Halloween #1, #2 & #3

This year we had a couple of Harry Potter wizards for Halloween at our house.

J was Ron Weasley and T was Harry.

Their first Halloween party was at their school and they got to attend with their cousins, Princess Evie (aka Jonni) & Ash from "Sing" (aka Franki), who were in town.
I think the four of them had a great time trick-or-treating together at the school.

Their second Halloween party was attending the ward Trunk-or-Treat party which grandma gets bonus points for for braving a tri-ward party, knowing full well the kids would ultimately get lost in the dark....

And then, of course, there was Halloween...which was spent trick-or-treating with their good friends Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach (the Fish family)

Pumpkin Patch or bust for 2018!

I'm becoming more and more aware that my kids are growing up.  The most recent reminder of this was when it was time to get pumpkins in early October.  I asked all four kids who wanted to go to the pumpkin patch and I only got two takers....and the two takers didn't even want to go the the patch, they just wanted to go to the nursery down the road - quick and clean pumpkin purchasing!

So I guess we don't do pumpkin patches anymore (insert a single tear drop).

But then again, evidently we don't do pumpkin carving either because Rich and I left town a few days before Halloween and the nursery-bought pumpkins were still sitting, un-carved, on our front porch.
Grateful for grandma and grandpa being willing to make sure the pumpkins actually got carved before Halloween night.

(love the toothpick teeth in T's pumpkin)

{T} Soccer Saturdays

This kid is a soccer all star!
I love watching T play soccer...he truly gives it his all and doesn't stop until the final whistle.
I should have action shots of this kid, but he is moving too fast to be caught by any camera I own.

What a great team he had this season....full of good friends and good families and great coaches.
When the season ended, T received the "Spider-Man" award "for being everywhere on the field and for always striking hard".

Go Spidee!

{K} XC

This girl is a runner.....and if that fact was ever doubted, it become quite apparent when she spent an entire afternoon in Hawaii face-timing her XC teammates so that she could watch their Night Meet that she was missing.  She has made it very clear that she will not miss the Night Meet next year!

Once we got back to Oregon, she hit XC hard and she had a great season!  She had a huge PR right off the bat, which was a great payoff for all her training over the summer.  She earned her spot on the varsity team and was consistently their 2nd or 3rd to cross the line every race.  So proud of all her hard work!  They run long, they run fast and they run in the rain...XC is NOT for wimps!

In the end, their team won every meet they went to and both their girls team and their boys team took first place at Districts!  Way to go sis!

{T} Salmon Field Trip

Isn't the PNW a beautiful place to live?

When the Columbia River is in your backyard you get a pretty amazing field trip to see salmon up close and personal.  So grateful for the sunshine that made a great field trip with my 3rd grader even better!

{C} Freshman Soccer

C hasn't played soccer on a team since we moved to Wilsonville but he tried out for the high school soccer team and made the freshman team.  He played forward and keeper.  The commitment kept him busy and was a great way to stay conditioned in anticipation of basketball season although he didn't enjoy the game as much as he used to so I'm not sure that he will go out for the team again next year.  All in all, I'm glad that he had the opportunity and grateful for the great coach that he had.

Adventuring with Family....Pacific City

My brother's family had made arrangements to end their trip to Oregon by spending the weekend out at the Oregon Coast, at Pacific City, and we were able to join them for one night which was so much fun and a perfect ending to our fun week together.

We drove out on Saturday morning and the rain was coming down!!! It never did let up the rest of the day...in fact the wind was blowing and the rain was coming down so hard that we really felt like we were in quite the storm.  It made it all the more delightful to wrap up in blankets and hunker down with books and games and movies.

Luckily when we woke up on Sunday morning, the rain had stopped and we were able to spend the morning at the beach.  Pacific City has huge sand dunes and the kids hiked up and down multiples times....every time telling us that it would be their last.  They simply didn't tire of it and I can't blame them....the views were amazing.

Later in the afternoon we went out to the beach again and J, T and their cousins were chasing the waves.  In the case of J and T, the waves won!  They loved it!