't fix any other parts of the fence that goes for two or three houses, just our small 3 feet where we hop. Interesting?

It hasn't stopped the hopping. We aren't going to question it, just go about our regular business. And we know that the fence hopping will be a forever memory.

Runners

We have two runners in the family. They are both very fast, even without a lot of practice. The cross country coach asked them over and over to join the team. They were on the volleyball team and didn't want to give that up, so after that was over, they decided to run. At their first meet, Jacob placed 18th out of 100. Grant didn't fair quite as well. At the second meet, they both did even better. Jacob came in 4th overall. Grant dropped about 2 minutes per mile off his time. Way to go boys!

18th after the first meet
Time: 6:48 mile

Happy after the second meet
Jacob Time: 6:40 mile
Grant: 7:30 mile

When It's a Little Too Quiet . . .

You mean this?

Proud of his art work

Poor Guy

My baby is busy. He rarely stops, even to sleep. So when he takes a second nap in one day, you know there is something not quite right.

Xander's shoulder has come out of its socket about six times in his short life now. The first time was legit: he was hanging from the monkey bars and it pulled out. It is very painful. He can't use it at all and just lets it hang by his side. He gets very lethargic and almost always falls asleep. 

After it comes out once, a shoulder comes out of its socket too easy. The most recent time he was trying to pull a watch off his wrist and lo and behold, he pulled out his shoulder.

We have visited a neighbor chiropractor several times to get it fixed. We have also learned a thing or two and Matt was able to put it back in this time. The results are amazingly immediate.

Color Run

These boys like getting dirty:

 This past weekend G & J attended a Boy Scout Jamboral. They were able to participate in the Color Run. It's an obstacle course where they periodically throw colored chalk on them as they run past. Getting colored sure made up for the freezing night of camping.