First XC Meet 2015

On September 9, the XC season officially began with our first meet at home! Bethany was super nervous, since it was her first high school meet, but both she & Sarah did well and it was a beautiful day for spectators! It’s really not even possible to put into words how I feel when I get to watch my girls run. I literally cherish every gut-wrenching second…

I cherish it because all too soon the season will be over, and XC has been a big part of our lives for 6 years now, and even though it’s Sarah’s last year running for LC, hopefully XC will be part of our lives for more years to come. It’s gut-wrenching because they’re working so hard and no one knows how they will feel at the end of the race and I just want them to be happy at the end of the race…

The girls all getting ready to warm-up with Nikki, the assistant coach’s wife, who is basically the team’s extra coach, physical therapist, female counselor, and biggest fan.

I love how you can see the boys’ team lined up in the woods on the right side of the picture – they love to cheer each other on!

They’re such good daughters to recreate a favorite picture from two years ago for their mother. Their newest hashtag is #sistersbyforcefriendsbychoice. It’s enough to make a mother cry.

The First Day of School

September 1, 2015 – the first day of Sarah’s Senior year, Bethany’s Sophomore year, Becca’s 6th grade year, and Elise’s 4th grade year. The day before I have my own classroom of students for the first time in 17 years. This was momentous, people.

Sarah was holding a picture of her on her first day of Kindergarten. Real Senior pictures will come later…

I’m ready for school!

The day before school starts is always Meet the Teacher Day! By noon that day, my classroom was finally ready!

My toy cubbies showed up a couple nights before, so Ed & Sarah were elected to put it together. It only took 3 tries before it was all right-side up and not-inside-out.

Becca & Elise came and helped out, too. Bethany was babysitting or she would have also pitched in on family work night in my room!

The morning of the first day of school (Kindergarten starts on the second day) my rug showed up! Woo-hoo!

#LCXC2015 camp

This year’s XC camp had to be changed at the last minute due to wildfires in Eastern Washington near where they were supposed to camp and near the highway to get there…the highway was even closed!

Since both Sarah & Bethany are running XC this year and would be going with the team, the plan was for Ed to take the two little girls over to camp as well (usually lots of the families go along) and I was going to stay behind and work in my classroom and go to pre-first-day-of-school-teacher-meetings.

Plan B was for the team to camp locally in one of the team member’s 5 acre yard and for all of us to join the team each evening for dinner and for Ed to sleep in the tent with the little girls in the backyard.

Plan B probably worked out the best for me since I didn’t end up missing out on anything and I still got to work in my classroom and go to the teacher meetings. And the kids all understood that their camping experience being altered could not even compare to what the people in E. WA were suffering from in terms of the wildfires…3 firefighters were killed just the week before camp when the fires rapidly changed course and intensified and swept through their truck. Everyone had a good attitude and it was a great experience for the team & the parents alike!

Trying to get the team organized for a picture…

Happy Campers in the backyard!!

Summer 2015 List

Every summer we make a “bucket list.” Every summer there are jillions of things we didn’t do. This year, I was smarter. For the most part, I only wrote down things I knew we would do. Yes, that’s me. I also write things on my to-do list I have already done just so I can cross it off.

The only thing that didn’t get crossed off was “Friendly Fires” – and that was only because we had a burn ban most of the summer because it was so hot & dry. We did have one fire with neighbors before the burn ban started, but that was also before summer started…

Most of the stuff is self-explanatory… “Baby Boom Baking” was baking cookies, muffins, bread, etc. for the neighbors since 3 babies were born in our neighborhood in June. “Visit a Vantage Point” was our July 4th hike to Ebey’s Landing AND Mt. Constitution. Beach Combing was on Orcas Island, though I was hoping to get to Port Townsend as well for more beach combing. “Wet & Wild” was the trip to the Birch Bay Waterslides with Uncle Mikey & cousin Josh. “We be jammin’” was making raspberry jam…anything else you don’t get? Just comment…