Fall 2010

I have been chastised for my lack of posts lately. I have two excuses. #1 - We are in that time of year where what we are up to is school, homework, swim team, bed, school, homework, swim team, bed... so it doesn't make for the most exciting posts. And #2 - I have perhaps over committed myself and finding time to blog is a bit harder.

Now that I have made my excuses I will catch you up on this last month in the Underwood household.

Soren is swimming only 3 times a week for an hour as opposed to two hour workouts 5 days a week as her shoulder continues to heal from an over use injury. Nothing serious, just tendinitis, but it could get serious if you don't let it heal. She is loving being a part of the Lego League after school Monday through Thursday. She says that their robot and research projects are coming along nicely. We are excited to see them compete on December 4th because I really don't know much about what they are doing. Soren got her 2nd 6 weeks report card on Friday and is still hanging on to her all A record. She is also signed up to run a leg of the 5 person relay at the Whiterock Marathon on December 5th, so she has been doing some running to prepare for that. She is on a team with Pops, Nana, Uncle Mat and Pete. She will run a 4 to 5 mile section (can't remember which) and their team will compete with a team that Zach and I are on with some of Zach's fishing buddies. The losers have to buy lunch. It should be a good time. Soren is merely inches shorter than I am now and is strong and beautiful. It is such a joy to see her excel and thrive in all she does. It is humbling to think about how blessed I am to have a daughter like her. God loves me a lot!

Reese. Sweet Reese. She keeps us laughing and thinking. She also swims three times a week and enjoys playing with her friends on her days off. She is excelling in school as well and also is making all A's. She says the funniest things that I try to write down. After Halloween she was digging through the candy bowl and noticed that we had a few Smarties. She knows that these are her Aunt Jodi's favorite candy and asks me if she can mail them to her. I think it is a great idea and get her an envelope. She sits down to write a letter to include in the envelope and as she writes she asks me "mom, how do you spell 'buddy'" I ask, to clarify, "you mean buddy like friend?" Her reply: "No. I mean like no buddy likes these so you can have them." Gotta love the Texas influence!

Pete is also excelling in his EMBA program. This week he started his first accounting class. Now there won't be anything that I know that he doesn't! That was my area of knowledge! It will be interesting to me to see if he likes it at all. It just does not seem like something that fits his personality to me. Now that his foot has totally healed, Pete is back to running. He runs as much as possible between work and school. Some weeks that will allow a long 30 mile run and other weeks he can only squeeze in short distances, but he gets out there anytime the opportunity arises. He will be a part of the relay in the marathon, but I will not be surprised if he runs the whole thing while he is out there.

I am working, volunteering and training. Right now the training is about 12 hours a week and will increase up to about 20 hours in a few months as we near race month in May. I still love it and enjoy reaching new goals. This weekend I was blessed to get to sneak away to San Antonio with two girl friends for the San Antonio marathon. We had so much fun getting away and the bonus of a good training run to boot. I did the half marathon distance and ran a PR of 1:45! Good times.

We are looking forward to next week off of school for Thanksgiving break. No plans for the holiday, but I am sure something will come up!

That is all I can think of for now. Life is good and we are blessed!

Reese likes to play practical jokes. Here is one that she played on me last week. That is a whoopie cushion on the brake pedal of my car. She thought that was absolutely hysterical.

Grandma's House and Camping

We have enjoyed two more productive weeks including two fun filled weekends. A trip to see Grandma had the added bonus of running in the Reuel Little Classic which has become an annual tradition for us. Grandma and Reese did the one mile, Soren ran a 24:00 5k and I completed the half marathon. It was a perfect day for running and we were blessed with great runs, no injuries and beautiful weather. Thank you for sponsoring us, Grandma! After running we enjoyed lots of relaxing play time with Grandma and all of her cool toys.

like I said. Cool toys.

that is a block of ice cream with cake piled around it. It may not be pretty, but it was GOOD!


ready to run

Last weekend was the annual camping trip with the neighbors. Good food, good friends, good times. It is one blessed life I live!

