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!