I am going to get around to editing good camera photos eventually…but in the meantime, to keep all my readership (3 people) happy, I gotta blog something. So iPhone photos it is!
South Whidbey Invite…5th place in our classification!
She & her “little brother” were #twinning again with 5th place finishes!
My girls at the Berthusen meet.
Love this one of Sarah cheering Bethany to the finish.
King’s Invite – 5th place again! Her “little brother” was 4th though…he just couldn’t run a teeny bit slower so they could be twinning…
The team placed second!!
A sweet mother/daughter shot at Red Robin after the King’s invite…the following week Bethany’s friend was hit by a car while crossing the road on their XC run…she wasn’t badly injured, thankfully, suffering only aches, pains, and a concussion, but it was very traumatic for the entire team and every time I see this picture now I am filled with gratitude that her life was spared and she is back to running!
Happy birthday to Katie D!!
Celebrity dress-up day at school…Bethany is Britt Nicole and Sarah is Andrew Garfield from the Amazing Spiderman. And yes, I had to ask, I have no idea who that is. But teenagers do, and that’s what counts.
Another favorite art project with my kinders…mixing paint!
At teacher’s convention I spent a lot of time with my former teaching partner from 20 years ago. Neither of us has aged at all and we still have a lot in common!
Sarah & Bethany spent a weekend in Portland at George Fox University for a XC meet. We couldn’t go (teacher’s convention), so Ed consoled me with taking us out for dinner to Coconut Kenny’s. We had never been there, but we WILL be back!
Becca & I got to help one of her music teachers paint some stained glass window for the 6th grade musical set – it was really fun!
Don’t look for too long at that ^^ picture. It has the tendency to induce ugly cries. It’s full! When my parents gave me those mats many years ago (we only had two kids then…I had to later buy two more…and the mats were in other white frames, so I had to buy matching frames) I really never imagined what it would be like when it was full. Let me tell you…it’s wonderful. And it’s unreal. And it’s sad. And it’s happy. And it’s the knowledge that nothing will ever be the same again. And it will be exciting. And it will be hard. And it’s all those emotions that overtake me at once that induce ugly cries at the strangest moments…
That same weekend of the Portland meet, we took a fall walk through Arroyo Park and on the Interurban trail in Bellingham that our runner loves to run on. Bethany was home by this time, but Sarah stayed over in Portland with a friend and took the train home. It was a perfect day for a fall walk and we missed Sarah, but it was reassuring to know we could and will still do stuff when she is gone…and it was the perfect way to press the pause button in the middle of a very busy semester.
We crossed the railroad tracks, noting that in about 5 hours, Sarah’s train would be coming into the station over those very tracks!
My fun GEMS bulletin board!
There are many, many, XC pictures to come. This weekend we head to state…and then I’ll do all the rest of XC all at once. 
We put food on a plate to see if the ants would come and put the plate just outside the playground fence near some dirt. When we came back after the first & second grade recess, ^^ THAT ^^ is what we found. Dirt dumped on the food. BUT…there were still ants!