Soren and Tristan. Both have a lovely rash of poison ivy from the trip :)

Reese and Trinity. No poison ivy.

hmmm. Why are all of the women doing the cooking??

sweet, sticky Alex

part of the small gang enjoying some good ole camp fire food

toasted marshmallows!

Good Stuff

Today the girls brought home their 1st 6 weeks report cards. All A's!

This was Reese's first official report card as Kindergarten is given letter grades rather than scores. She was excited about her report and will see her name on the honor roll wall.

Soren is having to work a little harder for those this year. The 6th grade teachers told us at the beginning of the year not to be surprised if our straight A students brought home their first B this year. It is a transition year to get the kids ready for junior high school next year by teaching them study skills and giving them greater responsibilities. Soren seems to be doing well so far, and, as always, is balancing her school work with swim team, running and choir.

Today with her report card there was a letter that said she was one of 8 kids chosen to participate in a new extracurricular program called First Lego League. The students will be working on a biomedical research project and robotic game designed to help our students work on projects in the biomedical and engineering fields. There will be a contest in December where our team will compete against others in the region and will be judged on teamwork, technical proficiency, project presentation and technical design. Wow. Sounds interesting. I thought it was neat that she was one of the few chosen to represent our school. She will have to work on this 3 days a week after school and go straight from there to swim team, so we will see how that works out.

In addition to this honor, she and Reese both earned "Student of the Month" (Soren for 6th grade and Reese for 1st grade) in PE! I asked Reese what you had to do to earn this and she said "Listen, pay attention, and win all of the races". Apparently they are faster than the boys in their grades (dad's genes kicking in!).

I am glad they brought home such good reports from school, because we skipped school yesterday with all of the cousins to visit the State Fair of Texas. It was a blast. Everyone should go to the fair; there is so much to see and do. We were there for 6 hours and needed a few more hours to see all we wanted to see. Enjoy these pictures and check out the video of Parker and his great driving skills that he obviously inherited from his mother :)

One last note. A Reese funny. The girls hang their wet swim suits in the garage each night after swim team. Tonight Reese was getting ready to leave for practice and needed her suit from the hook, so she opened the door from the laundry room to the garage and grabbed the suit without having to step out of the house. The problem was that she was completely naked and the garage door was open. Pete exclaims "Reese! Get inside!" Her response "Dad, I AM inside!" Don't you hate it when they are right?!

These are always my favorite animals at the fair. I want one.

the auto show! we can all dream, right?!

Big Tex

State Fair Cotton Candy. It just doesn't get any better.

Mother Goose

Little Hands on the Farm

We have too many kids now! We have a picture with the kids at this same board every year since Soren was 2 years old! Cool.

Soren Said

Today we were driving and somehow Chick-Fil-A was mentioned. We were headed away from the only one in our town and Soren comments "maybe there will be another Chick-Fil-A this way." I told her the name of the next town and reported that there was not a Chick-Fil-A in that town. Soren's response:

"they don't have a Chick-Fil-A in the whole town? That is SO sad! (pause as she reflects) I can't imagine not having a Chick-Fil-A!"

This was completely genuine and heart felt. It was totally hilarious. What makes it even funnier is that Pete just gave a presentation in his business ethics class on Saturday entitled "Fast Food Ethics and Children". It explored the advertising tactics that are used and how they are unethical to use on children. But why would they NOT use them? Obviously they work VERY well!

And one more....a little further down the road...

Jon Bon Jovi's song You Give Love a Bad Name begins playing and Soren is mid sentence when she stops and says "Oh! I LOVE this song, turn it up!"

Sweet. Rock on, Soren

Apple Pies and Skating

Reese had apple pie day at school (don't ask me, but it was fun!) Each kid got to make their own mini apple pie from scratch, crust and all! They did a great job and Pete said the pie was really good, I didn't try it :)





Wyatt celebrated his 11th birthday at the skating rink; now that brought back memories! The kids had such a great time. I do not see how there is not a broken bone every other minute at that place. The kids fall so hard and so often, I fail to understand why that is fun, but I do remember thinking it was a blast, once upon a time. Thanks Wyatt for a fun night!











We finally got to play in the rain last week. It wasn't too cold. There wasn't a tornado. There wasn't hail. Just rain. Fun, fun, rain.