Carson's 2nd Grade Performance

This year the second grade team organized for the kids to do a musical performance.  They made their costumes, learned multiple songs and dance moves for each.  Each class performed their own but they also performed together.  We enjoyed watching it and Carson had a great time on stage.  He did seem a little nervous up there, he was fun to watch and came home all smiles.  Here's a snippet. 

Carson and his best friend Kailey.  She lives in our neighborhood and they're constantly going back and forth between houses. 

Kayda's Volleyball Season

For the third year in a row I got to be Kayda's volleyball coach.  She LOVES this game.  We had four girls together for all three years, one of the others was on our team two years ago.  Kayda is the best on the team, followed closely by Kennedi who has been with her all three years.  Unfortunately, the way the games were working out she didn't get to do much overhand serving.  Though it is something she was developing; during practices she was making overhand serves from the back line... she was just a lot more consistent underhand and that's what we needed.

In practices we worked on setting up plays and hitting.  There were only a few girls that could handle it though so we didn't get to use it in the game much.  Kayda still managed to get a couple hits in on her last game; she was SO excited!  She has absolutely beautiful sets and even got complimented by one of the refs for them.  He made a point to tell me after the game that "You've got a setter on your hands."  Apparently his daughter sets for her high school team and he was very impressed with Kayda.  We had another frustrating season due to the rules and the other coaches' inability to follow them.  My girls knew what they were, never had to be reminded by the ref and did their best to make legal plays.  So when they're playing and losing, not because of any fault on their part, but because the other team is doing all kinds of things they shouldn't (and the ref isn't calling it) the kids ended up really discouraged.  Kayda did a great job helping them focus back in and always made positive comments.  She spent a lot of time in our "huddle" giving little motivational speeches, she was actually pretty good at it!   At this rate she won't need me to say anything during her games next year. 

Valerie, Arelly, Kennedi, Kayda, Elizabether, Ariana, Peyton.  (Kennedi, Ari and Peyton have been with us all three years).

We ended the season with 5 losses and 3 wins.  One of the games the ref had ended the game, said we won and then restarted the game because she hadn't made us win by two... the girls were confused and we ended up losing.  They were pretty good about it though.  We ended the season with a sleep over, it was only possible because we had seven girls instead of ten.  They stayed up late watching movies and had a fantastic time.  Kayda actually got a little teary when the last girl went home.  She had a wonderful time this season and wasn't ready for it to end.  

Dillon's Soccer Season

I decided this year that it was best to wait and post it all together.  So here are some pictures from the fall soccer season for Dillon.  Most of his team carried over from last year, it was fun for the kids to know each other already.  Daddy took over coaching this team this year and Coach Austin did the younger team.  Dillon got to spend a lot more time playing midfield this year.  He wanted out of the goalie box, which broke my heart a little bit.  The other goalie stepped up his game some but you could still see a definite skill difference between him and Dillon.  Goalie is just a natural position for his and he outshines most of the goalies we've seen.  He was able to make 4 goals this season.  One of which was the only goal of the entire game, for either team.  Many people commented about his natural leading ability.  He tends to set the tone for the rest of the team, helps everyone play better, he lead the team but helping everyone get into the right positions and generally guided play.  Goal box or not, this kiddo is a rock star.  In my personal, biased, opinion he was the most valuable player.  You put him anywhere on the field and he could do the job and do it WELL.  Soccer has become my absolute favorite sport to watch.  We actually had pretty good weather, only a couple rainy ones and a couple windy ones.  Generally it was decent out.  There were a LOT of really fun games to watch this year.  I love having my group of moms to sit and cheer with!  We've been together long enough that we'll often yell the same thing, at the same time.  As much fun as we have doing it, it doesn't do any good, Dillon said he doesn't even hear us! His team had 5 wins and 5 losses this year.  The were often played against the older age group.  They had 3 wins and 2 loss against the other under 11 teams.  2 wins and 3 losses against the under 12 teams.  They placed 6th out of 11 teams. 

 Coach Austin, Daddy, Coach Houser
Landon, Brandon, Jude, Zach, Carter, Dayton, Angel, Issac, Aiden
Dillon, Leelan, Logan, Timmy, Aiden, Anthony
He had one more on his team, Quincy, that didn't show up in time for pictures before the game.

