Thanksgiving Break

I love that my kids get the entire week of Thanksgiving off as their fall break at school.  This year we were able to spend time with family and had the added bonus of a youth retreat with church friends.



Cousin Time at Nana's!

 Just some of the food from our Thanksgiving lunch

 paintball time at the retreat

 downtime at the house making domino castles

 some bike time on the Trinity Trail

 Pre-lunch Thanksgiving 5k finishers!

 archery at the youth retreat



Rock N Roll San Antonio

Pics and race report here:

http://trisara.blogspot.com/2011/11/rock-n-roll-san-antonio.html

State Fair of Texas 2011

What a fun tradition!  We have had a cousin day at the fair every year (I think with only one exception) for 10 years!  We take the same pictures in the same places and nearly every year have a new addition to the picture, growing from Soren and Wyatt to 8 sweet cousins.

Pumpkin Carving

Another fun NJE tradition is pumpkin carving.  Each year hundreds of pumpkins are donated and the kids at NJE carve them and then they are lit and put on display in our neighborhood along a brick wall near the pool.  We enjoy free hot chocolate, candy and socializing while we browse the line of pumpkin art.  It is pretty impressive what these kids can do with a pumpkin!  This year Reese teamed up with two friends and they did an owl (the school mascot).  It turned out great!

So Beautiful

Just had to post this picture of Soren dressed up for a casual dance at school.  Beautiful and sweet.  Love this girl!

My Cross Country District Champion!!

She did it!  Soren won first overall girl for 7th AND 8th grade at the district cross country meet!  Wow!!  Her 2 mile time was 12:24 on the Crowley course.  She helped the Joshua girls win 2nd place team at the meet.  Soren is becoming a regular part of the weekly Joshua paper, earning a spot in the sports section, with pictures, weekly!   It was a short season and Soren is excited for track in the spring.  She will do some swimming and running during off season to stay in shape for the upcoming track season.  Congratulations, Soren!!

Other Haps

A few activities here and there...

Homecoming!  

This year we were more involved with homecoming since Soren is in middle school.  The church youth group had a float in the parade and the girls were able to ride along and throw out bracelets and footballs with our church logo.  Who doesn't like to be in a parade?!

Cousin Day at the Water Park!

As you will see next, Pete installed a new floor for me!  Knowing that I would pick apart everything that was being done, I opted to take the kids to the water park for the day and just come home at the end of the day and be surprised.  It was a great day of play; these are the best kids EVER.



My new floor!

Because blogger won't cooperate, you get to see the finished product first.  Here it is.  I love it!

I came home from working in Denton to this.  Wow.  Ok, so now what?!  We have talked about this for 2 years but Pete decided this was the weekend and started ripping up carpet.  We drove to the floor store and it didn't take me 15 minutes to point out and pay for the floor I wanted.  The next day, Pete's friend (who knows what he is doing) came and gave the orders while Pete installed the new floor.  It is wonderful, I love it!



Cross Country!

Now that Soren has entered the world of middle school, new opportunities are available and as usual, she is taking advantage of them.  She chose to run cross country for athletics this season and it seems to have been a good choice for her!

There are not many girls on the team; volleyball season coincides with cross country and it is the top pick for most girls, so coach is having Soren run with the 8th graders to make a team of 5 allowing them qualify for team awards.  In the first meet we realized that Soren can hold her own with these older girls!  She took second place overall with a time of 10:46 for 1.5 miles and lead her team to a first place team win!  Keep in mind that we are still in August during  the hottest summer on record and these meets are at 4:00PM.  Ouch.

coming down the chute to win 2nd overall (notice how far back 3rd place is!!)

Soren came down with Strep throat and had to miss the 2nd meet of the season.  She was still recovering but decided to run in the 3rd meet and finished with an impressive 7th place among the 8th graders with a time of 14:00 for 2 miles.  I love this picture of her chasing down a teammate at the turn of the finish.  Racing is no place to be friends!

4th meet of the season and we are still reaching 100+ degrees.  At this meet the course is two 1 mile loops with a lovely hill in the middle.  This time they had all 7th and 8th graders race together, making a field of over 200 girls.  I was chatting with a friend near the finish line when the girls passed by on their 1st loop.  Soren was looking strong in 4th place!  I was so excited for her.  A few minutes later we looked across the field at the hill to see the lead runner come over and I recognized those long legs immediately.  She had pulled into first place and was gaining ground with each stride.  She looked so great; such pretty form, relaxed and flying!  By the time she reached the finish line she was way out of reach of the 2nd place girl.  1st overall!  Amazing!  2 hilly, hot miles in 12:47!

There are only two meets left and one of them is district.  It is a short season, but it has been fun to see Soren do so well and have so much fun.  Way to go, Soren!!

School!

Here they are.  First day of school pictures.  7th grade for Soren...Jr. High!  Crazy!  2nd grade for Reese.  Soren pointed out that they will never again be in the same school.  By the time Reese gets to Jr. High, Soren will be in high school and she will graduate before Reese is there.  Wow.

This is only SOME of the kids on our street that walked to school together for the first day of school.  LVC Rocks!!