 This kid has NO fear as goalie.  He'll dive on top of the ball no matter how close the offensive player is to it.  He makes me nervous a lot of the time but I LOVE it!

Carson soccer extras

I forgot we got videos of Carson playing this year so I'm making a separate post.  I talked to Daddy, apparently he kept track.  Carson made 33 goals this year in 8 games.

Lake Chelan

Our annual trip with Jen, Rene, Ryan and Ethan was to Lake Chelan this year.  We had a blast!  It was nice and hot so you were comfortable being in the water for a long time and we had lots of breaks back in camp.  The kids really liked playing pokemon go because there were several poke stops nearby.  They were able to do some "raid" battle and actual caught some of those pokemon. 

 We spent a lot of time down at the lake which was great.  The kids had a blast playing in the sand, in the water and jumping off the floating dock.  The dock is new to us, it wasn't there last time we were there.

 The kids had a really good time trying to catch the football off the dock.  What am I saying?  Daddy did too.

 Daddy and Rene got REALLY good at throwing the kids into the water.

 They found a piece of driftwood.  It didn't really float with them on there... but they found it entertaining.

 Kayda brought her camera.  We used it for pretty much all the water activities. I took some pictures from the beach but most are her camera.

 We rented this trampoline for an hour, just for our group.  It was so much fun!  Everyone was pretty tired by the time we were done with that hour.  There was the trampline, a slide, a walkway to an almost, not quite other trampoline and a log roller.  The log roller was a crowd pleaser!

 Left to right: DIllon, Kayda, Rene, Ryan, Carson, Ethan, Daddy.  I was out there too!  I was just taking most the pictures!

 Here are some videos of the kids trying the log roller.  Kayda made it almost to the end several times.  She was, by far, the best out of all of us.

We went and ate lunch at Blueberry Hill.  It has a pretty cool view.  The food wasn't great so we won't go there again.

The kids played cards... a lot.  They also played charades, catch, road bikes, Kayda worked on pitching... it was a good 6 days.

You won't see any pictures since we didn't bring any cameras but we also went to the slide waters park.  It was a great little water park.  Carson could go on almost all the rides.  There were only two he couldn't do.  Everything was set up that I was comfortable letting the kids go on their own (provided they stayed together).  The only one they weren't allowed in without us was the lazy river.  It was just deep enough and busy enough that it made me anxious if I didn't have the kids close. We took a little time where all the kids went to ride some of the rides while the adults went and did a few on our own.  It was a really good time.  Kayda and I's favorite attraction was the downhill racers.  It was set up like the big slides at the fair that you ride the mats down... but with a foam mat and water.  We would go up, the three adults and race.  I never won but I had a great time making myself get air off each of the bumps.  Carson  and Dillon really liked purple haze.  The slide is entirely enclosed so you have no light whatsoever.  It was fine for Carson because he could sit up.  Daddy and I both tried it and because we had to lay down all kinds of water shot up your nose and at times felt like you couldn't breathe.  Carson was pretty excited to try that one though.  Of course Dillon says he rode it laying down.  Maybe it's just us old folks that can't take it.

It was a great vacation.  Hectic to start because it was right after fourth of July so we didn't have our normal time to pack the trailer.  Then hectic after because we went straight home to scout camp.  It was a great trip anyway!

Dillon's Soccer and the Last Game

We got some pictures of some of the other games from his teammates so I'm putting those in.  Dillon is really disappointed that soccer is done.  There was talk of doing a weekend tournament but they couldn't get enough kids to even put the tournament on.  Then there was talk of indoor soccer but it looks like that won't happen either.  Hopefully we can work something out soon because he LOVES this sport.  

 Back, left to right: Coach Houser, Coach Austin
Middle, left to right: Braden, Jack, Landon, Dillon, Kayden, CJ, Lucas
Front, left to right: Aiden (Houser), Aidan (Long), Zack, Alex

His last game was pretty cold! As far as weather we really lucked out this season, only a couple windy and cold days and a couple rainy, one of which was just on and off rain.

 Carson stole Daddy's sweatshirt because he was cold.  Too cute not to take a picture.

The next day we had his banquet.  The coach pointed out that they had found "his position" as goalie and lamented the fact that it wasn't discovered sooner.  One of the other parents was expressing her frustration about NOT having him in goal because he does such a good job there.

Excuse the quality, it was taken with my phone but here is a quick clip of one of his blocks.